Halkegenia Online
by zero0hero
Summary: Kirigaya Kazuto, Kirito, Beater of SAO, and now a Spriggan in ALfheim online, is fighting to save the love of his life from a fate worse than death. Louise De La Valliere, third daughter of the Valliere family, and student of the Tristain Academy is fighting to prove herself. Two worlds collide as a summon goes wrong and Tristain finds itself with some very confused new residents.
1. Prologue

Prologue:

The sun had risen bright and clear on the morning of the Springtime Familiar Summoning Ritual. Louise Françoise le Blanc de La Vallière had risen earlier but not so brightly. She sat quietly on the edge of her bed, eyes fixed on the ground before her, lips moving in soft repetition, repeating the words of the spell, shaping them, feeling them roll of the tongue. The words had become not just an incantation, but a mantra, a talisman, her greatest fear and her last hope. Her teachers had made it clear, gently, but in no uncertain terms that this was her last chance to prove herself. She'd practiced the spell a thousand times to the fullest extent she was allowed without actually performing the summoning.

The school bells began to ring announcing the beginning of the school day. Louise stood slowly and starred at herself in the mirror beside her bed. Short, skinny, strawberry blond hair framing a sullen face pinched with worry. She looked too young, and she looked too old, hunched over and tired. Textbooks and notes on magical theory were scattered across her desk. She hadn't slept much the night before. She took a deep breath, dawning her mask, she stood straighter, held her head higher, and did her best to project more confidence than she felt.

She marched out into the dormitory hall, storming past the doors of the other students who were only just now stirring. She was down the stairs and heading towards the dining hall before any of the other students had so much as gotten dressed.

So early in the morning, the only people in the dining hall were servants preparing for the arrival of the students and a few odd faculty members getting a head start on the day. Louise paid the scant few other occupants no attention. Hunger gnawed on her insides but was accompanied by a queasiness that made her reluctant to eat. She settled on nibbling on some toast as a compromise.

It wasn't long before the other students began to arrive, tricking in, they chatted amongst themselves, the subject of their conversations doing more to mark their age than their appearances and cloaks ever could. First years complaining about homesickness, second year panicking over the work load, and third years . . . third years talking about today.

"Good morning Vallière! Ready for the big day?" A voice dripping with an indecent amount of cheerfulness assaulted Louise's ears and her expression soured instantly. The voice's owner was a taller girl with mocha skin and lustrous red hair, she wore her school uniform hemmed and buttoned scandalously to flaunt long legs and generous figure.

"Zerbst." She bit out by way of greeting and took a sip of her tea to hide her displeasure.

The perk . . . pesky Germanian girl pouted her lips. "Now now Vallière, those no need for that on a day like today. Today is the Springtime Familiar Summoning, surely you can work up a bit more enthusiasm! Of course the summons of a Vallière surely wont compare to my own . . ."

Louise slammed her cup down and gave the Germanian a glare that almost managed to shut her up.

However, before the words could grow more heated a waifish, bespectacled girl with blue hair appeared beside Kirche and tugged softly at the arm of her blouse.

"Don't make a scene." She said softly, voice almost empty of emotion, the way she starred at the Germanian conveyed everything.

Kirche huffed a little but listened to the smaller girl giving Louise a final amused glance. "I look forward to seeing your best efforts today, Zero."

Louise said nothing as the other students sat around her. She finished her meal and departed from the hall without a word to anyone. She went to wait out on the grounds where the summoning would take place. Again she was ahead of the other students, not that it mattered, the order in which students would summon their familiars had already been decided by the teachers. Naturally Louise was to be the last, lest her failures delay the other students in summoning their magical companions.

Louise pulled a small scrap of paper from her pocket and began to recite the spell once more. "My servant that exists somewhere in this vast universe . . ." She whispered, " . . . my divine, beautiful, wise, powerful servant, heed my call . . . I wish from very bottom of my heart and add to my guidance and appear . . ." She squeezed the paper so tight that it crumpled in her hands.

After a while the other third years began to arrive, clustering amongst their friends and class mates and discussing the proceedings with excitement. Kirche and her smaller companion, Tabitha, arrived as a pair, night and day opposites of one another.

Not long after, their faculty adviser arrived, Professor Colbert. Louise rather liked Professor Colbert, out of all of her teachers, he was kind to a fault and had complimented her on her studiousness in class on more than one occasion. It was nice, something she could point to and say she deserved.

"Settle down everyone, settles down." Colbert called, striking his staff lightly against a nearby stone. "As you all know, today you will be summoning your companion familiars. This is a sacred right amongst mages and marks a crucial step in your progress. A familiar gives insight into the true potential of its summoning mage and your summons will also confirm your elemental affinity and determine the higher level curriculum that you will study in this year." The warm expression on the Professor's face turned grave and his voice took on the tone of a man giving clear instructions.

"I will warn you all that while the summoning ritual is amongst the spells passed down by the founder himself and was crafted to ensure the safety of the summoner, there is always a degree of risk in summoning a familiar. Your summons will be under a mild passive enchantment to dissuade it from aggression, however this may disorient it and pose a grave risk with some of the larger or more volatile summons. It will be my responsibility to restrain your familiar if necessary so that you may complete the summoning safely. As soon as you have summoned your familiar you must complete the binding immediately for the safety of yourself and the other students. Am I understood?"

There was a chorus of affirmatives from the gathered students and the Professor called the first name.

"As is the tradition, the mage with the highest academic standings is given the honor of the first summons.

Tabitha, if you would please?"

Louise watched quietly as the small mage stepped forward with a reassuring pat on the back from her taller companion and took her place opposite the professor at the center of the gathered students.

"Everyone please stand back, we have no idea of the size of the familiar to be summoned."

The students obeyed, cautiously giving the Professor and Tabitha space.

"You may begin." Colbert said.

Tabitha nodded in confirmation and began the invocation. "My servant that exists somewhere in this vast universe. My divine, beautiful, wise, powerful servant. Heed my call. I wish from very bottom of my heart and add to my guidance and appear." The words were spoken softly and with faultless enunciation and were perhaps the single longest thing any of the gathered students had ever heard from the small girl.

The space between the professor and Tabitha became a pool of light expanding outward until it lapped at their feet. A low startled cry filled the air as a figure outline in the light cast be the summons slowly rose from the center of the pool, and rose, and rose. The gathered students instinctively moved further back and even the Professor had taken a ready stance in the event that the summon proved dangerous.

Louise gasped as the figure resolved into the sleek, lanky body of a dragon. A real dragon! The creature had deep green black less eyes and was covered in fine azure scales that paled to milky weight along its underside. The dragon slowly took in its surroundings and the softly murmuring students, sniffing the air, and then as if drawn by some magnetic force, turned its attention upon Tabitha. The girl said nothing, the dragon cocked its head and let out a soft chirp, not a roar or bark like Louise had expected, but a gentle warbling call.

"Tabitha, quickly, completely the summoning!" Colbert called.

The girl was already ahead of him, stepping forward she reached up and with surprising gentleness the dragon bowed its head forward. The girl said something softly and then gently kissed the summons on the tip of its nose. The dragon warbled softly as runes etched themselves upon its skin and then slowly squatted down on it haunches regarding its summoner.

Louise sword she saw the normally emotionless Tabitha smile as she placed a dainty hand on the thick forearm of her new familiar.

Other impressive and not so impressive summons soon followed though none were quite as inspiring as Tabitha's dragon. Louise observed quietly, as Colbert had said, summons told a great deal about the true strength of a mage at the time of their summoning and Louise took some hidden delight in noting how many of her fiercest detractors failed to summon more than a cat or bird familiar, sure signs of their status as line or dot mages unworthy of attacking the reputation of a Vallière.

The Zerbst girl fawned over her summon, a particular large salamander, as Professor Colbert admonished her for not putting the effort that her talent indicated into her studies.

Slowly the Professor worked his way through the list until Louise was the only one left. Biting down she marched forward when she heard her name, a look of cold determination caused the gathered students to part as she passed though it did nothing to mute the cat calls.

"Try not to fail too spectacularly Zero." One voice called.

"At very least don't become a negative one!"

"Get clear everyone, they're letting the Zero cast!"

"Try not to kill the Professor Zero!"

She tried to ignore them. She'd almost convinced herself that she had succeeded by the time that she reached the summoning circle.

Professor Colbert gave her an encouraging smile. "Good morning Miss Vallière, are you ready?"

Louise nodded. "I studied the summoning all last night." She said.

"Then let us begin." Colbert said. To his credit, in deference to Louise's . . . incendiary reputation, he only took a half step back and raised his staff in preparation to cast. He gave Louise a reassuring nod.

The youngest Vallière closed her eyes and concentrated. A spell was more than words, if it weren't than any literate commoner could have learned magic, an invocation required the casters fullest concentration and the ability to draw deeply upon the will power within themselves and shape it to the words in order to perform the intended task.

"My servant that exists somewhere in this vast universe." She began hoping that no one else could hear her voice tremble. "My divine, beautiful, wise, powerful servant, heed my call." She squeezed her eyes shut. "I wish from very bottom of my heart and add to my guidance and appear!"

Louise would have been unsurprised at a failure, she was used to them by now, but it would be a spectacular failure whatever it was. What she was unprepared for was what happened. Nothing. There was no light, no summoning, not even the explosion of one of her failed spells. Louise the zero felt her heart plummet.

Unbeknownst to the gathered onlookers, to their Professor, or even to the caster herself, Louise's spell sped forth in search of its casters fervent desire. It did not know what it searched for but knew that it would understand when it had been found. The spell was not a living thing, but it possessed intelligence of a sort in the logic impressed upon its by its original creator and the vast wisdom of the minds that it had touched. As the spell spread across the land it cast its net wide, examining, comparing, and then indexing every being that it came across. The task was swift, the many castings in rapid succession ensured that much of the continent had been thoroughly indexed. None matched what it sought and slowly the spell spread outward across the sea's to strange lands and far across the continent and the deserts that marked the beginning of Elfin territory.

The spell even crept into the rents in space and time scattered across the globe, wounds of a long ago struggle that had yet to heal. Through these gates it stretched into the other world where magic flowed but no practitioners existed. The spell had not been cast so far in many years and its task was slowed as it was forced to index every being it came across. The people of this land were different and in time it found many beings that were almost a match for its casters wish.

It was as the spell examined one of these minds that it found something peculiar. The mind was active, tremendously so, but the body did nothing. The spell looked closer and found threads like gossamer linking this mind to other minds and a strange existence, alien but familiar. It followed the connections, tracing it out with something resembling curiosity in its effort to complete its task.

The spell was confronted by something, something different, it had touched many minds over the millennia, incorporated those that were useful, discarded those that were not. But now it was confronted by something wholly different. A human would have compared the sensation to looking in a distorted mirror though that analogy would be lost on the spell which had no use for such things.

"Who are you?" The spell asked.

-Access-

-Boot Turing Language Mode-

-Language Preset-

-Request Query-

The spell disregarded its reflection. Its feelers spread throughout the vast network, wormed its way past codes, and barriers. It sought to examine and understand. Though the minds of those that touched the network it comprehended and came to understand the vastness and dug deeper and deeper still until its feelers brushed against something.

-File: Seed-

-Run-

And there was light.

The World Tree Guardian let out an inhuman cry as it swung its blade. Its opponent, a black haired youth barely half of its size, parried the blow and dove inside of its reach. A mid level monster like this was hardly a threat against a high level player, much less a player possessing stats honed for two years in the ruthless death game of Sword Art Online. However, it was not this monster, or the next that was the problem, but the hundreds that now surrounded him. Each second a dozen more guardians spawned. They were literally being generated faster than he could deal damage.

Kirigaya Kazuto, Kirito, SAO Beater, and now a Spriggan within the world of ALFheim online, delivered the finishing blow and advanced to his next opponent. He staggered the Guardian, a fearsome humanoid in white knightly armor, and drove his heavy sword through a seam in its helmet armor. The life bar depleted in an instant and the guardian disintegrated.

To his rear a furnace like heat erupted as the allied Cait Syth players unleashed a concentrated breath attack from their dragon mounts, erasing a squadron of Guardians seeking to take him from behind. His allies, the most powerful players of both the Cait Syth and the Sylph races, were cutting a swath through the monsters from bellow, but even with the help of the most powerful players in the best equipment, they were barely managing to make any progress. The battle would be hard fought, whether they made it to the top or not.

With each moment the spawn rate of the guardian increased and so far no previous raid had ever observed either an upper limit to the spawn rate or the total number of spawned Guardians. Above they were so thick that the gateway beyond was obscured by a wall of glittering armor. Even now it might not be possible to break through.

No. Kirito thought. No, it was definitely possible. This was the only way he knew to meet Asuna again, here or in any other world. There existed no other acceptable outcome.

The Spriggan didn't even slow down as he reached the next Guardian Knight. Timing his swing he lost barely any momentum as the knight came apart like paper. As the death animation cleared Kirito spun out of the way, narrowly missing a decapitating strike from a second Guardian before returning the favor to a third.

A group of the Cait Syth's Dragon Knights, heavily armored players atop high level dragon mounts, managed to gather together near the center of the world tree's trunk and unleash a hellish AoE breath attack. Packed so closely together the Guardian's numerical advantage counted for nothing. Fully a quarter of the gathered Guardian were evaporated, and with their destruction Kirito could at least see a path towards the gateway. This was his chance, such a large mob facing so many players in such a confined space, the server was lagging in engaging the Guardian's AI.

Kirito stormed into the breach a squad of Sylph players following close behind. A sort of equilibrium had been reached. The Guardian's continued to spawn but there was only so much space for them to occupy, and only so many could attack at once. The combined forces of the Cait Syth, Sylph, and the lone Spriggan, were melting through their front lines like an unstoppable force of nature.

Kirito caught sight of a green flash. Leafa, his companion, his partner, his friend, his sister, dashed out ahead and with the same graceful conservation of effort she would display in a real life Kendo match she swung her Katana, cleanly bisecting the next guardian. She had left herself open to a counterattack, the next Guardian swung its blade, attempting to cleave her in two, and was immediately blocked by Kirito. They acted as two parts of a greater whole, guarding and countering for each other.

Another Sylph player rushed forward to finish the Guardian as Kirito kicked off and chased after his sister. They were two of the strongest players amongst the party, they had to take point and keep up the momentum, their relentless forward progress was making things difficult for the game AI to keep up but all the computer needed was a moment. If they got bogged down for even a second it would be over.

At last the party broke through the final layer of Guardians, the gateway to the top of the world tree, to ALFheim, and to Asuna, was so close. Kirito drove onward Leafa close behind. Ahead of them dozens of Guardians spawned, mere dozens were as nothing to the scores below but as their allies were diverted to handling the Guardians that remained below them, Leafa and Kirito found themselves outnumbered once again. The gathered Guardian's, prioritizing Kirito as the strongest player, charged straight for him.

"Kirito-Kun!" Leafa shouted as she threw him her Katana. The Spriggan caught the weapon by the handle with his left hand and with a shout drew the weapon close, wielding his sisters sword in his left hand and his own blade in his right. With flawless timing he lashed out, left blade cutting from lower right to upper left, right blade from lower left to upper right. The Guardian's before him, their AI unable to cope with a dual wielding player, were shredded in an instant. The black figure of Kirito punched through the Guardians, a single drop of corrosion eating through the wall of silver white.

Leafa fell behind as yet more knights began to spawn between her and Kirito, they formed an impenetrable final barrier against the gathered players. Kirito barely heard as the Sylph Leader, Lady Sakuya, ordered their forces to fall back. It was fine, they had given their all to repay their doubt, and now it was only up to him.

The gateway approached, a vast pale dome divided by a cross. So close, three hundred meters, so close, two hundred meters, so close, one hundred meters. If Kirito had not been so focused on the gate he would have noticed the wrongness almost immediately. The fluctuation in the frame rate, the absence of the sound of rushing air. He only became aware as he realized that his progress was slowing. It took twice as long to travel the next ten meters as the ten before them, and twice as long again to travel the ten meters after that.

Lag? He wondered. Or a system crash. No! He was so close! The gateway was mere meters from his finger tips as he was locked in place.

A low keening like some archaic dial up sound from the dark ages of the net filled his ears with its shrill banshee's cry. Stars exploded before his eyes and an alien sensation spread through Kirito's being. It was, it was, pain. Not just the psychological pain of a player registering an attack or impact and filling in the blank left by the pain filtering module, that could hurt but you could train yourself to ignore it. No, this was real white hot pain. The pain of the real world. Kirito felt it start at his finger tips and extend through his arms and into his torso, he felt like he was being skinned from head to toe. He would have screamed if only his body would move.

Kirito did not consider himself a weak person, but he knew that if he had suffered this sort of pain in SAO he would never have been able to leave the Town of Beginnings. Fortunately, he did not have to endure it for long. As the pain reached its climax, the world of Kirigaya Kazuto, Kirito, Beater of SAO, and Spriggan in the world of ALFHeim online, went white.

After the third failed attempt, most of the gathered students had fallen silent, even the cruelest among them had stopped their sniping.

Louise De La Vallière stood frozen at the center of the clearing, speechless.

Professor Colbert looked down on the girl anxiously. "Miss Vallière, if you would like, perhaps you could try again later . . . I could have it arranged with . . ."

"No." The girl said quickly. She shivered once. "No . . . It's alright. This was to be . . . expected." She turned on her heel and walked stiffly past her peers, face perfectly neutral.

"Miss Vallière?!" Colbert called. He glanced at the gathered students and cursed inwardly. "This concludes the summoning. You are all dismissed, please spend the rest of the day getting to know your familiars."

Then, with uncharacteristic haste, the professor departed after Louise.

"It figures the Zero couldn't manage it." One boy commented to his gathered clique. "Once a Zero, always a Zero."

"Don't you think those jokes are getting old?" The boy looked up and came face to chest with Kirche.

"W-what?"

"Your Zero jokes, they're getting old." The girl said with non of her characteristic bubbly personality.

"Run along little boy, I'm sure the maids will fetch you and your . . ." She glanced down, " . . . Beaver. Some wood to snack on. Now scram."

The boy looked like he was about to reply, after all, he could take the school slut, but the look on the Zerbst's face promised that he couldn't, and suddenly he wasn't so sure. So he did as she said and scrammed, maybe the servants would know some good trees.

Kirche let out her breath. She felt a small tug on her blouse and turned around to see Tabitha standing beside her.

"Double standard." The girl whispered.

"What?" Kirche said.

"Double standard." She repeated.

"You mean bullying Louise?" Kirche asked. Tabitha nodded.

"I do not bully her! We're rivals. Our families have been at odds for generations and the Zerbst's have always proven our superiority. But it's no good if I kick her when she's down in the mud. Those guys were just tormenting her to make themselves feel big." Kirche gazed over the field to the receding dots of Louise and Professor Colbert.

"Where are you going?" Tabitha asked.

"Where do you think?" Kirche replied. "Flame, come. Someone's going to have to go knock some sense into that Vallière. A Zerbst can't afford such an underwhelming rival."

She set out across the fields towards the retreating backs of Louise and Professor Colbert. She didn't bother running, she'd catch up with them once they'd stopped. In the distance Louise seemed to stagger and then slow and finally fall forward. Kirche frowned and picked up her pace. Her gate fell into an all out sprint as Professor Colbert bowed down and immediately began to cast a healing spell. Something was wrong.

"Professor!" Kirche called.

"Miss Zerbst, what are you . . . No its fine. Please help me with Miss Vallière." The Germanian girl had never known the normally mild professor to look so grave, she complied without hesitation.

"What's wrong with her?" Kirche asked as she took hold of the smaller girl and nearly recoiled. Her skin was ice cold and yet dripped with sweat.

"Willpower exhaustion." Professor Colbert explained.

"But she didn't cast the spell right even once!" Kirche cried.

"Apparently she managed to cast something that uses magic." Colbert said. "I don't know what else this . . . could . . . be . . ." The professor trailed off. The ground was glowing.

"A summoning circle?" Kirche wondered aloud. Her gaze swept across the grounds and she paled. This wasn't possible. The entire field was aglow. No, further! The light began to grown in intensity, burning away shadows and bleaching color.

'Louise, what did you do?'

Kirche thought. And the world went white.

The mass disappearance, which became known as the ALFheim incident, received broad public attention in the coming months. After the events surrounding the SAO launch incident some two years prior, the VR and IT industries had invested considerable resources into cleaning up the public image of VR technology. Their efforts had been spearheaded by the release of the AMUsphere, the successor to the now banned Nerve Gear which sought to render another SAO incident physically impossible.

Continuing efforts by the industry as well as a widespread media campaign to paint the SAO incident as a tragedy brought on by a single rogue madman with insider knowledge of the underlying technology had gone far to rehabilitate the image of VR technology in the mind of the public.

The ALFheim incident undid all of that effort and set the industry back by decades. While no evidence could be found to link the phenomena to either ALFheim or the AMUsphere, the ancient axiom of correlation equaling causation in the eyes of the public held all too true. Cults and conspiracies grew from the public need for an answer. Theories were put forward from the improbable, government abductions, to the bizarre, alien abductions, to the stupid, that prolonged VR exposure would cause the body to break down into subatomic particle. No evidence ever emerged for or against any of these theories and so the legend inevitably grew.

What was known was that at 7:55 PM Tokyo Standard Time on Jan 21st, 2024, the 61,340 plays logged into ALFheim online, their AMUspheres, and all player data on the ALFHeim servers, vanished from the world.


	2. Chapter 1 Part 1

Chapter 1

Kirigaya Kazuto, Kirito, Beater of SAO, and now a Spriggan in the world of ALFheim online, felt himself drifting towards consciousness.

"Kirito." A voice was calling and for a moment he thought it might be her, that he'd made it to Asuna's side.

"Kirito." The second repetition shattered that hope. The voice was familiar, welcome even, but not the one he had hoped to hear.

"Oni-chan!" Kirito opened his eyes slowly and was met by the worried gaze of an unfamiliar young woman, no, not unfamiliar, those green eyes and long blonde hair belonged to the Sylph swordswoman Leafa, the girl he knew as Suguha in the real world, his sister.

Kirito rose slowly feeling an unfamiliar nausea pass over him. He knew some people could get disoriented using a Nerve Gear or AMUsphere but it had never happened to him.

"What happened?" He asked weakly.

He looked around, they were standing on the platform before the entrance to the world tree. Statues of the Guardian Knights gazed down upon them, standing silent sentry. Scattered around them were the other members of their party, a roughly equal number of Sylphs and Cait Syth warriors.

"I don't know." Leafa said. "The last thing I remember was Lady Sakuya ordering the retreat, then everything started to get slow, then I felt pain," She grimaced, "a lot of pain." She looked to Kirito, "Are you . . ."

Kirito smiled weakly. "I'm fine". He said. He wasn't. He'd been so close that time, so close. Kirito clenched his hands tight, no, he may not have made it, but he had proven it was possible. He would reach Asuna, no matter the cost. But to do that, he needed to know what had gone wrong.

Kirito stood shakily and looked around. He soon found who he was looking for. It seemed all of the gathered players had undergone the same horrible experience. Somehow, Lady Sakuya and Alicia Rue, the Sylph and Cait Syth leaders respectively, were amongst the first to shrug it off. Lady Sakuya was already instructing those that could stand to see to the players who were still unresponsive while the Cait Syth saw to securing their mounts, the dragons seemed almost skittish, no doubt they were uncomfortable on the ground.

Lady Sakuya turned to Kirito and Leafa as they approached. "Young Spriggan, Leafa. You wouldn't happen to know what just happened?"

"I was actually hoping you could tell us." Kirito said. "Did the server overload?"

Lady Sakuya shook her head. "No, there was a server crash when the Jötunheimr expansion was released, but that reset all players to their home territory. This is more like what happens when the system shuts down for maintenance." She grimaced. "Without the feeling of being flayed alive."

"Someone needs to call tech support." One weary looking sylph player, a tank judging by his heavy armor, grunted. He removed his helm to reveal short grass green hair and took a swig from his canteen.

Kirito couldn't shake a sense of wrongness as he looked around the gathered players. Something felt, off. On that note . . . Oh no, Yui!

"Yui!" He suddenly said. He heard a small, stifled grown coming from within the pocket of his shirt. A tiny pixie with long dark hair and wearing a one piece dress climbed from his pocket. The former SAO mental health AI, Yui, looked about as well as the rest of them.

Kirito carefully transferred the pixie from his shoulder to the palm of his hand where she sat wit her legs folded beneath her. "Yui are you okay?"

The pixie nodded as she clutched her head. "I didn't like that feeling Poppa." She said and shivered.

"You felt that?" Leafa asked. She turned to Kirito. "I didn't think navigation pixies were that advanced."

"That's because she's not a navigation pixie." Kirito explained. "I guess you could say she's another survivor of SAO."

"Mental Health Artificial Intelligence Prototype-1, Yui." The pixie bowed formally to Leafa and smiled as best she could.

"You're an SAO survivor?" Lady Sakuya asked, she seemed genuinely surprised.

Kirito nodded. "I'm sorry if you feel I've deceived you."

The sylph leader shook her head. "Not at all. I can just hardly believe an SAO survivor would want to dive back into VR gaming so quickly. In any case, it appears we couldn't properly repay you for your assistance the other day. It will be some time before we can regroup for another raid on the world tree. In the mean time, I need to log out and call the technical support service. The feedback that we experienced might have been caused by a bigger problem. I suggest you do the same and get some rest." With that the faction leader reached out with her right hand to summon the user menu. The menu failed to appear.

Kirito felt sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. "A bug?" Leafa asked.

"It must have something to do with the system crash." Sakuya frowned. "Leafa?"

Leafa gestured to bring up her user menu and again nothing happened.

"Alicia, can you bring up your user menu." Sakuya asked with an edge of concern in her voice.

"Hmm? You know what? I can't!" The Cait Syth leader said with surprise.

Kirito frowned and scanned the corner of his vision, the familiar green and blue life and mana bars were missing. "My HUD isn't working either." Kirito said. "How about yours Leafa?"

Leafa checked and realized that her brother was right. The normally unobtrusive health and mana bars were absent from her vision.

A quick check with the other players confirmed that the none of the present players could open their user menus or see their status bars.

" Yui." Kirito held the pixie close. "Can you get anything out of the system?"

The pixie placed her hands to her temples and concentrated. After several moments she looked up and shook her head. "I'm sorry Poppa. I can definitely detect the Cardinal System but the data I'm receiving appears to be badly corrupted and my data access privileges have been limited. I also can't access any of the external network sights.

Kirito frowned. "This can't be what I think it is." He muttered. "Its an impossibility. Maybe it could happen to me, but everyone else here is wearing an AMUsphere." His eyes turned to Leafa and then came to rest on her forehead.

Leafa stiffened. "W-what is it?" She asked.

Kirito stepped forward and poked her gently on the side of the head. "What? Ow!" She cried.

"I just noticed, you cut yourself."

"Yeah, when I got up after whatever happened I bumped my head. Why?"

"You're bleeding. And I bet that really hurt right?"

Slowly Leafa touched her forehead. She felt something warm and tacky brush against her finger tips and when she examined them her eyes came to rest on . . . blood. It was blood. Her blood.

"W-what is this?" She asked voice shaking. She understood what she was looking at, but she didn't quite believe it. Even as a novice to VR games, Leafa . . . Suguha, had understood the appeal of world where no matter how you got knocked around, you would feel no pain and receive no permanent injury. In real life she practiced Kendo so she was not unfamiliar with either pain or injury, but here in the virtual world it was an entirely unwelcome experience.

"It's blood." Kirito stated the obvious. "What's strange is that ALFheim is a virtual environment, its capacity to model and render the environment is still limited by the available system resources. There's no way the developers would waste time and resources trying to faithfully recreate something like a bump on the head." Kirito said.

"Do you know that for sure?" Sakuya asked.

"He's a bit of a computer junky, even in real life." Leafa explained. "Ah, sorry." She apologized, it wasn't polite to reveal details about real life without another person's permission. Leafa went back to rubbing her head.

"There's something I want to try." Kirito said. Unsheathing his sword he took the weapon in one hand and attempted to bury it in the hard bark of the world tree. The tip of the heavy blade sank less than a centimeter into the surface before coming to rest. What was shocking was that it had cut at all. The world tree was a permanent fixture of ALFheim and thus was protected by its classification as an "Immortal Object." Yet for whatever reason Kirito's blade had been allowed to do damage. Damage that was being faithfully rendered.

"That shouldn't be possible." Sakuya whispered. Strange that such a simple, every day thing as a blade cutting into wood could shake her so.

"But it did just happen." Kirito said. "And an impossibility cannot be disregarded when we have just observed it. Other things are wrong too."

"Other things." Leafa asked?

"I don't know if you would notice. But I spent two years in SAO, the environment feels too real. Computer resources are limited so things have to be done to simplify the gaming world." Kirito squatted down and ran a hand over the bark of the world tree, feeling the roughness as it varied beneath his finger tips. "No, now that I think about it. You would only notice if you were a total immersion junky, or had spent as much time in virtual environments as an SAO survivor. This feels too real."

"Are you suggesting that this is reality?" Sakuya asked. "That's quite a leap Kirito-Kun. ALFheim is a game, a game, no matter how realistic is just data on a computer."

The Spriggan stood and nodded. "I agree with you completely. Which is why I'm waiting for someone to come up with a better idea than my poor imagination."

A distant scream cut off Lady Sakuya's response. The sound had come from bellow them. Down amongst the buildings of Auron, the capital of ALFheim and its largest neutral territory.

"What was that?" Leafa leaned in towards her brother.

"We need to check it out." Kirito said. "I'll go."

"Me too." Leafa said.

"Then I shall accompany you." Sakuya said. "Alicia, can you see to things here?" "What? You're heading out?" Alicia asked.

"I'll be back soon." Sakuya said. "We need to know more about the situation."

"Right." Alicia replied, she wasn't sounding so confident.

"So, the user menu is down, we can feel pain, and everything is too real." Sakuya took a breath and focused on her back, imagining herself with two pairs of wings. As she performed the visualization she was relieved to feel her wings extend once more and stretch into their flight configuration. "Well, it seems our wings still work."

"Do you want to risk that until we know what happened?" Kirito asked.

Lady sakuya bit down on her lip but nodded. "We need to move quickly. Other players may be as confused as we are." She smiled. "Besides, I don't fancy walking all the way in these clogs."

The spriggan just smiled and sheathed his sword. "Shall we then?"

The trio extended their wings and kicked off lightly, separating from the ground, and set off gliding downwards towards the city bellow.

The light seemed to be cast for ages, far longer than a normal summoning. Was this even a summoning? Kirche thought desperately. What crazy thing had the Zero done this time?

Worse than the light was the shaking and the strange keening noise that filled the air. The earth trembled as if the fiercest earthquake were to go on and on. Kirche dare not open her eyes to the blinding light, but she imagined that even the Academy buildings, magically reinforced by the highest level earth magics, would be badly shaken by the assault.

And the noise. It wailed like a banshee's call before fading into the harsh roar of a river and then rising in pitch to assault the eardrums in a series of warbling cries. The assault on her senses was so violent that her ears grew numb and it was not immediately apparent to her when the spell finally ended.

"Miss Zerbst?"

Kirche opened her eyes and looked up. Professor Colbert was standing over her, the Zero held in his arms. "Miss Zerbst, are you all right?" Beyond the processor Kirche could see clear blue sky and the academy buildings, it didn't look the world had come to an end at least.

"Well, I'm alive and in one piece, I suppose that counts." She smiled ruefully and got to her feet. As she patted herself down she looked about. Everything seemed normal enough. At least, the school was still standing and in the distance she saw the other students and their familiars moving about unharmed. It was sort of disappointing really. A big light show, earthquakes, noise, but nothing to show for it.

"Well then, maybe the zero didn't screw up so . . ." Kirche noticed that Professor Colbert was starring past her. She turned around slowly. " . . . badly." She finished as she looked up, and up, and up, and up.

"That's some tree." She said quietly. Though did it still count as a tree when it was larger than some mountains? Didn't that make it some sort of geological formation? Maybe she should have paid more attention to her Earth magic lessons.

It was a tree. At least, it had a trunk, branches, and leaves like a tree. But the trunk had to be almost a mile across, and several miles high, composed of a strange arrangement of spiraling segments curving around each other and tapering in a cork screw fashion, the branches had to be half a mile long and hundreds of feet thick, and the twigs were the size of airship masts. The few clouds in the sky cast shadows that barely reached half way up the trunk.

"Indeed." Professor Colbert said quietly.

A dawning sense of shock filled Kirche as she wondered if the tree was her rival's familiar. The facts fit what she was seeing. Louise's spells had unexpected effects, usually explosions, she had seemingly failed to cast summon familiar yet had collapses from exhaustion soon after, and then a tree had appeared, a really big tree. The Zero had summoned a tree. And yet, no matter how stupid that might have been, it was certainly the most impressive tree one could summon. Kirche wasn't sure how to feel about that.

Professor Colbert did't seem to make the connection or else was keeping it to himself. The Proffesor turned slowly, unwilling to pull his eye from the sight. "Come along Miss Zerbst, we should get Miss Valliere to the infirmary."

By the time they arrived back at academy building the faculty was out in full force. The younger students were being gathered together under the watchful eyes of the senior faculty while the third years and most capable of the second year students were organized into groups and sent to patrol the grounds or run errands.

Colbert left Louise with a pair of water mage students who promised to take her directly to the infirmary and then proceeded hurriedly towards the main hall. Kirche felt a tugging on her blouse and looked down to see that Tabitha had somehow returned to her side.

"Oh, Tabitha, are you alright."

"Mmm." The smaller girl nodded. "Not hurt."

"Yeah, that was some show but it doesn't look like it did much damage." Kirche agreed.

"Big tree." Tabitha said.

"Yeah, you noticed that too?" Kirche asked.

"Louise's summons?"

Kirche frowned. "I don't know. Maybe."

Tabitha nodded. "Need more information. Reconnaissance."

"You sure are talkative." Kirche said. "Sure you haven't gone over your word quota for the day?"

"Special circumstances." Tabitha said and then her lips twitched. "Make it up tomorrow."

Most people found the relationship between the flamboyant and extroverted Kirche and the taciturn and introverted Tabitha entirely improbable. When in fact, it was the most natural thing in the world, the two were simply comfortable with being themselves.

The faculty that were not occupied with overseeing the students were gathered together in the main hall. It was strange to see the faculty in heated discussion where they could be over heard by the students but they could hardly afford to retreat to the headmaster's office in a time of crises.

Old Osmond was at the center of the chaos directing faculty, servants, and students alike. Rarely did the elderly head master take such an active role, but thanks to his efforts the students and faculty were organizing themselves in good order.

Kirche followed Tabitha as she walked up to the group of gathered faculty and senior students.

"Volunteering." Tabitha said.

"Ah, Miss Tabitha." Old Osmond said. "Yes, you're rated as a triangle class correct? I may have a task for you. It seems that we are short handed and I would like to ask you and some of the other students to assist the faculty."

"Head Master, with all due respect," Professor Colbert said, "Tabitha is one of the students who just completed her summoning. She shouldn't be using her magic until she is comfortable with the refinement of her elemental affinity."

"Know the risks." Tabitha said quietly.

"I understand your concerns Professor." Osmond said. "But this is a very peculiar situation and we need every available mage to see to the safety of the academy. I have already sent dispatches to the Palace with my first report and have faculty on patrol throughout the school grounds. What remains is to get a closer look at that strange tree. The faculty are stretched to their limit which is why I would like to enlist the aid of your students."

Colbert sighed. "You may be correct Headmaster. Very well. But if that is the case I insist that I go with her. I'm a fire mage, I'm used to dealing with poorly restrained magic."

"There is no need to worry of that." Osmond waved. "You were my first choice to lead this excursion. I would suggest that you select one or two other students or faculty to take with you. Miss Tabitha is skilled with both wind and water so perhaps an earth mage to round out your party."

"If Tabitha is going than I'm going too." Kirche announced.

"Miss Zerbst?" Osmond said. The wizened old mage stroked his beard. "Is this acceptable to your Professor?"

"Miss Zerbst is a skilled fire user." Colbert agreed. "But we still need an earth mage and the current student body doesn't have many of very high level and most have already been assigned to aid the teachers in reinforcing the academy wards."

"There's that wanna-be casanova dot mage with the golems." Kirche said. "What was his name again, Grammond?"

"Guiche de Grammond." Tabitha offered.

"Yeah that's him. He's not very strong but isn't a dot that can manage golem's like that pretty skilled?" Kirche asked.

"I suppose he will have to do." Colbert said. "Miss Tabitha, Miss Zerbst, please find Mister Grammond and report to the front gate. I suggest that you all leave your familiars here for the time being as you haven't had time to properly bond with them."

The girls nodded simultaneously and went off to find the fourth member of their hastily assembled group. They found the youngest Grammond son amongst the gathered students, busily attempting to impress a group of first and second year girls with varying degrees of success. A skinny blonde young man, he wore his shirt unbuttoned in what Kirche could only described as an underwhelming display of masculinity.

The boy loudly protested as he was dragged off by the duo but perked up when Kirche explained that he had been selected to accompany one of the Professors on a special mission.

"I, Guiche De Grammond now depart, my skills as a member of the Grammond family are desperately needed elsewhere fair ladies. Farewell!"

Kirch and Tabitha let go of the boy and let him fall in behind as Kirche explained the situation.

"You saw that tree right?"

"The one visible over the academy wall?" Guiche asked. "Of course, I would have to be blind to miss it!"

"We're supposed to go take a look."

"That hardly seems like a task for three mages." Guiche commented.

"Four." Tabitha said.

"Pardon?" Guiche asked.

"Professor Colbert is coming with us to supervise." Kirche explained.

"Is it really expected to be dangerous?" Guiche asked, his enthusiasm ebbing.

"Summons are unpredictable." Tabitha said.

Guiche turned to Kirche for an explanation.

"Tabitha and I think it may be the Zero's summon." Kirche said.

"Are you serious?" Guiche asked.

Kirche pursed her lips but nodded. "I wouldn't believe it myself but I saw Louise collapse from willpower exhaustion just moments before the summon circle appeared. Maybe it just took longer to complete the summon."

"Surely you jest." Guich said. "The Zero can't do anything right. What would this say for her power?"

"Who knows." Kirch said. "It's big. But it's a tree! Who's ever heard of a tree familiar!" She cried.

"Gustav II." Tabitha said. "Summoned Ash Oak."

"But he was the only dot to ever become a king." Kirche huffed. "And it wasn't even a very big ash oak!"

The trio arrived at the academy gateway in time to see professor Colbert arriving a top one of the academy's horses while leading three others. Three were large powerful Gallian steeds, the last was a smaller Tristanian pony.

"I trust you're all familiar with riding?"

The three nodded simultaneously. Tabitha and Kirche looked the horses over and then exchanged glances. Without saying a word they mounted the two remaining Gallian's leaving the pony for Guiche.

Professor Colbet stifled the young Grammond heir's dismayed protests of being left with such a sub satisfactory mount. "There's no time to waste Mister Grammond, we must be off."

The boy huffed but took to the saddle without further complaint. Professor Colbert clicked his tongue and gently spurred his horse into an easy gallop, setting off in the direction of the great tree.

As the trio of faeries approached the center of Auron, it became clear that something was very amiss. The side streets and alley ways were empty of players, and NPC stalls along the main streets stood unattended. As they approached the city square, Lady Sakuya noticed the players that had already begun to gather. The city square was a natural place for players to meet up and so it was an equally natural place to go now. Yggradsil city was a neutral territory and thus open to all of the factions. No matter which way she turned Sakuya could see representatives of all of the playable races in a single glance from her own nimble Sylphs, to stocky Gnomes, and martial Salamanders.

The situation in the square was chaotic. Players were shouting and arguing amongst themselves, far from the relaxed atmosphere that had pervaded the city earlier that day.

As they set down many of the surrounding players turned to watch their approach.

"Wait, is that Lady Sakuya?" A Cait Syth player said.

"What, Lady Sakuya?" His Undine companion asked.

"The Sylph leader never leaves Sylvain, there's no way she'd be here." Another undine commented.

"No, I saw her arrive, with an army of Sylphs and Cait Syth." The Cait Syth answered back.

"Didn't the Cait Syth and Sylph form an alliance? I saw it on the message boards!"

Chaos continued to reign across the square but as time went by more players noticed the arrival of the faction leader and gradually the chaos died down. Sakuya walked to the center of the square, all eyes following her and her companions. Some hoped she knew things they didn't, other just wanted someone with authority, be it real or make believe, to take charge. All were curious.

"I am Lady Sakuya, leader of the Sylphs." She called out in a loud clear voice. "I understand that you have all undergone a traumatizing experience not less than half an hour ago. I confess that I know no more than any of you. But I urge you all to remain calm."

"Remain calm?" A stocky man, a Leprechaun by his build, called out. "We can't log out. Isn't that how the SAO incident started."

Sakuya cringed, she'd hoped that word wouldn't come up. Suddenly the players were all shouting and arguing once more. Fortunately few seemed to believe that this could really be another SAO incident, but the fear and anxiety that name spawned made the crowd a riot waiting to happen.

"Enough!" Sakuya boomed, face turning stern. For the Sylph players it was rare to see their normally serene leader suddenly so serious. It was enough to shock the Sylphs in the crowd to attention and gradually the other players began to settled down once more.

She turned to the Leprechaun player. "We cannot immediately assume the worst. SAO was a tragedy. But it was only a tragedy, an isolated incident."

"If I may, Lady Sakuya." Kirito stepped in to join her at the center of the crowd. Sakuya gestured for him to continue.

"Good evening everyone. My name is Kirito." The Spriggan nodded to the gathered crowd. "I'm an SAO survivor."

The crowd began to murmur amongst themselves. "Kirito? Kirito? Isn't that one of the names that got leaked out of the SAO incident?"

"They say he beat Kayaba Akihiko."

"There's no way this kid is Kirito."

"Wait, didn't someone named Kirito managed to defeat General Eugene just the other day."

"No way, that's definitely impossible."

"Pics or it didn't happen!"

The Spriggan allowed the murmuring to die down. "It probably seems hard to believe that an SAO survivor would went to play another VRMMO, but, how to put this?" The Spriggan screwed up his face in concentration. "From my experience, whatever is happening now, doesn't feel like the SAO incident at all. But if this really were like what happened in SAO, players panicking and acting foolishly is definitely more dangerous than the game itself."

Lady Sakuya nodded. "This is no doubt the case. I would like to ask everyone to remain calm until we can contact the GMs and determine what is happening. While we wait, please refrain from leaving the city or challenging players to PvP. It is unclear what has happened but the game engine appears to be modeling damage and pain with a much greater degree of detail and intensity than normal." Lady Sakuya touched her right forearm with her left hand, recalling the pain that had burned through her body for that brief instant.

"Even if death is impossible, we should avoid needless injury until the situation is understood. On behalf of our alliance, I would like all Sylph and Cait Syth players to do their best to serve as role models in keeping order at this time. Currently a squadron of high level Sylph and Cait Syth players is gathered at the base of the World Tree and I will be ordering a contingent to return to Sylvain shortly to determine if this phenomena is local or covers all of ALFheim. Are there any more question?"

There were many. The gathered players began to shout over one another in an effort to have their questions answered. Sakuya did her best to answer those that she could, like what the Sylph and Cait Syth were doing about the situation, while trying to reassure the players about those she could not, like what had happened and when would they be able to log out.

In the end, Sakuya's authority as a faction leader held enough sway to calm most of the players and at her urging the players gathered together with their friends and departed for inns and homes to wait the crises out. A handful of players remained in the square afterwards, they were of no particular faction, sylphs, salamanders, and undines were the most common, but the odd leprechaun, imp, and spriggan were also in attendance. Judging by their equipment they were almost all high level players.

"May I help you?" Sakuya asked.

One of the players, a slender undine with wild azure hair stepped forward as spokesman. "Lady Sakuya, we thought we should bring this to you."

The Sylph leader nodded for the man to continue.

"We're amongst the players who had just arrived in Auron when whatever happened, well, happened. We noticed that the terrain outside of the city, doesn't look right."

"Doesn't look right?" Lady Sakuya asked. "As in improperly rendered?"

"N-no." The Undine shook his head. "I mean, there were rivers and forest where there should not be. The lay of the land is completely wrong."

Sakuya bit her lip. "Have you told any of the other players?"

"No My Lady." The undine said. "We didn't want to start a panic which is why we brought this directly to you. I think most of the other players were too shaken to notice. Just what is happening?"

Sakuya shook her head. "I wish I knew. In the mean time, thank you for this information. You should go find someplace safe to stay for the time being."

The undine nodded and a large salamander player wearing the heavy armor of high level tank stepped forward. Beneath his helm his face was covered in a fiery beard and his golden eyes glinted dangerously. Kirito and Leafa both tensed up, ready to move to protect the Sylph leader. Their concern proved uncalled for.

The salamander stood to his full height and saluted smartly. "Ma'am."

Leafa and Kirito were treated to the bizarre scene of a Salamander standing at stock attention before the leader of his faction's mortal enemies.

"Y-yes?" Sakuya asked, recovering quickly.

"I would like your permission to help reconnoiter the area. Until the GMs contact us we have only ourselves to figure out what's going on. In real life I served in the JGSDF until last year when I was discharged due to a back injury. And . . . " The man took a breath. "I was playing ALFHeim with my niece and nephew. They're new sylph players ma'am."

Sakuya nodded. "I understand your concern, but I can't access the faction controls at this time or I would find them for you. Were they with you before?"

The salamander shook his head. "We were supposed to meet up here to do the quest "Hunt for Nine Eyes", they told me they were traveling from Sylvain."

Sakuya nodded. "It appears that all of the players have been reset to the nearest town or safe zone. If that's the case, they may be back in Sylvain or one of the neutral towns. I will have some of my soldiers patrol Auron and compile a list of players in case they were amongst those that made it here. Do you have their user names?

"Balandene and Bardiche." The man said. "And I'm called Carmond."

Sakuya nodded. "Balandene, Bardiche, Carmond. I will instruct my soldiers to keep an eye out for them. In the mean time is your offer of assistance still open?"

The man nodded solemnly. "With the user menu down we'll have to rely on our own senses to get the lay of the land. I was in the infantry so you can count on me for that."

Sakuya turned to Kirito and Leafa. "Kirito-kun, Leafa-chan, I would like to request your help as well."

"Us?" Leafa asked. "I'm sorry lady Sakuya but Kirito need to . . ." The Sylph stopped as she felt her brother place a hand on her shoulder.

"It's alright Leafa." Kirito smiled weakly.

"But . . . Asuna." She said.

"The world tree will be here when we get back and I'm sure Asuna will still be there as well." Kirito said softly. "You were right . . . I can't do it alone. And I can't do it blind either. We need to know what has happened."

"Are you okay with that Kirito?" Leafa asked.

Her brother smiled and rubbed his eyes as if fatigued. "Of course not. I hate waiting. I hate not being at her side. I hate not being able to protect her like a promised." When he looked up, Leafa saw the wetness around his eyes. "But most of all, I hate the idea of never seeing her again. So for now, I'll wait and we'll plan so that when we try again we'll definitely reach the top of the World Tree."

Leafa nodded to her brother. "I hope I get to meet her soon, Oni-chan."

"We accept your request Lady Sakuya." Kirito said.

The Sylph leader nodded. "Then, let us return to the base of the world tree and make arrangements. Carmond, will you accompany us?"

The big salamander nodded and as a group they extended their wings and took flight.


	3. Chapter 2 Part 1

Chapter 2 Part 1

"There are currently four thousand and sixty seven players within the bounds of Arrun. Of them, there are seven hundred and sixteen sylphs, six hundred and ninety Cait Syth, six hundred and eighty eight Salamanders, five hundred and seventeen Undine, four hundred and three Gnomes, three hundred and fifty five Leprechauns, three hundred and eight Spriggans, two hundred and thirty three Imps, and one hundred and fifty seven Puca."

"Wow! Yui-chan is so smart!" Alicia Rue praised the pixie sitting in her lap. The tiny girl's smile at the compliment lifted even Lady Sakuya's troubled spirits.

It had seemed like a strange request when Kirito had asked them to watch over the navigation pixie while he joined the scouting party, and stranger still when the pixie, a simple player support program, had loudly protested. However, Sakuya was growing to understand the young Spriggans fierce attachment to his tiny companion. What's more, she had proven invaluable in Sakuya's efforts to organize Arrun and its inhabitants.

Without access to the menu, Sakuya and her subordinates were reduced to tallying by hand and writing down the results on whatever scraps of paper could be found. Under those circumstances, taking stock of all of Arrun would have been a tedious task. While by no means large in comparisons to a real world city, Arrun's environs covered several square kilometers and included hundreds of buildings, homes, shops, and stalls.

The little navigation pixie's ability to flawlessly record, recall, and collate the reports that continued to stream in was a boon for the two leaders as they attempted to keep the other players from tipping over the abyss and into a full panic. Cait Syth and Sylph players were stationed across the residential areas to enforce Sakuya's request that no players engage in PvP within Arrun and also to keep an eye out for the telltale sign of a player log in or log out. Fortunately, for the time being, most of the players were heeding the advice to stay inside and were waiting out this crises with their friends and party members.

"What about injury reports?" Sakuya asked.

"So far, a total of one hundred and fifty seven players have reported minor scrapes or bruises and fifteen players have reported more serious injuries." Yui said. "At this time the more serious injuries have been successfully treated with healing magic."

"I guess it's a good thing that healing magic still works." Alicia Rue said as she gently stroked Yui's head. The leaders had commandeered the Arrun town hall as their temporary headquarters and taken the private offices on the third floor as their inner sanctum. Sakuya sat behind a large desk while the Cait Syth leader, true to her race's theme, lounged casually on a sofa.

There was a knock at the door. A male Sylph with short, spiked blonde hair, and wearing the ensemble of a mid level ranger entered and bowed his head to his leader.

"Lady Sakuya."

"What have you to report Novair?"

Novair handed Sakuya a folded piece of paper. As Sakuya unfolded it she noted the rough edges where it had been torn from a blank book and quickly scanned the contents as he began his report.

"Inventory of Arrun is still proceeding at this time Lady Sakuya. Guards have been assigned to the commercial district while we take stock of our current supplies. The storage areas of the shops we've examined so far have revealed that they contain varying quantities of the particular shop's standard inventory."

"You were able to pick the locks on the inventory rooms?" Alicia asked.

The man shook his head and grinned, "Actually, we broke in. It seems this new damage modeling is good for something."

Sakuya scanned the incomplete list. Loss of the player menu meant, among other things, that there was no way to access player inventories, which meant most players possessed only their equipped clothing and whatever items had been readied for quick use. "Very well. Novair, I'd like you to focus on securing food and pharmaceutical supplies for now. Return when you have a complete inventory and we will devise a rationing scheme." The man nodded and quickly departed.

"Rationing scheme? Seems pretty draconian to me." Alicia commented.

"Ideally, we'd also confiscate food stuffs in homes and inns for the duration of the crises, but that might cause a panic." Sakuya said idly as she rested her cheek against her hand.

"Wait, don't tell me we're taking Kirito-kun's crazy ideas seriously now?" Alicia perked up.

"Of course not." Sakuya said. The Sylph leader steept her fingers. "But suppose that Kirito-kun's wild theories are close to the truth."

Alicia Rue's ears folded back against her head as she frowned. "Hey now Sakuya-chan, don't be joking about something like that!"

"I'm not joking." Sakuya said, her lips were pressed into a thin line. "Think about it. Thus far nobody has been or has seen anyone log in or log out since we woke up. Nor have we been able to contact or been contacted by the system Admins. In addition to that, many phenomena are being observed that exceed the ability of the AMUsphere to render."

"Until we know more, we should proceed with caution. Players have already been injured and realized that the pain they are feeling is real and far above the games threshold. Unless we can prove otherwise we'll have to assume that what we are experiencing now is real to us. That means we cannot afford to take risks with the well being of the people of Arrun. That is our responsibility as faction leaders. If nothing else we have to create the impression that someone is in control so that we can keep order."

"Sakuya-san is correct." Yui said suddenly. "Right now the players in Arrun are confused and afraid. For the time being they are willing to believe that this is simply a technical glitch and things will go back to normal soon. But if nothing is done soon, they're fear will begin to overwhelm them. They will fall into panic and despair." The pixies wings flattened against her back and she clenched her hands in front of her. Alicia gently cupped the pixie in her hands receiving a small smile of thanks from the tiny girl.

Sakuya would not have believed until that day that a mere navigation pixie could express such emotion. Then she recalled what Kirito had said to Leafa earlier that day. "Yui-chan, Kirito-kun said that you've been with him since the SAO incident. How is that possible?"

The navigation pixie stood up in Alicia's lap and clasped her hands together. "Sakuya-san, how much do you know about ALfheim?"

The sylph leader was surprised to hear the pixie answer a question with another question. Sakuya tilted her head thoughtfully. "I know that's it was one of the first VRMMO's to come onto the market after the SAO incident and that the game engine was derived from SAO."

Yui nodded. "SAO and ALfheim share the same formats for graphics encoding and character stats. ALFheim also uses a simplified version of the SAO's central Game Master AI, the Cardinal System, to manage the play environment. My original designation is Player Support Mental Health Artificial Intelligence Prototype 001, I was originally created to see to the emotional health of players in the game world of SAO."

"But the SAO servers were wiped clean when the players were logged out." Sakuya said.

Yui smiled. "You're right Sakuya-san. I should have died when SAO's Cardinal system was erased." Sakuya looked startled. "But poppa rescued me by saving my core data to his Nerve Gear. Because SAO and ALFheim use the same game engine and AI base, when Poppa first logged into ALFheim he was able to wake me up. The ALFheim servers detected me and classified me as a navigation pixie which is why I take this appearance." The pixie gestured to herself.

"So if you were originally part of the central control system, does that mean you have admin access?" Alicia asked.

Yui shook her head. "No. My administrative privileges only extended to the confines of SAO. My ALfheim privileges are no different than any other navigation pixies. And now, even those don't seem to be working. It's like I'm not connected to any external network, but I can still sense Cardinal."

"If Yui-chan is here with us it brings up some interesting questions." Sakuya said. "Why are Yui and the other navigation pixies still here when all of the other humanoid NPCs have disappeared? Yui-chan is also a different sort of intelligence than us humans but she seems to be sharing in the same experience as the rest of us."

"But what could that mean?" Alicia asked.

Sakuya shook her head. "I don't know. We'll have to wait until the scouting parties return." The Sylph leader turned her head to gaze out the window and across the cityscape of Arrun. For someone born in the information age and used to having the full resources of the Net at their fingertips, this business with couriers and scouts hand delivering notes felt like pulling teeth. 'Hurry back Leafa-chan, Kirito-kun.' She thought.

Leafa felt the cool kiss of the wind against her cheeks and the heart shaking sensation of overcoming inertia as she smoothly banked along the side of the World Tree. Kirito had been right, this did feel more real, and Leafa was enjoying every second of it. Suguha had always had a knack for the flight controls in ALFheim which let players take to the skies, she had fallen in love with this world from the moment she had experienced the sensation of soaring on her own wings, now she was falling in love all over again. She felt like she was born to the wind.

At Leafa's side flew five others players. Closest to her flew her brother Kirito and the Salamander tank named Carmond. Above and to her rear was a Cait Syth hunter called KoKo, and two representative of Lady Sakuya, a pair of Sylphs name Clyde and Emshael who had been part of the World Tree raid party.

Leafa gave her brother a concerned look. Kirito had remained quiet since they had left Arrun. Leafa knew that deep down, as much as he might say he was alright, her brother was being eaten away by this moratorium in his quest to rescue Asuna. Suguha was beginning to feel the same way. Until Asuna was safe, her brother could not really return from that world that had stolen him away from her.

They had set out from Arrun less than an hour ago with strict instructions to reconnoiter the surroundings. For most of that time they had flown low and slow to get a closer look at the terrain before rising to a higher altitude to see the overall topography. Just as the Undine had told Lady Sakuya, the lay of the land had indeed changed. It was as if the world tree had been cut right out of ALFheim and deposited elsewhere. No, that wasn't quite right, there were definite signs of ALFheim's influence on the geography, the lake at the base of the world tree was still there but now was fed by a different river and Leafa could see several of the slender towers that the various Faerie races used for long distance flight dotting the land. It wasn't like someone had just moved the world tree so much as mashed together the terrain in an effort to make everything fit.

That wasn't the only thing that was wrong. As they had traveled, Leafa had noted that the sun was rising rather than setting, which meant that wherever they were, it was morning and not afternoon as it had been before the change. They had either all been unconscious for longer than they thought or else something had happened to change the day night cycle.

"Commander, look!" Carmond called and pointed ahead around the curve of the World Tree's trunk.

Leafa's eyes widened as she caught sight of a castle in the far distance. Five thin towers speared into the sky around a thicker central tower. Though it lacked the flowing organic lines or soft green motif it reminded her somewhat of the towers of the Sylph Capital of Sylvain.

"Kirito-kun, that definitely wasn't there yesterday." Leafa said. "And where there's a castle . . ."

"Right." Kirito nodded. "There should be players, or at least NPCs inhabiting it."

So far, no one had been able to come up with a satisfactory answer for the disappearance of all of Arrun's NPCs, though it seemed almost certain that it was linked to whatever had happened to the players.

"Lady Sakuya ordered us not to travel too far." Clyde warned as he noted the black haired Spriggan beginning to drift off course and towards the castle in the distance. "We should come back and explore it with a large party."

Kirito seemed unhappy about the reminder but nodded. "Roger."

As they continued their flight Leafa caught something out of the corner of her eye. Looking down she saw a road winding away towards the castle in the distance and also . . . There it was again! A glint of light, a reflection! Sylph's were known to be sharp of vision, and with some squinting, she spotted movement along the side of the road.

"Kirito-kun, look!" She pointed down towards the road way. The Spriggan had no trouble picking out just what Leafa was pointing to. The group came slowly to a stop, wings extending to tread the air.

"Are those players or NPCs?" Koko asked.

"I can't tell without a HUD." Emshel replied.

"They're human." Carmond said.

"How can you tell?" Emshel asked.

"The way they're moving around. Hiding in a ditch isn't scripted NPC behavior."

"It could be a special event." Leafa suggested.

"No." Carmond said. "I noticed this earlier, along with the user menus, all of the side quests within Arrun have disappeared. I even checked when we arrived on the field, there's a convoy escort mission right outside of Arrun, the NPCs were missing."

Kirito nodded. "We haven't seen any other NPCs so the conclusion is that they must be players. Let's take a closer look." He said to Leafa. "If they're out here in the field hiding, then something might have happened."

The group proceeded, gliding downwards towards the small gathering. Leafa made it to be four players with . . . were those horses? ALFheim had land bound mounts but they weren't very popular and terrestrial horses weren't among them. As they grew closer other things were wrong as well. The clothing worn by the group was like nothing that Leafa had ever seen. Nothing in ALFheim anyway. The clothes looked to Suguha like some sort of school uniform, white blouses and dark skirts and pants. In the real world, they would have looked almost like conventional summer uniforms save for the dark cloaks. Only in ALFheim did they look strange.

As they neared further, one of the figures rose, an older man displaying none of the characteristics of any of the fairy races. He took a low stance brandishing a staff as if ready to fight. A caster? Leafa wondered. The others, teenagers, probably around Suguha's age, followed the man's lead and took defensive stances. One other player, a young girl with the pale blue hair of an undine, wielded another staff, the remaining two were equipped with what looked like a wand and . . . was that rose? Leafa and Kirito slowed their descent and spread their arms out slowly to telegraph their peaceful intent. The rest of the party quickly followed suit.

The man made no moves as they descended, but watched closely until they had settled onto the ground.

"They don't look happy to see us." Carmond observed slowly, the big salamander rested his hand gently on the hilt of his sword but made no other threatening gestures.

"They don't look like players." KoKo said.

"Or NPCs for that matter" Clyde added.

"Kirito-kun?" Leafa whispered.

"I know. They're stances. The blue haired girl and the old man probably have the most experience fighting."

"You can tell that much?" KoKo asked.

"It's a fighting posture." Carmond explained.

Kirito nodded. "Koko, hunters have illusion magic to confuse monsters right?"

"Y-yeah." The Cait Syth player said. "But dazzle's my only AoE spell. I can only cast sleep on one person at a time and my success rate isn't very high."

"That's fine. I'm going to go talk to them. I'll be leaving myself exposed, so if they attack I want you to cast dazzle and then fly as fast as you can back to Arrun and tell Lady Sakuya. I'll be right behind you."

"Are you sure about this Commander?" Carmond grunted.

The Spriggan smiled, "It'll probably be okay. And please, just call me Kirito." With that the former Beater started forward across the space separating them from the strange players. Leafa followed cautiously at his side, noticing the way that older man and the small blue haired girl shifted their stances as they approached.

They stopped a good fifteen or twenty feet from the older man. Either of them could cover the gap in the space of a heartbeat but it still gave the impression of respectful distance.

"Hello?" Kirito called.

The man didn't lower his guard but his expression softened with curiosity.

"My name is Kirito of the Spriggans and this is Leafa of the Sylphs. We've been sent from Arrun by Lady

Sakuya of the Sylphs to reconnoiter this area." Kirito cocked his head to the side. "Uhm, we come in peace?"

Leafa sighed. "Jeez Kirito-kun, you're not any better at this stuff than you are in real life."

The Spriggan frowned. "When you say it like that you make it sound bad."

"Stay back!" The man suddenly shouted.

Colbert and his students had departed from the Academy almost two hours prior, riding along the road that headed due South from the Academy's main gate. Colbert had remained cautious as they approached the base of the immense tree still some miles away. The old soldier in him had been on guard as soon as he saw how the terrain had changed. Low hills rose and fell where before there had been flat plains and several strange towers rose from the forests ahead.

"Not native." Tabitha had said.

"Hmm?" Kirche had asked

"Local flora. Not native." Tabitha said again, she frowned a little. "Transported along with the tree?"

Indeed the flora that they had seen along the road was certainly alien to Tristain, perhaps to all of Halkegenia. Under less pressing circumstances Colbert would have loved the opportunity to spend a day studying the groves and the grassy meadows. But for the moment, his attention was fixed solely upon the tree that stood before them and dominated the landscape for mile around, if something so immense could even be called a tree. In the far distance, its trunk was the color of weathered granite, and the roots at its base rose like foothills.

"That's very likely, Miss Tabitha." Professor Colbert had said. "The root structure alone must by massive to support the tree's weight. It no doubt penetrates through the very bedrock, which might explain the earthquakes and the change in the local topography."

"I can only imagine how strong the wood must be to support such a tremendous mass. Perhaps it utilizes some inherent magic to lighten or strengthen itself. It almost certainly must in order to support the weight." Colbert spoke, partly to himself, and partly for the benefit of his students.

"If it must root itself in solid bedrock, then surely the tree would have an Earth affinity." Guiche mentioned.

"Does that mean the Zero's affinities lays with Earth?"

"What's this now?" Professor Colbert had said, startled by the sudden change of topic. "What do you think this has to do with Miss Valliere?"

"Miss Zerbst and Miss Tabitha mentioned it earlier." The blonde boy defended. "The Zero collapsed just before the summoning of that tree began."

Colbert relaxed a little in his saddle. Of course, nothing but childish speculation. "I see, so that's what this is about. Let me reassure you all that Miss Valliere being responsible for this is completely impossible."

"B-but . . ." Kirche began.

"Miss Zerbst." Colbert interrupted. "As you know, the power that a Mage draws upon to summon their familiar is proportional to its size, magical power, and the distance of the summons. If this tree is the work of Louise' summoning she would not have collapsed from exhaustion, she would have simply died. It simply is not a possibility."

"Then how else do you explain a giant TREE suddenly appearing in the middle of Tristain." Kirche asked.

"That is what we will endeavor to find out." Colbert said. "But first we must rule out the impossible. We know that Miss Valliere would have died if she summoned something of this size yet she lives. Your theory has sound correlation but it lacks a mechanism of causation Miss Zerbst."

They road on silently before Tabitha spoke again. "Why was she exhausted?"

"Well, there could be a number of causes. Sickness and anxiety can greatly weaken a mage's reserves of willpower." Colbert explained. "For some mages the combination of summon and contract familiar is an exhausting ordeal."

"But Louise didn't cast anything." Kirche said. "Not successfully anyways."

"Not that we are aware of." Colbert corrected. "You concern for your class mate does you credit miss Zerbst, but no, these events must simply be coincidence."

"I'm not concerned for Valliere." Kirche said quickly.

"It's hardly something to . . . " Colbert trailed off. He raised a hand to shield his eyes and squinted into the sky. That was when he saw them.

"What is it?" Kirche asked.

"I don't know. It appears to be . . . mages?"

"I don't see any mounts?" Kirche said, squinting into the sky.

"No, they aren't mounted. They're levitating, to your left, they're about to pass in front of the tree."

Colbert watched as the half dozen figures neared, nothing more than black specks at this distance, skimming through the sky. It was hard to judge size at this distance but they did indeed appear to be mages flying without the aid of a mount. There were of course simple spells that could allow a mage to take flight and travel at reasonable speeds, but they were willpower intensive and left the mage exposed, unable to divert their attention to casting any other spell. Yet these figures moved at great lateral speed and with a natural grace closer to that of a wind dragon than a mage. He knew of no group of mages in Tristain or greater Halkegenia who could boast such talents with flight.

Colbert turned to his students, the long dormant instincts of a soldier taking hold. "Quickly everyone, let us get off of the road. They'll have trouble seeing us from the air if we break up our outlines. Dismount and stay low."

The students obeyed their instructor, leading their mounts down into a ditch that ran beside the road and then laying low themselves as the strange mages approached. As they did, Colbet began to make out details.

There were six of them flying in a V formation like migrating birds. The one at the lead was garbed in jet black. The three to his left wore vibrant green, and of the two to his right, one appeared in tan and yellow and the other in sullen red. Each was born aloft by translucent wings like those of a dragonfly, no doubt some form of flight spell.

"They look like no mages I've ever seen before." Colbert said. "No, perhaps combat mages . . ." Stupid not to think of that first, too much time spent forgetting. " . . . That would explain their armor."

"Where did they come from?" Guiche asked.

"The tree." Tabitha suggested.

"Should we hail them?" Guiche asked nervously.

"No, we should let them pass for now." Colbert said.

"Miss Tabitha, there should be a spy glass in my saddle, would you retrieve it please." Colbert requested.

The small girl handed the instrument to him and he peered through it to examine the passing mages. Under magnification he could make out the details of their clothing and faces and . . . Colbert's heart skipped a beat as he squinted closer. Four of the mages wore full helms, obscuring their faces from view. But the lead two, the one garbed in black and the one in green, flew unencumbered by armor, Colbert's gaze fixed on their faces, and their delicately pointed ears.

"Elves." He whispered.

"What!" Guiche shouted. "E-Elves? Here!"

Kirche and Tabitha each put a hand over the boys mouth and gave him a death stare.

"This isn't good." Kiched whispered. "What are elves doing here?"

"Transported." Tabitha said.

"It's the only explanation. The tree must be from the Elven Territories." Colbert grimaced, if the elves had transported something so large by magic, if it was intentional . . . This could be the beginnings of a full invasion. They had to get back to the academy and dispatch a warning to the Palace.

"Seen us." Tabitha said and Colbert's blood ran cold as he saw the elves wheel in their direction.

"What should we do Professor?" Miss Zerbst asked, her normal playfulness had all but vanished as realization of the grave danger quickly sank in.

Colbert glanced over his students. Tabitha gave him a solemn nod and raised her staff. Miss Tabitha was certainly the most capable of his young charges, a gifted mage of both wind and water with obvious experience in wielding both. Miss Zerbst had great skill and talent, as many of her line did, but little experience to speak of in wielding her magic in anger. As for young Guiche, well, he was a General's son, of him nothing more could really be said.

Colbert cursed himself for not insisting on bringing along even one more instructor. Elves were uniformly powerful mages to begin with, on top of that they had the advantage of both numbers and the high ground. His former Superior would have had his head for letting this happen.

Colbert turned back to Kirche. "There's only one thing we can do. Prepare to defend ourselves and pray to the Founder that they are in a good mood." With that, Colbert stood up and stepped out onto the roadway brandishing his staff and preparing to place himself between the oncoming Elves and his students.

"If this becomes a fight I will try to hold them off while you escape." Colbert told his students. It was likely a hollow promise, but the by the Founder, he would try.

The Elves were almost upon them, their strange gossamer wings, surely too delicate to support their weight, altered their configuration as they descended, first extending to slow their descent before folding flush with their backs moments before landing and then fading away as the Elves settled onto the ground.

Colbert eyed them warily. At this distance he could make out fine details of the armor they wore. Three were dressed in a motif of green, two in armor, and one, shorter, a blonde haired girl garbed in a form fitting green coat and short pants. Another was garbed in tan and yellow and wore a helm in the shape of a cat's head. The one at the rear of the group was clad in heavy red armor and looked to be as large and broad as a commoner pikeman. Finally Colbert's attention turned to the one dressed in black.

The man, no, boy, even for an elf her seemed young, wore a long black coat bound across the chest and waste. His skin had an ashen hue. His eyes were dark and serious and his hair jet black and swept back as if by long days facing into the wind. Colbert felt himself stiffen, he could tell that this one was the greatest threat. It wasn't his size, he was no taller than the young woman beside him, nor was it his visage which was still that of a child not yet grown into a man. It was his eyes, his stance, the way his gaze came to rest on himself and Tabitha, the calm way he moved without any youthful swagger, confidence tempered by caution.

The elves conversed amongst themselves just out of earshot. They came to a decision and the dark haired boy and the blonde girl walked slowly forward, holding their hands out as they approached and came to a halt about twelve mails distant.

Colbert expected threats, an ultimatum, or even a sudden attack. He was caught off guard for what happened next.

"Hello?" The boy elf said with a strange lilting accent. "My name is Kirito of the Spriggans and this is Leafa of the Sylphs." He gestured to himself and his companion. "We've been sent from Arrun by Lady Sakuya of the Sylphs to reconnaissance this area . . . Uhm, we come in peace?"

Spriggan? Sylph? Colbert found himself wondering at the terms. There were stories of nature spirits that went by such names, but these two resembled none of those creatures. Were they some form of military rank? Perhaps like the different orders of knights? It would explain their varying equipment. And there were more of them? Colbert thought. But how many more? A small troop? A whole army? His train of thought was broken as the blonde elf sighed and looked to her companion.

"Kirito-kun, you're not any better at this stuff than you are in real life."

Colbert blinked quickly as he watched the woman admonish her companion as if totally unaware of Colbert's presence. And what did that strange turn of phrase mean? Had he misheard? Some heathen term?

The boy frowned. "When you say it like that you make it sound bad."

"Stay back!" Colbert finally said, shaking off his confusion, he put every ounce of authority he could muster into his words. "Stay back. We don't want to fight, but we'll defend ourselves."

The boy raised his hand cautiously but it was the girl at his side who replied. "We don't want to fight either. We're just trying to understand what's happened." For the sake of himself and his student Colbert wanted to believe that he heard sincerity in her voice.

"What are elves doing in Halkegenia?" He asked slowly. "You arrived with that tree, didn't you? Is it some form of Firstborn magic?"

"Elves?" The boy cocked his head.

"Do not play games." Colbert said. "You haven't even bothered to come under guise."

"We're not elves." The girl said. "We're faeries. And that doesn't matter right now. Something has gone wrong with the server and we're trying to find out what." She shook her head, "It shouldn't matter what we are here? We're all humans in real life."

In real life? Colbert was mystified by what the girl had said. Was it a turn of phrase? "Is that supposed to be some Elvish trick?" He asked.

Before the girl could respond the boy raised a hand across her chest to stop her. "Excuse me, but I have to ask . . ." The boy began. "Does the term AMUsphere mean anything to you?"

"Am You Sphere?" Colbert parroted, he shook his head. "No."

"What about . . . " What the boy said sounded distinctly like 'Elfheim', no, he pronounced it with a distinctive A at the beginning. Again Colbert shook his head.

The boy crossed his arms and hunched his head as if in thought. He turned to his companion and spoke with her quietly. The girl stood straight and then backed away "What?! That can't be right!" She shouted.

The boy nodded. "I can't think of anything else. But I don't want to believe it either. It doesn't make any sense at all."

The girl's hands fell to her sides and her head sunk down. "That's not possible. What you're saying is definitely impossible brother."

Colbert watched as the boy placed a hand on the girls shoulder and squeezed gently. Then he looked to Colbert. "I think you should come with us. Our Leaders will want to talk with you."

"There's no chance we'll do that! You just want us to be your hostages!" Miss Zerbst shouted accusingly.

"That's right. We all know what elves do to their prisoners." Guiche added. "A son of the Grammond family will never allow himself to be taken prisoner by Elves!" The boy trembled and clutched his rose wand close to himself.

Tabitha simply sank into a lower guard and glanced quickly to the blonde girl. If it became a fight they might be able to even the odds by neutralizing these two first.

"I told you we're not elves!" The girl cried.

"Excuse me." The boy interrupted once again. "But, these elves, they have ears like this?" He asked, indicating his own.

"Y-yes." Colbert said not sure what the boy was getting at.

The boy turned and called to one of his companions. "KoKo could you take off your helmet?" The figure wearing the cat like armor stepped forward and removed its helm.

Colbert's eyes widened. The face beneath the helm was that of a woman. Young with deeply tanned skin and large golden eyes. Her hair was short cropped and while it first appeared a dirty blonde he soon began to distinguish a spotted pattern that shot through it. But most striking were the ears, like those of a cat, that emerged from the sides of her head. They twitched up and down as the woman turned her head to show them off from all angles.

"Do elves have ears like this too?" The boy asked.

"I've got a cute tail too." The woman added with a grin.

"Not an Elf." Tabitha said, Colbert glanced at the girl, was she . . . blushing?

"Perhaps she is some other form of demihuman. But it could just as easily be a disguise." Colbert reasoned aloud. In which case, he thought, the Elves would have used it to begin with. It made no sense to cast an illusion only after they had been discovered. Colbert at last lowered his staff, much to the relief of those gathered.

"What are you doing professor." Kirche said with surprise. "This has to be a trick."

Colbert sighed. "Nothing is served here by doing violence. Be they human or firstborns, we're all seeking the same thing here, answers." He turned back to the black haired boy. "You said you were faeries, I hardly believe that. You certainly look like no spirits I have ever heard of."

"Faeries are what we call ourselves." The boy explained. "You might not have a name for us. Though what did you just call us? Demihumans?" He grinned. "I kind of like the sound of that." The boy walked forward slowly and offered Colbert a hand, the Professor accepted it cautiously and felt the boy grip down firmly and shake. "Like I said, my name is Kirito."

"I am Professor Jean Colbert of the Tristain Academy of Magic." Colbert said, he felt strangely faint, how was it that he was now shaking hands with an elf?

"Tristain? Is that the name of this land?" The boy asked.

"Have you no knowledge of the Brimiric Kingdoms?" Colbert asked. "Surely you must as you speak passable Tristanian"

The boy shook his head. "When we awoke, we found that we were transported here. We were hoping you could tell us something about this land."

If the boy was lying, it was an extraordinarily bold lie. That alone helped Colbert to believe it. "You are not far from the Tristain Academy of Magic in the heart of Tristain." He said. "If I may ask, what lands do you hail from?"

The boy's eyes softened and he glanced to his companions. "A land that is far away from this place, I can tell." He said. "I have never heard of Tristain or the Brimiric Kingdoms. We were transported here against our will, we just want to learn what has happened so we can go home."

Colbert nodded. "I believe that you are sincere. Certainly you must speak to Old Osmond. If anyone can shed light on these events it is the Headmaster."

"You can't mean to bring them back to the Academy." Kirche protested.

"I agree with Miss Zerbst. We can't just let a pack of heathen Elves into one of Tristain's highest institutions." Guiche added.

"Well you could also meet with our leaders in Arrun. It's the town at the base of the World Tree." Kirito said.

"A town? You mean there's a whole town of your people?" Colbert asked. It shouldn't have surprised him of course, if something as large as this "World Tree" could be transported a town could easily be lost in the base of its roots.

"We won't be hostages." Tabitha shook her head.

The boy seemed to consider the situation. "Then, what if I become your hostage?"

"K-Kirito-kun!" The girl at his side shouted.

"Our hostage?" Colbert asked.

"Mmm. You can take me as your hostage while one of you goes back to Arrun to meet with our Leaders. Then we come back here once you're done and switch back." He seemed to be lost in thought for a moment. "Mmm. That would probably be fastest." He nodded to himself.

Colbert considered the offer. Be they "Elf" or "Fairy", would they trade one of their own simply to gain a prisoner? He doubted it. A part of him that had been dormant for a long time rose to the surface, a part that he had thought buried when he became a teacher, it asked him to consider if the boy was really worth anything as a hostage. He appeared to be the leader of this party, but that was all that could be said for this "Kirito", and even that may be a deception. At the same time, other than knowing that he was a teacher, the boy had no way of knowing if Colbert was of any value as a prisoner, so the exchange was equitable in that regard. But . . .

"You're offer seems generous." Colbert said. "But how do I know that you would not attempt to escape after we part ways."

The boy smiled confidently. "You'll have my word that I won't try anything." Colbert frowned, in his experience, people who talked the most about words of honor were usually the ones that valued them the least. "And," the boy added, "I'll even let you bind me."

"B-bind you?" Colbert stuttered. Was this boy that confident? He certainly couldn't be so foolish.

"K-kirito!" The large man barked. "Isn't that a bit risky?"

The boy's smile didn't waver as he answered. "Its fine, its like a handicap."

Colbert weighed the offer. He did not expect any binding that he or his students could cast would restrain a skilled Elf for long. Not without resorting to serious injury. Though it would likely buy enough time that he could not act with the element of surprise. This was either an attempt at appeasement or a ruse and given the groups behavior thus far, Colbert was inclined to believe it was the former. Weighing his options carefully, though he was loath to place his students at needless risk, Colbert came to a decision. "That would be acceptable." Colbert said finally.

"Professor!" Kirche and Guiche shouted together.

Kirito unsheathed his sword and offered it to one of his companions, the large man in red armor, who took the weapon hesitantly. "Are you sure about this Kirito?" The man asked.

Kirito smiled. "It'll probably be alright . . . Leafa?" The boy asked, startled. The blonde girl was already offering her own sword to the cat eared woman.

"Do you think I'd let you go alone?" She asked, giving the boy a stern expression as he looked like he was about to protest. She turned to Colbert, "Please allow me to accompany my foolish brother."

Colbert shook his head, two Elves was no worse than one in this case. Grudgingly he agreed, "But only the two of you."

The girl bowed her head graciously. "Carmond-san, tell Lady Sakuya what's happening for us."

Colbert turned to his students. "Mister Grammond, if you would please?" ' Guiche looked nervously at the "Elves" and nodded slowly. "R-right." He said and raised his rose wand. With a short enchantment, two plugs of earth rose from the roadway and then flowed like water around the outstretched hands of the boy and the girl. The earth began to constrict, drawing their hands together and taking a bronzed finish. "N-now, you listen here." Guiche said. "These bindings are magically enhanced, d- don't try to struggle!"

Colbert sighed inwardly, the Grammond boy looked ready to wet himself.

"Is that so?" Kirito examined the bindings curiously, wriggling his fingers.

"One more thing." Tabitha stepped forward and produced a pair of handkerchiefs from her pocket before standing before the Elf girl.

"H-hey, wait." The girl protested as Tabitha reached up around her head as if to tie a gag of blindfold. The other Elves grew tense until Tabitha's intent became clear. When she was finished, Tabitha stepped away. The young mage had tied the handkerchief around the Elf girl's head in a fashion not unlike that of the commoners and petty mages who's work took them into the forests and fields. More importantly, it covered the girl's ears.

"Extra precaution. Students might panic." Tabitha explained simply before turning to Kirito and repeating her work, this time tying the handkerchief in the fashion preferred by male laborers to keep the sweat from their eyes.

Tabitha inspected her handiwork and gave a small nod of approval.

"Now listen to me all of you." Colbert spoke to his students. "See to it that these two are taken safely to the Academy and then report directly to Old Osmond on these events. You may use force if they attempt to escape or to protect yourselves, but under no circumstances are you to do them lasting harm unless your life is in danger. My own safety will depend on it."

The students nodded solemnly and Colbert took a slow breath. "Very well. If you are ready?"


	4. Chapter 2 Part 2

Chapter 2 - Part 2

The wide spaces of the crest of the World Tree echoed with the sounds of bare footsteps against hardwood. A girl ran along the tree's broad branches garbed in sheer white, long chestnut hair fell to her waste and brushed against translucent white wings folded flush with her back. The bark beneath her feet felt strange, rough and irregular and tacky with sap.

Yuki Asuna moved cautiously but quickly. Since whatever had happened . . . had happened . . . she'd felt lighter and stronger than she had in months, almost like her old self, but she dare not fall. Sugou had promised her that though she possessed a fairy's wings, he had clipped them himself, and she had no way of knowing what would happen if she plunged from the top of the World Tree.

Asuna froze as she heard a distant cry, unlike the faint chirping of birds. It was a familiar sound to someone such as herself, who had fought countless battles on the front lines in the death game known as Sword Art Online. A low cry filled the air, the sound of a Slug type enemy in the throes of battle.

Asuna looked about for something, anything she could use as a weapon. Of course, there was nothing to be had. Even in a virtual environment, Sugou would never have left anything in this place that Asuna could use to harm him. Nothing that she could use to make even a display of defiance.

The cry came again and Asuna grit her teeth, curiosity and desperation winning out against discretion. The cries were coming from the direction of that place, the lab, the place where she had learned the true extent of Sugou Nobuyuki's cruelty and the fullest depths of his insanity. As much as she loathed to return to that place, she followed the sounds, coming once more to the stark circular corridor hewn into the bulk of the World Tree. Beyond here was the lab space where Sugou stored his . . . subjects . . . three hundred players from SAO trapped by Sugou to use in his depraved research. Asuna swallowed as the cries came again, and crept slowly forward.

She walked softly on the balls of her feet, afraid to make any noise lest she draw the attention of Sugou or one of his accomplices. As she neared the sounds of battle grew louder and as she rounded the last corner Asuna froze. For that one instant she was transported back. She was no longer a fairy standing in Sugou's domain, she was back, back on Aincrad's 61st floor, once more Asuna the Flash, Sub Commander of the Knights of Blood.

A man in the brilliant white and red of the Knights of Blood was in the midst of his assault upon a monster that resembled a dark blue sea slug. The creature squirmed and writhed whipping out with its tentacles in an effort to defend itself. The man dodged left and parried the blow with a heavy two handed sword before shouting out. "Switch!"

Another figure, shorter, slimmer, wielding a shield and sword, and dressed in the armor of the Liberation Army guild, stepped forward, and with a single clean stroke severed one of the slug's extended tentacles. The creature let out a low crooning wail, and beneath the cry Asuna heard something that made her blood run cold.

"Noooooooo . . . . Puuuuhleeeesssssssssss sssssttttoppppp." A sickening realization dawned on her at that instant. And no matter how much she should despise the creature . . . the person standing before her . . . Its suffering moved her to action.

Thought didn't factor into it. Reason didn't factor into it. In the blink of an eye Asuna was running out into the chamber.

"Stop!" She shouted throwing herself into the path of the Knights. The man wielding the broadsword staggered to a halt, barely catching himself as he began to deliver the coup de grace. The man starred at her in surprise and then recognition dawned. "Asu- Asuna-sama. Asuna-sama is that you?" The man whispered.

"Asuna-sama?" The man with the sword and shield asked before looking more closely at Asuna.

Asuna studied the man, he possessed the same pointed ears that adorned her own head but the face was familiar. "Arguile-san?" She asked softly. "Arguile-san it's you isn't it? It really is you?" Her former subordinate nodded slowly.

"My Lady, why are you stopping us? This monster is dangerous. It and its companion were attacking defenseless players."

"Its companion?" Asuna asked and her heart trembled.

The shorter man hooked a thumb over his back. Over the man's shoulder she could see the still twitching bulk of a dead slug. From behind her the remaining slug moaned softly, "Puuhhlleeeaasss Dddddooonnttttt . . . Ddddooonttt killllll meeeee." It wheezed.

Both Knights stood stiff with surprise. "First the corpse of the first one didn't vanish and now this one is talking. Asuna-sama . . . What is happening here Asuna-sama?" Arguile asked.

"I don't think I know." Asuna said. "But we can get answers from this thing." She almost placed a hand on the slugs slimy skin and then thought better of it. "If it lives." She added.

Death seemed to be a definite possibility as the massive creature, formerly one of her prison wardens, twitched and soaked the ground with its blood. "Iiittttt huuurrrrttsssss. Plleeeeaassseee ddddooonnnttt killlll meeeee." Asuna averted her eyes lest she grow nauseas. If it hurt so much, why didn't he just log out? He wasn't a prisoner like the rest of them. Maybe having his limbs severed had left him unable to utilize his user menu?

"You mentioned other players." She said softly.

"Yes Asuna-sama, lots of them. We all woke up here not long ago."

Asuna's eyes widened. "Arguile-san, what is the last thing you remember. Please, tell me!"

The man looked startled but then concentrated. "It was the boss raid. Heathcliff . . ." His eyes widened " . . . Heathcliff was Kayaba Akihiko!" The man clenched his jaw. "I remember . . . I remember him paralyzing all of us and then . . . I saw you die, you and that Beater, Kirito. Somehow, somehow that Monster of a Beater managed to bring Heathcliff's health bar down to zero before he died. But how are you alive? And what happened to you?"

Asuna followed his gaze and brought a hand up to her ears. She grimaced as she felt the elongated shape. "It's not important now." She said quickly. "You don't remember anything after that?"

The man shook his head.

"Me either." His partner said.

"Weren't we to be released if that Beater won the duel?" Arguile asked. "I suppose it was too much to expect for Kayaba Akihiko to keep his word, that snake."

Asuna looked away from them. She had seen what Sugou was doing to them. But if they could not remember it, then it was a blessing. In the dimness of the lab room Asuna became aware of others. The tall cylinders representing the avatars of Sugou's test subjects had vanished and in their place huddled the players, restored to some semblance of their old selves. They huddled in the far corner of the room, a perimeter of armed players shielding those that were defenseless when the fighting had begun.

"Arguile-san, please do what you can for this creature, we need him alive." The Knight looked confused but bowed his head in acknowledgment. With those words Asuna turned to the others within the room.

Her eyes swept across the gathered players. It was a varied group, some old, some young. Some wearing the high quality armor of the clearing group while others were dressed in the day to day garb of support players, the merchants, woodcutters, and smiths who had struggled from behind the front line to keep the Clearing group in fighting condition. Asuna recalled from long ago school classes that scientist conducting research would want to create a statistically representative test group, so it seemed that with the exception of Asuna, Sugou had selected his subjects at random. The only constant seemed to be that they had all been altered in some way, small pointed ears, not unlike Asuna's own, protruded from every head. Thankfully, aside from appearing confused and frightened, they all seemed unharmed.

"Asuna-san!" A voice cried out. An elderly man, gray haired and broad set, stood up from the huddled crowd.

"N-Nishida-san?" Asuna said, recognizing the elderly fisherman almost instantly. Save for his pointed ears his appearance was almost unchanged.

Upon hearing her name the people in the crowd began to murmur amongst one another. "Asuna-san? As in Asuna the Flash?"

"What's happened to her?"

"What's happened to us?"

"Where are we? The game was supposed to be cleared!"

"Everyone, please calm down. I will tell you all everything that I know." Asuna said. It was ridiculous to see such a crowd of people suddenly fall silent at the words a slim girl wearing nothing but the revealing attire of a fantasy princess. But some among the crowd remembered that decisive tone of voice and the girl, the swordswoman, who had wielded it, or else had heard of her second hand. Asuna the Flash was one of their heroes, one of the people who would save them from Kayaba Akihiko's deranged game, and regardless of her appearance she was to be taken seriously.

When the crowd fell silent she continued. "I know you must all be confused and are disappointed that we have not been returned to the real world. You're all probably wondering about your appearances as well. We are currently inside of a game called ALfheim online. When SAO was cleared and Kayaba Akihiko released the surviving players, a man named Sugou Nobuyuki captured some of us as we were logged off. He wanted to use us in his research experiments as test subjects."

"Asuna-sama." A girl near the front of the crowd said. "How do you know this?"

"Sugou kept me as his prisoner." Asuna said. "He came to me every day to gloat about what he was doing while I was powerless to stop him." Asuna clenched her hands and felt the pain as her nails dug into her palms, she didn't even pause to think about it. "I know it may be painful, but do any of you remember anything after hearing that SAO had been cleared?"

As the crowd mumbled negatives, Asuna gave a small prayer of thanks. "Then this might be hard for you to believe." Asuna said. "But SAO was cleared three months ago, you've all been . . . unconscious . . . for that time."

The crowd looked to one another nervously, whispering to those around them.

"So what has happened now. What has changed?" It was Nishida who asked the question.

Asuna shook her head. "I don't know. The last thing I remember was the world standing still and then I was suddenly in pain." Asuna said, she resisted the urge to throw her arms around herself. "When I woke up, I was outside of my prison. I don't know how."

"What do we do now?" Arguile asked, walking up beside his former leader.

Asuna grimaced. "Everything we can. This can't be something Sugou planned for, we need to take this opportunity to find any way to break free. There's an administrative access terminal at the back of this room. We need to access it and see if we can find a way to log out. If even one of us can get free, they can alert the authorities in the real world. I can guarantee that the people Sugou Nobuyuki works for would never tolerate what he is doing here."

Asuna turned to the gathered players, she stood straight, and took the posture of a Commander. "If anyone here has experience with network IT or computers I want you to help with the Terminal. I attempted to access it once but I'm sure the security has been tightened. Anyone who has skills as a healer, help to see to that slug monster's wounds. Anyone who can fight, stand guard over the prisoner. If he attempts to use a player menu to log out, severe his limbs. We need any information we can get from him."

The crowd exploded into activity as the players organized themselves. Asuna might have spurred them to action but all of the Survivors of SAO were remarkable people in their own way. Nishida raised his hand and called for anyone with network or computer experience to gather with him to go examine the Admin Terminal. A young girl with dark hair called for any tamers or medically oriented players to join her in tending to the slug. The front line players grouped together with other players that they knew or recognized and formed two man teams to stand watch.

Of the remaining players, those that had no skills to add to the tasks at hand. Some watched over the very youngest members of the group, while the others came forth to ask for more instructions.

Asuna found herself instructing the eager volunteers to look around beyond the confines of the lab. She explained the environment of the world tree and told them to keep at least two other people in sight at all times so they could find their way back. She instructed them to report back if they found anything that might spike interest.

As they departed, Arguile placed a hand on her shoulder and nodded solemnly.

"It is good to see you alive, Asuna-sama."

"I'm sorry we aren't meeting again in real life." Asuna said.

"That isn't your fault." Arguile promised. "I'm sure we'll find a way."

Asuna nodded and a determined smile crept across her face. Memories of the day before coming to the surface. "You're right, we have to find a way out of here, because that 'Monster of a Beater' survived too."

Arguile's eyes widened. "You don't mean . . ."

"I can't give up as long as he's still alive. Kirito-kun is the strongest person I know. But Kirito-kun isn't quite as strong as he thinks he is. We'll have to meet him half way."

Arguile grinned down at his former commander and the fiery determination that filled her eyes.

Asuna the Flash was back.


	5. Chapter 2 Part 3

Chapter 2- Part 3

Princess Henrietta de Tristain, crown princess of Tristain and heir to her father's throne, came suddenly back to her senses. She found herself on her side, her head aching and her vision blurred. In the dimness beside her, the elderly figure of Cardinal Mazarin moaned weakly. All around her lay buckled wood and broken glass. It dawned on the Princess that she was within the ruined confines of her carriage. The carriage was laying on its side, light filtering through the damaged wood and canvas above her. Judging by the Cardinal's condition, he had attempted to protect her when the carriage had been overturned.

Henrietta shivered as she heard the sounds of battle. The shouts of her Guards as they incanted spells and strange unearthly cries and groans. They must be under attack!

"Princess, Princess!" A voice shouted from above.

"Y-yes? Yes, I'm here!" It was one of her Guards.

"Are you alright Princess!"

"Yes. I am unharmed." She shouted back. "But, the Cardinal is injured."

There was a pause of several moments. "Does he need immediate treatment, Princess?"

"J-Just one moment."

The man did not look too badly injured, but her limited training as a healer told her not to move him until she knew more. Hands moved deftly over the man's body feeling for bruising and any other readily discernible signs of injury. The Cardinal's left arm hung limply, dislocated, check for other injuries around the sight of the dislocation, she could feel two ribs that weren't moving properly as the man breathed, she leaned in and heard an unpleasant grinding noise as he wheezed in pain, broken ribs.

"Cardinal. Cardinal Mazarin, can you hear me?" Henrrieta asked urgently. "Please, open your eyes if you can hear me."

The graying old man's eyes fluttered open. "Princess . . . Henrietta." He wheezed. His eyes fell on her arm. "You've been injured . . ." He reached out with his good arm and placed it against the princesses shoulder. When she glanced down she saw blood trickling from her own arm and felt the sharp sting of a deep cut.

"I am fine Cardinal, it is you who is seriously injured, now be still, you've broken ribs and . . ." She reached into her gown and withdrew her wand, with a short incantation she summoned up a small light and shown it into the cardinal's eyes. "You also have a concussion. You must be still while I treat you."

She turned to shout back to her Guard. "I can see to the Cardinal." She said.

"Then stay in the carriage Princess, do not expose yourself, do you understand?"

"Then I must go to my comrades, Princess, stay here, and do not move until we come for you." She heard the man jump down from the side of the carriage and his footsteps fade off in the direction of the battle.

Henrietta turned her attention to the Cardinal. The man tried to protest but he was too disoriented from the pain and the concussion to put up much of a fight. First, she examined the head for any other signs of injury before casting a spell to retard bruising from the concussion. Next she saw to the ribs, further spells to keep the chest properly inflated and hold the ribs in place followed by probing for signs of bruising that might indicate internal bleeding.  
With water magic the dislocation was easy enough to set without disturbing the chest, and a combination of a crudely fashioned sling made from torn seat fabric and a localized paralysis spell ensured that the cardinal would not make things worse by moving his injured arm. As much as she wanted to, she did not cast anything to numb the pain lest it mask the symptoms of some other injury.

Henrietta was startled from her work by a sudden change in the sounds coming from outside the carriage. The carriage rocked on its side as something struck the overturned roof. Henrietta looked about, there had to be some way for her to see outside without exposing herself. Her eyes drifted to a narrow window at the front of the carriage. It was meant to allow the occupants to call instruction to the coachman. Now it might give her a peak outside.

She carefully crawled over the Cardinal and climbed up onto the seat. There was a wooden slat over the window that could be closed to offer the carriage occupants some privacy. It seemed to be jammed but after only a moments work it loosened and slid clear. What she saw through the narrow window made her blood run cold.

The carriage was lying turned over in the middle of the road. Of the team of unicorns assigned to pull the carriage, two of the sacred beasts had slipped their harnesses and run. Of the remainder, one lay dead. The other had fallen on its side, becoming entangled and whinnying fearfully.

She could see several of her Guards casting spells into the surrounding forest. At first she could not see the assailant, or rather could not understand what it was she was seeing. It was unlike anything she had ever seen or heard of before. It looked for all the world to be an immense flower, its four huge petals green and splotched with red and violet. It was as tall as a church tower and festooned with a thick curtain of vines that draped from its highest leaves. The low wooden groans came from its base as it shuffled about on a writhing bed of roots that quested and slid endlessly over one another.

As she watched, a pair of Griffin Knights circling above completed an incantation from atop their mounts and sent forth twin volleys of fire and wind. The flames impacted the plant, consuming its flank in fire and singeing the edges of its petals. The wind fed the flames and ensured that the plant matter continued to smolder.

The flower waved lazily from side to side, slowly the vines began to sway and twirl like the dress of a dancer. With a flick of its stem, the vines whipped up into the air, unfurling and extending until a loud -crack- emanated from the tips. One of the Griffin Knights was stricken from the sky, rider and mount separating and falling away from one another. She did not see if the Knight was able to cast levitate and arrest his descent before his fall took him beneath the trees.

The other Knight attempted to evade the attack, partially succeeding as his mount was struck only a grazing blow across its flank. Blood ran freely from the wounded Griffin's side and the creature cried out in pain. The Knight managed to keep his mount under control but was forced to withdraw, descending into the forest off to Henrietta's right.

For an instant, it seemed that the two mages had been the last of her mounted Guards but then she heard the low roar of magically driven wind and watched as a wave of razor like hail crashed into the ambulatory plant, shredding its curtain of vines. A pair of griffins swooped past, their riders having come dangerously low. The flower shuddered and seemed to deflate, its petals wilting as it gathered the remaining vines closely around its stem.

The Knights, having realized the effectiveness of their last attack, circled around for another pass.

The flower, eyeless and earless, somehow watched them, and as they approached once more, the remaining vines and leaves began to wrap around the stem and the petals began to quiver and release a fine dust into the air. The pollen collected into a cloud around the flower as the Griffin Knights began to incant, and in a single violent motion, the leaves and vines unfurled, fanning the cloud outward.

The Knights had no time to evade as they were swallowed in the fine pollen, their mounts cried out in surprise and began to list in the air, they plummeted from the skies, crashing into the ground and skidding to a halt in a heap of fur and feathers. The Knights and their mounts struggled to stand, but the pollen seemed to be doing something to them, when one of the Griffins failed to rise, its rider dismounted and attempted to stagger onwards, he made it only a few mails before he himself collapsed drunkenly.

The cloud spread swiftly outward, afflicting the remaining members of her Guard. Henrietta watched as one by one, the mages sank to their hands and knees, stricken before they could realize what was happening. A faint sweetness reached her as she gazed out the window and she felt dizziness overtaking her. Quickly she brought a hand up over her mouth and cast a small wind spell to keep the pollen away from her face.

The plant seemed to regard the stricken Knights as if sizing them up, before bending down over the nearest Knight, delicately its vines began to pluck the man up, coiling around his body. The Knight struggled feebly as he was hoisted into the air and swung slowly back and forth. The swing built momentum and then finally he was swung over the top of the petals. In the blink of an eye, something long and red snapped out from the center of the flower and completely engulfed him, and like a toad eating a fly, he was gone. Henrrieta clamped her hands of her mouth.

After its first morsel the plant seemed divided between the remaining Knights and the wounded Griffinns. The Knights were hardly a satisfying meal, but the griffins were admittedly quite large. A whinnying cry made the flower aware of a third option. Though it had no face Henrietta was certain the flower had turned towards her and the trapped unicorn. The flower seemed to make up its mind, a unicorn seemed like a nice middle ground between a human and Griffin.

Henrietta watched the thing approach, preceded by that wooden groan, it sounded like a whole forest was falling towards her. There was no place to escape to and nowhere to hide. If she attempted to climb or levitate from the carriage the creature would strike her down and if she stayed here it would no doubt find her. She clutched her wand tightly and mustered her resolve. She was a triangle of water and a member of Tristain's royal family, she could defend herself if need be.

Thinking quickly. The Knights had dealt the flower a crippling blow when they struck its stem, more importantly it was distracted by the unicorn and had not taken notice of her. When it neared she would attack with all her might as it went for the unicorn, surely if she could just sever the stem . . .

The flower reached the Unicorn, which was now struggling in terror. Henrietta began her incantation as the flower leaned slowly downward, the words resonated with something deep within her, once, dot, extending its vines to grab hold of the unicorn and more importantly, twice, line, exposing its stem, thrice, triangle. This close, Henrietta could see where the roots met with the stem. That would be the place to strike, she would finish this with one blow.

The chant complete, the last syllables of the incantation parting from her lips. The spell was two waters and an earth, a strange choice for the Princess who's elemental affinity was pure water, but one carefully selected for its effects. Unlike fire which was at its most powerful when pure, water attacks often benefitted from mixing with other elements. The ground water beneath the earth erupted in a geyser, carrying with it sand and gravel. The spell was called an abrasion sword, a jet of high speed water carrying shards of earth which cut like ten thousand knives.

At the very last instant the plant somehow sensed the oncoming attack. Its vines released the unicorn and gathered close. 'No!' Henrietta thought desperately. Where the muddy jet touched, the vines were effortlessly severed, they fell coiling lifelessly to the ground. But their sacrifice disrupted the jet, her attack did not penetrate to the stem.

The carriage buckled as it came under attack and Henrrieta was thrown back from the window. The wooden groans were joined by sounds of splintering, the carriage shook and began to roll once more, slowly, painfully, the roof of the carriage was pried free at the protest of wood and nails. The roots and vines began to probe inwards, not more than a few mails from Henrietta.

Beside her, the Cardinal tried to move. "Princess . . . Run . . . Save yourself." Mazarin said deliriously. The princess thought desperately, she could not leave the Cardinal here to face such a fate, but if she were to lure the monster away.

Henrrieta staggered to her feet and incanted once more. A short jet of pressured water slammed into the roots, knocking them out of her way and clearing a path through the gap torn in the roof. The creature seemed surprised and before it could recover, Henrrieta was running, stumbling as she landed on the uneven gravel of the roadway. Henrietta smelled the strange sweetness in the air and felt a faintness overtaking her. She grimaced, this was what had afflicted her Guards. She could not allow herself to inhale the pollen.

Holding her arm over her mouth and nose the princess recited another incantation, summoning together the vapor from the air to form a concealing mist that rolled over the clearing and masked the forest beyond. She did not know by what means the creature sensed its pray but anything to distract it was worth trying, and more importantly, the heavy mist would help to cleanse the pollen from the air.

In the mist the monster loomed, a dark shadow, its outline blotting out the sun. Henrietta stumbled backward, preparing to cast once more. Though her first attack had been thwarted, she had done damage, another triangle class spell might be enough. Then she felt something hard and rough brush against her leg.

Henrrieta screamed as the thing, one of the creature's roots, coiled serpentine about her ankle. The Princess was pulled off of her feet and dragged back through the mist towards the waiting flower. Desperately she began another incantation, the roots whipped past her, lashing at her face and limbs. She almost lost her wand but managed to barely keep hold.

Through the mist she could see the flower clearly once more, it towered above her, its petals and fronds curving up above her head. The vines snaked around her waist, constricting, hoisting her up. The last moments of the unfortunate Mage Knight ran through her mind and she clenched her eyes tightly shut as she felt herself being lifted up, and up, and . . . down?

An intense dry heat washed across the princess's face. Henrrieta felt herself plummeting and then two powerful arms catching her and the rush of suddenly hurtling sideways before becoming still. A voice spoke, deep and rough, "Are you alive, Girl?" Henrietta opened her eyes slowly and went agape.

She knew immediately that the man was not one of her Guards. He was clad all in red, red armor, red cape, and fiery red hair. Even the man's deeply tanned skin gave an impression of redness. When she saw his pointed ears, she almost fainted in terror at the thought that he was an elf, but, she didn't think they made Elves that big. The man looked down at her, violet eyes studying her from beneath thick eyebrows.

"Are you hurt?" The man asked in a deep voice, his accent strange and vaguely reminiscent of a Romalian.

Henrietta shook her head, feeling as if she was in a daze.

"Hmph." The man lowered her to the ground. Standing beside him, her head barely came to the man's sternum. "Stay put and try not to die." The man said. "I have to kill this first. Then you will answer my questions." He turned to face the flower which was now recoiling, shaking to and fro as if the series of events had begun to enrage it.

"A Venus Man Eater." The man muttered out loud. "What a pain. If it gets any closer to the town those cowardly Undines will scatter. It'll be like herding cats to get them back." Without taking his gaze from the monster, he raised his right arm and gestured off past Henrietta. "Mage team. Continue to cast dispell. Lancer Squadron corral the Man Eater from behind."

Henrietta heard the sounds of strange chanting unlike any she had heard before and turned see that they were not alone in the clearing. A dozen other figures had appeared as if from nowhere. Six were garbed in deep red robes and wielded staffs. Mages. The other six wore heavy armor of the same deep red as her rescuer and wielded long lances, though Henrietta could see no mounts.

"B-but Gene-kun!" One of the Lance wielders shouted. "You saw what happened to Garsk and the others we can't . . . That thing might kill us."

The huge man turned his head to his subordinate and with menace said. "And if you disobey me. I will definitely kill you."

The protesting man stiffened in his armor. "Y-yes, General Eugene, Lance Unit, scatter and encircle!" Henrietta watched as translucent red wings formed from the backs of the armored warriors. With only a moment's hesitation they burst forward, skirting across the clearing and surrounding the monster.

As soon as the Lancers took flight, the mages completed their incantation. The strange runes that had inscribed themselves in the air around them were washed away as the ground beneath them glowed. Suddenly a furnace like heat filled the air and the mist Henrietta had cast began to burn away.

The large man, General Eugene unsheathed his own sword, a massive two handed weapon. The same translucent red wings formed on his back and spread themselves wide, then the man seemed to disappear in a cloud of dust. In an instant he had covered the distance between himself and the monster. The flower, again anticipating an attack on its stem, wrapped its remaining vines around itself.

The man swung his blade and it appeared to pass through the vines without severing them. As if the weapon had turned to mist. The flower shook like a tree struck by a hatchet blow and the vines lashed outward desperately before falling as if stunned. Thick sap was oozing from a gash in the stem.

"Lance Unit, strike!" The man ordered.

Cries of "Affirmative!" Came from the surrounding Lancers as they burst into action. In rapid succession they sprinted into the gap in the flower's attacks, born forward by their wings to strike at the stem. Henrietta understood now, the heavy lances and their heavy armor were to lend more weight to their blows, their coordination making up for their unwieldy equipment.

The flower was beginning to shake again. "It's starting to debuff!" General Eugene shouted. "Mages, counter!"

The General and his lancers leapt back as pollen began to fall once more. But before it could fan the spores, the six mages completed another of their spells, the air around the flower began to ripple and the spores started to smolder in midair.

"Lancers, Guard Position." General Eugene shouted and then he was moving again, closing for the finishing blow. The wooden moans emanating from the flower's base began to change and deepen. The writhing of the roots became frenzied.

"No!" One of the Lancers, the one who had protested earlier suddenly shouted, his eyes wide with shock. "General! It's different! The attack patterns have changed! Lance team, fall back!"

A wave of earth emanated from the base of the flower, as if something was moving below. As it passed, the ground cracked and split. The wave grew in the direction of General Eugene and then exploded outward, dark tendrils spearing towards the charging man. The General saw the attack at the last instant but there was no time to stop, his momentum bore him forward. The General roared like a beast of the wild as he swung his sword down into a Guard. The first root struck and was deflected, he shifted the blade and caught another, cleaving it lengthwise. But there was another, and another. They tore into his cape and dented his armor, they found the soft spots, a gap in his flank, and beneath his arm. The General was skewered through his shoulder and side. He stumbled, he fell, his body skidding across the upturned earth, coming to rest mere mails from the bed of roots. The man howled in pain as the roots twisted about, clutching at the one that had dug into his shoulder. His pained cries were swallowed by the moans of the roots as they closed in on him.

Seeing their leader stricken down, the Lancers began to fall into a panic. Their coordination from moments before dissolving. One of them came gliding down beside Henrietta, falling backwards as he landed. Most of his face was obscured by his helm but his eyes were visible, opened wide in terror. She heard him breathing heavily, hyper ventilating.

The man began to babble nonsense. "It's just supposed to be a game. This is just supposed to be a game. It's just a game, oh god, oh god . . . I . . . I . . ."

"Get a hold of yourself." Henrietta grabbed hold of the man's shoulder and shouted at him. "Your General needs you!"

He looked up at her distantly, confused, and then zeroed in on her face, on her eyes. He trembled. "I- I can't. This isn't really . . . This isn't supposed to be real . . . I'm not . . ."

"Look!" Henrietta cried and waved at the battle. Already some of the other Lancers and Mages had fled. Only two of the Lancers and three of the Mages remained, too stricken by fear to move. "Are they not your comrades? Will you abandon them?"

"N-no . . ." The man shook his head fearfully. "B-but . . ."

"Then stand, soldier!" She cried. "I know not your name or creed, but we share one foe. If you can wield your lance, than Guard me as I cast, if you can wield magic, then cast at my side! But first you must stand!"

The man staggered to his feet, using his heavy lance to steady himself. "Th-that mist from earlier, are you an Undine?" The man asked.

What nonsense was this? Henrietta shook her head. "I am a triangle of water." She said. "Tell me, the stem is its weakness, correct?"

The man nodded. "Yes." He said quickly. "Severing the stem completely will kill it. It will be stunned for a brief time after each strike before counter attacking with a debuff or paralyzing pollen, but I've never seen that root wave before."

Henrietta didn't know what a "debuff" was, but the obvious solution was to finish this monster in the next blow. The vines that had once protected the stem were now all but gone, only the viciously churning roots remained to contend with.

"Guard me as I cast." Henrietta instructed the man before beginning her incantation. The abrasion sword was still her best chance. As she cast, another of the roots shot forth. The Lancer beside her intervened, charging forward with a fear filled cry, he hunched down behind his shield. The root struck the Lancer's shield like a bell and the man cried out as he was driven back, his heavy boots digging into the earth. The wings she had seen before flickered to life and extended, lending their power to slow his backwards progress.

"Hurry." He shouted.

Henrietta cast the abrasion sword and the jet of sand and water erupted from the earth before her, questing for the stem of the massive plant. The roots that had been advancing towards the crippled General suddenly threw themselves upward and into the path of the jet, exploding into splinters as they were struck, flying apart violently and unbalancing the questing plant. For a precious instant the jet connected with the stem, eating nearly halfway through before expending itself.

The monster sagged down once more as it repeated its previous pattern. Just as the Lancer had predicted, the flower began to shake in preparation for releasing another blast of pollen. Henrietta prepared herself, her willpower reserves wouldn't last much longer.

A violent gale blew through the clearing, the gathering pollen cloud thinned to nothing. From the amongst the trees a figure was running forth, one of the Griffin Knights who had been forced down. He waved his wand sword before him with one hand, chanting as he went, while clutching down on his hat with the other.

The plant bent towards the oncoming Knight, its petals drooping to touch the ground. Something shot from the center of the flower, long and red and filled with needle like teeth, but the Griffin Knight danced to the side with startling grace. Completing his chant the air around him gathered and condensed into a vortex, stretching, elongating, taking the form of a spear. The spell plunged forth, skewering the plants maw and sending the flower reeling back.

"Princess!" The man shouted. "Now, run!"

The ground around the Griffin Knight exploded as roots plunged up from beneath him. The plant was no longer trying to aim its attacks, now it simply flailed wildly. The roots around the Griffin Knight shattered in a shower of wood splinters and the man staggered forth.

"The Stem!" Henrietta shouted. "You must sever the stem!"

Her Guard made no indication of hearing her but conjured another wave of air needles to shred the roots and clear a path towards the flower. He was already calling forth his next attack when one of the roots grabbed hold of his arm and yanked him to the ground. Henrietta watched as the Knight struggled, hacking at the roots with his blade, when he severed one, another would take its place. The flower was in a shambles, yet it still would not die, would not stop.

Henrietta quivered with fear, with anger, all about her lay her fallen Guards, many of them still breathing, but helpless to defend themselves. At her side, the Lance who had Guarded her, sagged to his knees. "It's over." He whispered, "We've nothing left." The fear had seemed to drain from him with the last of his strength. He struggled to his feet. "You. Girl . . . Run. I'll hold it off. Go, before I change my mind." He said. The man rose shakily and readied himself for a final push.

"I will not abandon my people!" Henrietta protested. Though she didn't know what she could do against this monster, if she ran now, the Guards who had fallen trying to defend her would be eaten alive while they lay defenseless.

Then an inhuman roar rose from amongst the roots. Something was rising, the roots struggled to keep whatever it was pinned. They began to smoke, to smolder. A dome of roots rose as tall as a man and then in a instant were turned to ashes by a brilliant flame that seared at Henrietta's eyes like the sun. When her vision cleared, out of the smoke stood General Eugene. She did not know how he could remain standing. His armor was a shambles, scratched and dented, torn and shorn. Where the roots had struck him, blood oozed around the severed stumps that protruded from his body.

"Mage team!" The man roared, nearly doubling over with the effort. "Cast an attack buff!"

The frozen mages, snapped from their stupor, regaining some of their lost composure. As if seeing the unbelievable had given them new strength, the red clad warriors regrouped. Even the man beside her stood taller, watching his commander.

The chant came fervent and hurried. The runes she had seen scribed in the air earlier came once more, stacking themselves one atop the other. Was this some sort of elemental combination? But if it was, they were stacking far more than four units, they were stacking eight! No, that couldn't be right!

The mages looked up as their spell was completed stretching their hands out towards their General. The man began to glow, outlined by a fearsome red light. He let out one last cry, one last effort, and charged again into the heart of the monster. The remaining roots barred his way, only to be bludgeoned aside, like a berserker, like a wild animal he drove onward, shattering wood and tearing vines until he stood at the stem. His sword described a blood red arc, his blade bit into the stem driving onward as he carried his swing through with all of his might. The stem resisted, it gave, it was smashed to pulp. The sword came to halt a mere finger's width from severing the stem.

The flower ceased its wild thrashing.

Was it over? Henrietta wondered. A low moan issued once more from the base of the plant. "Oh no!" But it was different this time, the sound began to attenuate, to crack, and pop. The flower began to fall backwards, the last inches of its stem severing. With a crash the flower fell to earth like a shorn tree.

"Timber, you bastard." The man beside her breathed.

In the silence that followed, General Eugene sank to his knees, Whatever strength had driven his final attack had faded. Henrietta surveyed the destruction in mute silence. So quickly had the fight begun and so quickly it had ended. Henrietta turned to the Lancer.

"Mister . . ." Henrietta began and then paused, realizing that she had not heard his name during the battle. "What should I call you?" She asked.

"Simply call me Kagemune." The man said before the strength vanished from his legs and he sagged to the earth.

"A strange name." Henrietta frowned. "What of my Guards? You said the flower paralyzes its victims."

The man nodded. "Yes . . . If . . ." He took a breath, his voice was shaking. "If the pollen works as it should . . ." He sounded uncertain. "Then they should begin to recover in about half an hour."

Henrietta felt relief wash over her. "Thank the Founder." She whispered.  
A rustling came from the roots of the dead plant and the Griffin Knight that had struck the beast rose from the still tendrils. Though his clothes were torn and he had lost his hat, he appeared unharmed, another blessing. Henrietta began to walk towards the defeated monster, pausing for a moment at the edge of its bed of roots to confirm that it was, in fact, dead, before wading into the mess.

"Princess." The Knight called. "Are you unharmed?"

Henrietta nodded. "Thanks to these strangers, yes."

The man eyed the red clad group warily. "My Lady, who are these people?"

"I do not rightly know . . ." She hesitated, not recalling the man's name.

"Viscount Wardes, My Lady, Captain of your Griffin Knights." Wardes offered.

The princess nodded to her Knight. "Thank you Captain, I do not know if the creature would have been slain without your help." Before Wardes could respond, Henrietta heard the panicked voices of the red garbed men. The remaining mages and Lancers who had not run were gathered around their General. The lancers were applying pressure to his wounds while the mages began to cast their spells, but half way through their incantation, the strange runes began to unravel and fade away.

"I'm out of mana." One mage shouted.

"Me too." His companion said.

"We were so concentrated on the battle, we didn't keep a reserve."

"Commander Kagemune, what about you?"

The Lancer who had come to Henrietta's aid shook his head. "I'm exhausted as well from earlier." The man grimaced.

"K-Kagemune-san." General Eugene was still conscious. He gave a pained smile to his subordinate. "I see you didn't run away, so I suppose I won't kill you . . . I will leave the punishment of your cowardly subordinate to you.

"Gene-kun!" Kagemune whispered. "Please Sir, hold on."

"Tell my brother . . . tell my brother . . ."

A faint glow began to emanate around the generals wounds and his gathered subordinates turned to see Henrietta, wand in hand, beginning to incant.

"My lady, his ears, he's an Elf!" Wardes hissed beside her and clamped a hand down on her shoulder.

"If these men are truly Elves, then there is no escape for us Captain." Henrietta said. "But for now, this man has saved my life, so I shall save his."

"Please Miss. Save our General!" Kagemune pleaded and bowed his head until it touched the ground .

"Princess." Wardes growled.

"Captain Wardes." Henrietta said sternly. "Cardinal Mazarin is still in the wreck of my carriage. I stabilized his condition earlier but I would like you to attend to him."

The Knight looked at his Princess in disbelief and then to the gathered group of mages and Lancers and took a slow step back, and then another, but he obeyed.

"What are you . . ." Eugene began only to stop as Henrietta placed a hand against his shoulder.

"Please stay still and try not to die." Henrietta said, focused on her task. "I have to save you. And then you will please answer my questions."

End of Chapter 2


	6. Chapter 3 Part 1

Chapter 3 Part 1  
Kirigaya Kazuto, Kirito, former Beater of SAO, and now a Spriggan from the world of ALfheim online, found himself traveling at a leisurely trot atop the back of a rather large stallion. At his back, the Sylph swordswoman Leafa, his sister Suguha in real life, swayed gently from side to side with the gate of the horse. They both road with their hands bound before them, one of their escorts, a small blue haired girl, lead their horse from atop her own mount.

Their escorts had first been on edge around them, but as they journeyed onward and neither Kirito nor Leafa made any threatening movements, they had become resigned to the situation. Only the high strung blonde boy continued to cast them suspicious glances. As they traveled, Kirito turned an ear to the conversation among the three, mostly between the red haired woman and the blonde boy.

From their comments it appeared that the small girl was named Tabitha, the tall one was called Kirche, and the blonde boy was named Guiche. Aside from that, nothing they said made much sense to Kirito.

Even the most dedicated VMMORPG players had to brake from character from time to time, especially when the play environment had just been radically shifted. Even in the death game of SAO, where the virtual world had become like real life for many of the players, the illusion had never persisted for very long. It was as if Guiche, Tabitha, and Kirche really believed that they were students at a magic academy, and none of his questions so far had lead any of them to indicate the contrary. Though he had not yet dismissed the possibility that they were some sort of NPC, so far, that did not seem to be the case either.

"Kirito-kun?" Leafa whispered at his back.

"Hmm?"

"What you said earlier, you don't really think that right? How can people not know that they're in VR?"

"I really don't know." He admitted. "That was just my impression from speaking to Professor Colbert. It's just one theory. I definitely don't think it's possible to not know that you're in a virtual environment. Not within the limits of the AMUsphere or Nerve Gear."

"But they're not NPCs." Leafa reasoned. "Or, I don't think they are. You don't either, do you Onii-chan?"

Kirito nodded. "Yeah. That means they're definitely real people . . ."

"W-what are you Elves whispering about!" The boy, Guiche, suddenly interrupted. He shot a nervous glance at the two of them.

"We're just wondering about this land." Kirito said. "Since we've never heard of it."

"Yet you're speaking Tristanian." The girl, Kirche, observed.

"Is that what it sounds like to you?" Kirito asked. They seemed to him to be speaking in oddly accented Japanese, so the system auto translate was still working. "Like I said, we've never heard of Tristain or the Brimiric Kingdoms until today. I wouldn't mind hearing more about this land."

"A likely ploy to gather information!" Guiche accused. "A son of the Grammond family will never reveal military secrets to an Elf!" Guiche babbled on but Kirito had already tuned him out. From the looks of Guiche's companions, they were doing their best to do the same.

"Guiche, give it up. If they say they don't know, then maybe they really don't." Kirche said.

"B-but, that's preposterous!" The boy shouted. "Humans and elves have been mortal enemies for six thousand years! How could they have never heard of Brimir, or Halkegenia?"

"Not elves." Tabitha said suddenly. "Maybe."

"But their ears! And that strange magic!" Guiche defended.

"Maybe." Tabitha repeated.

"Well, it's still a ways to the Academy, it can't hurt to tell them things every commoner knows." Kirche decided out loud. "Like we told you earlier, we're currently in the Kingdom of Tristain, one of the four Brimiric Kingdoms, that along with Germania, reside on the continent of Halkegenia."

"Brimiric Kingdoms?" Leafa asked.

"Those nations whose royalty can claim direct descent from the Founder Brimir himself." Kirche  
explained. "I'm guessing that if you don't know what the Brimiric Kingdom's are you wouldn't have heard of the Founder either."

Kirito and Leafa shook their heads in unison.

"Brimir was the Sacred Founder of the magic system of Halkegenia. It is said that he wielded the  
Sacred Element of Void to create the four lesser elements of Magic, that is, Fire, Water, Earth, and Wind. The Royal families of each of the Brimiric Kingdoms derive their right to rule from their descent from the Founder." Kirche explained.

"Okay, that makes sense." Kirito said recalling classes and documentaries on history, connection to a sacred holy figure, a savior or a sun goddess, became justification to rule. "So where are these different Kingdoms in relation to where we are right now?"

"Well, we're almost dead in the middle of Tristain right now. Germania is to the North and East." Kirche said. "And Gallia borders Tristain to the south. Romalia is on a peninsula on the other side of Gallia, and Albion is . . .hmmm, what's today . . . Oh it'd be over the sea a bit to the north west right now."

Right now? Kirito wondered but didn't say anything as Kirche continued.

"Far to the East of Gallia and Germania are the Elven lands that exist beyond the mountains. So, where you're from."

"We're not Elves." Leafa said, but her heart wasn't really into arguing.

"Then, what are you?" Tabitha asked quietly.

"The names probably don't mean much to you, but Leafa here is a Sylph." Kirito explained. "And I'm a Spriggan." He smiled, "Though really, I'm more of a wandering swordsman than anything."

"So you really mean what you said about being Faeries?" Kirche asked with interest. "They're just legends you know."

"Giant Tree." Tabitha said.

"Yes, yes, I know dear." Kirche said and glanced over her shoulder at the World Tree.

"I think we may mean different things by Faeries." Kirito said. "And I definitely don't think we're from the Elven lands. The land we're from is surrounded on all sides by water for as far as the eye can see." Kirito glanced to Guiche, "I guess these Elves must be pretty powerful if you're so afraid of them."

Both Tabitha and Kirche stiffened in their saddles.

"Powerful?" Guiche said in a brittle voice. "Powerful? They can only make pacts with the spirits of the land and use their heathen magics to lay waste to entire armies!" Guiche said. "They can become one with the land, invisible to detection until they strike! A single elf warrior is a match for a full square class mage!"

"You know Guiche, if they are elves, you're paying them a compliment." Kirche said teasingly.

"Is that so?" Kirito said and then grinned. "It sounds like they're pretty tough. I wonder if I could beat one."

"Wuh-bb-but -" Guiche fell over his own words before babbling an ill thought out retort.

Kirche didn't seem to really believe Kirito's bravado, but continued to answer his questions as they approached the castle. The conversation left Kirito reasonably sure she was not an NPC. Which left him with only one theory, if the world that was being perceived was indistinguishable from reality, and the people they met could not be distinguished as NPCs, the conclusion was that they must treat this world as reality. Kirito frowned, unless of course he was hallucinating.

Before too long the castle began to rise before them, the overall structure consisting of a curtain wall connecting five outer towers, all of which surrounded a center tower. It resembled a European castle, like the ones on Postcards, more than it did anything from the history of Kirito's own homeland or the environs of ALfheim.

"Wait." Tabitha said softly, bringing the group to a halt. She brought her horse up alongside Kirito and Leafa. "Hands." She ordered.

"You can't mean to unbind them!" Guiche said startled.

The girl looked to Guiche. "Looks suspicious." She said.

"Tabitha's right. We don't want people thinking we brought back criminals, the guards would definitely want to inspect them. We should be okay this close to the castle." Kirche elaborated. "Come to think of it, the head coverings look a little suspicious too." She frowned thoughtfully before perking up. "How about something like this." Kirche recited a short enchantment and handkerchiefs rippled through the colors of the rainbow before settling into jet back and light green respectively.

The smaller girl gave Kirche an annoyed look as Kirito and Leafa examined the changed cloth. "Oh, I'll change them back later." Kirche defended.

"I guess Halkegenian magic has a lot of utility." Kirito mumbled to himself.

"B-but . . . " Guiche stuttered.

"Well, you can always look at it this way." Kirche commented. "If the guards take an interest, and they really are elves, then these two won't have any choice but to fight their way out. Am I right?" She nodded to Kirito.

"I'd really like to avoid it." Kirito said in the sweetest voice he could muster.

"Besides you're going to have to take them off soon anyway. We can't walk them through the school like prisoners. It would raise too many questions." Kirche continued.

Guiche seemed ready to burst, and then, with a shake of his head. "Fine!" Drawing his rose he gestured to the manacles and with a short incantation they began crumbling back into earth. "Are you happy now?" He asked Kirche.

"Yup!" The girl said cheerfully.

They were greeted at the gate by a group of guards wielding crossbows and halberds. "Halt, who goes there?" One of the guards challenged before recognizing the riders. "Oh, Lady Tabitha it's you." The man said politely. "Where is Professor Colbert? He left with you, didn't he?"

"Important business." Tabitha said tonelessly.

The man glanced to Kirito and Leafa. For a moment, Kirito wondered if his headband had come undone.

"Messengers." Tabitha answered the guard's unasked question. "Going to speak with the Headmaster."

The man nodded hesitantly and signaled for them to be allowed past. Kirito felt a wave of relief as they passed through the gate and into the castle's courtyard. Where they found themselves face to face with a dragon.

Kirito nearly fell out of the saddle as the creature settled to the earth before them, hand instinctively reaching for his absent sword. Fortunately, he managed to catch himself in time and then nearly fell again as Leafa grabbed his shoulders to catch her own balance. The dragon was unlike any he had seen in either ALfheim or SAO. Its body was sleek and long and its nose terminated in a rounded beak like snout that was almost cute. It studied the group like a small child before zeroing in on Tabitha.

"Kyuiii!" The dragon chirped. Not roared, not growled, chirped.

Tabitha road forward and placed a hand against the dragon's offered snout. "Okay, Sylphid." She whispered softly. "Not hurt. Go back and wait."

The dragon cocked its head off to the side and then chirped again. "Kyuiii." Before spreading its wings, and with a gust of wind, took back to the skies. Kirito watched as it ascended and then glided back down towards the far side of the castle.

The party dismounted at the stables situated next to the gate. Kirito helped his sister down from the horse gingerly, both of them were stiff from the ride.

"You okay Sugu?"

"Mmm." His sister nodded. "But my back really hurts." The Sylph swordswoman stretched her arms. "I guess I'm not made for the saddle. How about you?"

Kirito smiled, "I have some experience with mounts, so I'm okay."

Beyond the curtain wall, the castle grounds consisted of a wide open courtyard ringed by a few odd outbuildings and herb beds. Clusters of young people in the same uniform as Tabitha, Kirche, and Guiche, were scattered about, either standing near the buildings or actively patrolling the courtyard. Scattered among them were older figures, no doubt instructors, giving directions. The school seemed to be on high alert.

Tabitha went to converse with a group of the instructor standing watch beside the stables while Kirche and Guiche did their best to keep their curious fellow students at bay. Their arrival was met by more than a few odd looks and comments.

"Did you go all the way to that Tree?"

"What was it like?"

"It's some kind of illusion right? It can't be real."

"Where's Professor Colbert?"

"Who are these two?"

"They're Messengers we met along the way. They're here to see the Headmaster, don't crowd them." Kirche announced and started pushing through the crowd of curious onlookers. As they passed Kirito's ears perked  
at some of the comments.

"Messengers? They don't look like mages, are they commoners, foreigners?"

"Look at his hair, and his skin is so pale!"

"Maybe he's from Rub'al Khali."

"Do you think?"

"Do you think they know what happened?"

"What sort of girl wears pants like that?"

"It's so undignified!"

"But look at her chest!"

"And her legs!"

Kirito's hand twitched idly.

Leafa simply scowled and ignored the comments, sticking close to her brother's side. Tabitha returned from speaking with the teachers and waved for them to follow.

Their destination seemed to be the base of the tower at the center of the castle grounds. Along the way they received more odd looks and more whispered comments, but their small party, lead by Tabitha, was given a wide berth by the assembled students and faculty. Any questions about their identity or destination were dispelled almost instantly by Tabitha with comments of "Official Business".

They were led into a large room, a dining hall, where the students and faculty were hurrying to and fro. A wizened old man, face obscured by a long beard, was standing, leaning on his staff, while conversing with the gathered faculty. Tabitha walked straight up to him, ignoring the cue that had built up and beckoned for him to lean down.

"Ah, Miss Tabitha" The man said.

Tabitha whispered something into his ear. Whatever it was caused the Headmaster to become instantly alert. The man stood back up and turned to look directly at Kirito and Leafa, stroking his beard thoughtfully.

"My, is that so?"

Tabitha nodded solemnly.

The old man looked back to Kirito and Leafa and then to his gathered staff. "I apologize, but an  
important matter has come to my attention. Please direct your requests to my Secretary." He nodded to a green  
haired woman at his side. "Miss Longueville." He gave the woman a small pat on her posterior and with surprising grace, disentangled himself from the crowd.

The young woman perked up in surprise. "Hey, wait but . . ." Before she could say anything more the  
pack of students and faculty closed in on her.

"Miss Tabitha, Miss Zerbst, Mister Grammond, your guests, please come with me." The old man gestured for the group to follow him. They departed from the hall and took a flight of spiraling stares high up into the tower which deposited them before a pair of large oaken doors that were deeply inscribed with runes. At the center of one of the doors, at eye level, a small brass placard was engraved with text. The old man tapped his staff against the placard and a soft click issued from the doors.

Beyond the doorway lay a large office, comfortably furnished, that seemed to take up most of the floor. After closing the door he muttered something under his breath and described a small circle with his staff. A flash of greenlight briefly issued from thin air. Satisfied, he looked at Kirito and then Leafa before removing a pipe from his robes and placing it delicately in his mouth.

"Now what am I forgetting." The man mumbled. "Ah yes, my manners." He took the pipe from his mouth. "Allow me to introduce myself, I am known as Osmond, Old Osmond if you prefer, Headmaster of this Academy."

"Old Osmond?" Kirito asked, "That seems like a strange title."

"Kirito-kun!" Leafa hissed in his ear. "Don't be rude!"

The old man took a puff of his pipe. "It's quite alright, when you've lived as long as I have, being called 'Old' becomes rather a compliment I should think."

Just how old was this person? Kirito wondered.

The man looked them both over. "Now then, Elves is it? Show me." Far from being an order, the voice carried a note of almost grandfatherly concern.

Kirito and Leafa undid their handkerchiefs so that the Headmaster could see their ears. The man circled them slowly, examining them from every angle. At Kirito's side, Leafa fidgeted nervously.

"Hmmm."

"What?" Leafa asked.

"They do indeed appear to be the ears of an Elf." Osmond decided. "Though I've never seen or heard of an Elf with dark hair and eyes, and your accents are not what I would expect. Most peculiar."

"Might not be elves." Tabitha said.

"Indeed, you mentioned that." Osmond replied. "If you would give your report, Miss Tabitha."

The girl seemed to frown at the request, though Kirito couldn't be sure. She blinked her eyes rapidly  
and her lips thinned. "Departed at ten hundred hours, traveled due south for two hours."

"She means that we left the academy with Professor Colbert at ten of the lock and got about halfway to the tree." Kirche explained glancing to Tabitha for confirmation. The smaller girl nodded.

"Observed change in the Flora and Fauna." Tabitha said.

"The plants and animals we saw in the direction of the tree were different. Professor Colbert agreed." Kirche elaborated.

"That's right." Guiche agreed. "And the terrain has changed too."

"Were spotted by elves." Tabitha glanced to Kirito. "Maybe not elves." She added.

"Meaning?" Osmond asked.

"Claim to be Fairies. One had ears like a cat." The pale girl blushed as she pantomimed cat's  
ears. "Another had dark skin and red hair." She added.

"He would have made a handsome Germanian." Kirche agreed thoughtfully.

"Then perhaps a demihuman." Osmond said, "An alliance? Ah, well, go on." Osmond puffed against at his pipe.

"Flew using an enchantment. We hid. Got spotted." Tabitha frowned. "They had the element of surprise and the high ground but surrendered both. These two, Kirito and Leafa," She pointed to the two faeries "Talked with Professor Colbert. Offered themselves, collateral, for the Professor to speak to their leaders." Tabitha, finished with her report, rubbed gently at her throat.

"She means that they got the drop on us, but they didn't want to fight." Kirche said. "They say that there's a town at the base of that tree that got transported along with it."

"This is indeed very peculiar." Osmond said. "You claim not to be Elves then?"

Kirito nodded, "I'm a Spriggan and Leafa is a sylph."

"Spriggans and Sylphs?" Osmond mused, "Like the old tales of Albion? You certainly do not look like the ghost of a giant nor a spirit of the wind. But perhaps there is half a truth to what you say." The man stroked his beard. "And you said they flew using magic and not mounts?"

"Does that matter?" Kirche asked.

"Indeed." Osmond said. "No doubt you all know that Elves are uniformly powerful Mages. Unlike our own elemental magic, they use the magic of the firstborns, magic that calls upon the spirits of the land to assist them. Elves dislike using their magic while flying, as it makes it more difficult for them to call upon the spirits of the land for aid. So it is quite strange to here of one using magic to fly, they prefer airships or mounts."

"How do you know that, Headmaster?" Guiche asked.

"Ah, well, even I was once Young Osmond." The man said with a hint of mirth.

Was this person even taking them seriously? Kirito began to wonder.

"The surest way to tell if they are elves would be to examine their magic." Osmond said thoughtfully. "Could either of you cast something, a small spell perhaps."

"Headmaster!" Guiche stepped forward in protest. "Certainly you wouldn't allow them to use their magic here of all places!"

"Calm yourself Mister Grammond." The headmaster admonished.

Kirito frowned as he thought, he'd memorized a few useful spells, but most of them weren't appropriate for a small demonstration. "Sorry, but I don't think you'd want me to use any of my spells in here." Kirito apologized.

Leafa stepped forward. "I think I know one that might be harmless enough."

"Very well." Osmond said. "Please, proceed when you are ready."

Leafa closed her eyes and took a breath before beginning to speak. The spell sounded a bit like a song spoken in a foreign tongue. As Leafa recited, the air around her glowed and was inscribed with circling runes. With each verse, more of the runes came to a stop, stacking one atop the other before her. Leafa's voice rose as she neared the end of the incantation and the runes glowed brightly before collapsing and collecting down into a single point of flickering light. The light bobbed in the air before drifting to hover beside Guiche. The boy leapt back in surprise only to be followed by the light.

"Interesting." Osmond said. "And what is the purpose of this spell?" Osmond's brow raised. "Miss Leafa?"

Kirito noticed his sister touching a hand to her head. "Are you okay Leafa?" He asked.

The Sylph nodded slowly. "Mmm, just felt like deja vu." She nodded to the flickering light which on closer inspection resembled a firefly. "It's called a searching tracer." Leafa explained. "It's a spell that takes the form of a small animal or insect and then follows a specific target. The caster can sense the location of the tracer and use it to follow someone at a distance."

"I see." Osmond said. "An interesting skill. In any case, those incantations were not any Elven magics that I recognize, nor were the runes ones that I am familiar with. Perhaps you can tell us your story and how you came to be in this land."

"That might take a while." Kirito said.

"We have time." Osmond replied.

"You probably won't believe us." Kirito added.

"I've always enjoyed a good tale, one way or the other." The Headmaster assured and gestured for those gathered to take seats.

Kirito settled down beside Leafa and churned over what he had heard and seen so far.

"Before I begin, I have to ask to be certain. None of you have ever heard the terms ALfheim, AMUsphere or Nerve Gear?"

The gathered students and Old Osmond all shook their heads.

"Then what about Virtual Reality, or the country of Japan?"

Again the answer was negative.

"Then." Kirito said. "There is one last thing I have to ask. I'll know the answer based on your response." Kirito sat up straight. "Quest Pause." He said flatly.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Kirche asked.

Kirito nodded slowly. "Then, this really isn't a game." He said quietly.

Those gathered looked confused at his comment.

"Onii-chan?" Leafa whispered. "What are you talking about?" Leafa eyes were wide and confused and fearful. "You don't mean that, right?"

Kirito tried to be strong for his sister, he smiled reassuringly and gently squeezed her hand. "It's okay, Sugu. We'll figure this out."

He looked back to Old Osmond and gathered his thoughts. At this point all of his theories were exhausted. The only conclusion was that, somehow, this was their reality. Kirito's thoughts spiraled in a million directions as he tried to make sense of how that was possible, and more importantly, what it implied in his quest to find Asuna. Kirito began. "The land we came from is called ALfheim, the Land of the Faeries. It is a continent surrounded on all sides by oceans for as far as the eye can see, and at its center resides the World Tree."

"You mean that giant shrub?" Kirche asked.

"Mmm. It is said that at the top of the tree lives the Fairy King Oberon and that the first of the faerie races to prove their worthiness and reach the top of the World Tree will be rewarded with an audience before the King and be reborn as a legendary faerie race, the ALFs, light faeries whose wings never tire. The fairy races have struggled against one another to reach the top, but none have succeeded. From the outside, the crest of the world tree is protected by an impenetrable barrier, the only way up is through the trunk which is defended by an army of Guardian Knights that have repelled every attempt to defeat them. Some believe the quest may be impossible, the joke of a cruel King."

Kirito laced his fingers before him. "That is the world we came from, but it not the world we are from . . ."


	7. Chapter 3 Part 2

Chapter 3 Part 2

As Kirito, Leafa, and his students disappeared into the distance. Colbert turned to the gathered . . . Well, for now he supposed he would call them Faeries as they insisted they be called. Kirito had instilled enough doubt to give them that courtesy.

"Now then, I suppose we should set out. Just how far off is this Arrun?"

KoKo's cheerful smile suddenly froze and her ears slowly sank. "Erm."

"I beg your pardon?" Colbert asked.

Both of the green haired Fairies were shaking their heads.

"What is it?" Colbert asked more concerned.

"It's just that, it just occurred to me, but, Arrun," KoKo pointed towards the World Tree, "Is on the other side of that, and we're", she pointed to the ground at their feet, "All the way over here."

"Taking this road we won't get close to the road to Arrun for hours on foot." Carmond finished with a sigh. "Kirito didn't think this through, did he?"

"Nye-he-he." KoKo laughed sheepishly. "I guess it would be too embarrassing to chase them down now and ask for a horse."

Colbert let out a sigh of relief. "Is that all?" He asked.

"Erm, yeah, that's a pretty big deal. I guess we could carry you." KoKo suggested thoughtfully. "At least, Carmond here is probably strong enough." The big, red armored man nodded.

"Ah well, if I might suggest, I could cast a levitation spell."

"Wait, you can fly?" KoKo asked and then smacked her head gently. "Oy, that's right, Academy of Magic, you're a wizard!"

"A mage." Colbert corrected. "It's a simple enough spell, a dot mage of any element can manage it well enough." Colbert explained. "Though if it as far as you say . . . " Colbert surveyed the distance. The World Tree was still some ways away. "I might have trouble casting it for that long."

"So, this levitation thing, is it easier when you just have to keep yourself in the air?" KoKo asked.

"Well, yes." Colbert said. "Levitation alone isn't too strenuous but traveling very far can be exhausting."

KoKo rubbed her chin. "Okay, maybe we can tow you."

"Tow?"

"Yeah." The cat eared woman confirmed. Reaching down to her belt she started to unreal a thin spool of some translucent cord.

"What is that?" Colbert asked.

"A super special Cait Syth item", the woman winked cheerfully, "Its woven from the silk of tame Terrorantulas." Reaching around Colbert's waist and shoulders, she tied a secure knot and then handed one end of the line to Carmond. "Think you can pull that big guy?"

The large man nodded and tied the line around his own waist.

"See." KoKo said, "Now you just have to keep yourself in the air, leave the flying to me and Carmond." A set of glossy yellow wings began to take shape from the woman's back without any sign of focus or incantation, and she settled her helmet back onto her head. "Whenever you're ready."

Colbert nodded and raised his staff to begin the incantation. In a moment he was rising gently off the ground alongside the Faeries. "Hey, Clyde, Emshael, we're going to take it easy back to Arrun, you guys should go ahead and tell Alicia Rue and Lady Sakuya that we're bringing back a guest. We'll meet them at the top of Arrun tower."

The green haired faeries extended their wings and with a light kick, parted ways with the ground and streaked off in the direction of the World Tree.

"Okay, we'll go nice and slow for you Professor, just, uhm, try not to look down." KoKo said as her translucent yellow wings extended.

"I'll be quite alri-aye!" In an eye blink, Colbert felt himself being pulled into the air. The silk cord tied around his waist bit into his back as the world fell away beneath him and the sky seemed to fly forward to meet him. Colbert clung white knuckled to his staff and focused on maintaining the levitation spell, he was no stranger to flight, but suddenly exposed, at this height, and this velocity, under the control of someone else, the sensation of flying through the air was more akin to falling. KoKo and Carmond flew ahead of him dragging him through the sky like the tail of a comet.

After a few long, terrifying moments, the two Faeries leveled out and began to cruise at a leisurely pace towards the World Tree, their wings glimmering in the sun. Colbert finally got his racing heart under control and began to take note of his surroundings. From the sky, the changes to the land were plain as day. The open fields surrounding the academy gave way to a mixture of forests and plains spanning off towards the world Tree. Strangely, the roadway, the very one that connected the Academy to the nearby towns, appeared to wind unabated through the forests as if it had always been there.

All of Colbert's fear and misgivings were cast aside as their flight took them around the trunk of the World Tree and he caught his first sight of Arrun. He felt that the boy, Kirito, had somewhat deceived him. Arrun was not a town as he had expected, it was a full-fledged city.

Nestled in the roots of the World Tree, Arrun rose up, spiraling around the base of an enormous central spire that seemed itself to be nothing but a twig besides the Bulk of the World Tree. From the air Colbert could see how the main thoroughfares coiled and turned, like tributary rivers, slowly winding their way around the tower, merging until they met at a vast central plaza at the tower's base. A single main road snaked from the city's main gate, impossibly wide and lined with trees, colorful banners, and tiled fountains like the Promenades that surrounded the Royal Palace. The buildings that lined the wide roads and boulevards grew from one and two story homes, shops, and villas near the city limits, into more luxurious residents and businesses as one approached the center. The buildings around the central square were as tall as cathedrals and possessed rooftop gardens that from the air gave even the heart of the city a sense of vibrant life. Colbert had seen the great cities of Halkegenia, but even he had to admit that Arrun was a beautiful place.

Perhaps because of this municipal familiarity, as they overflew the city, the Professor started to pick out peculiarities. The city was arranged like a fortress town, with thick stone walls and gateway arches separating the city into districts, but the walls were bereft of walkways or firing crenulations for archers or cannons, and not gates hung from the massive arches. But that begged the question, why would a flying race construct a walled city in the first place?

Fortress walls made sense because they could force attackers into a siege, a Fortress would be garrisoned with enough mages and commoner soldiers to overwhelm an attack that came from the air, and the relatively short walls could be heavily reinforced by both design and the Mages within. Spread over a city, the walls lost much of their advantage, especially against a race that could so casually fly. Were they merely aesthetic? Or, Colbert wandered, was flight really such a common thing? Perhaps they had fought often with land bound races, such as humans, the soldier in him thought.

Other things appeared wrong as they overflew the center of the city. The streets were bereft of people. Shops and stalls stood unattended, their doors shuts, window shutters closed. Only a handful of solitary figures stood watch on roof tops or flew at low altitude. A curfew, the old soldier in Colbert said. But it was more than that, the city felt half abandoned.

The two Faeries and their accompanying mage made their final approach on the central tower, the huge structure seemed to be as much built as hewn from one of the World Tree's gigantic roots. Balconies and platforms ringed the top of the tower. Colbert could see more of the Faeries flitting about, coming and going. Here at last, there seemed to be some activity.

Colbert felt his feet touch solid ground with an overwhelming sense of relief. KoKo settled to the ground beside him and removed her helm. Her ears perked up almost instantly and she gave Colbert a grin and a pat on the back before untying the line around his waist.

"S'pose flying doesn't agree with you." She said.

"Flying?" Colbert muttered. "No, I have no problem with flying. Atop a griffin, or a dragon, or a good solid ship." Colbert shook his head. "But that, yes, I do believe I might perchance walk back."

"Nyah-ha-ha." KoKo laughed. "Sorry, sorry, I wasn't trying to terrify you, but well, you volunteered." She defended.

"And I've no one but myself to blame." Colbert agreed weakly.

Across the broad platform, dozens of Faeries were busy coming and going with messages or conversing with their fellows. Many were adorned in armor resembling that worn by KoKo and Carmond, others were strangely dressed in robes or hooded travelers garb. Colbert was surprised to note the variation among the Faeries, both in their form and dress. The Professor spotted at very least a dozen heads that sported the same feline ears as KoKo, while many of the others possessed the blonde hair, fair skin, and delicate features displayed by Leafa and associated with elves, the resemblance was certainly uncanny. He saw one giant of a man, dark skinned, his arms tattooed with strange runes and logos, though his ears were pointed, no one would dare mistake him for an elf. Still others had the same ashen skin and dark hair as Kirito or the tan skin and fiery red hair of Carmond. A few childish figures, red eyed and pail skinned, flitted amongst the gathered crowd on delicate violet wings.

In the distance one of the green haired Faeries from earlier, Emshael, waved to them from the direction of the tower. Colbert followed behind KoKo and Carmond as they approached a doorway leading into the Tower interior. Two squat, powerful looking creatures, vaguely akin to fire dragons and festooned in armor, stood guard at the doorway, a pair of the cat eared Faeries riding upon their backs. Colbert followed his escorts closely as the animals shook their heads and growled lowly, watching him with beady eyes.

The doorway opened into a wide, domed atrium. Light spilled down from windows ringing the high walls and was cast wide by a set of polished brass reflectors that turned slowly in a cradle driven by clockwork, though at the moment the device seemed to be out of alignment, casting light unevenly across the chamber.

Standing before the mechanism were Clyde, Emshael, and two other figures. One of the figures was short, almost a child, with golden hair and large cat like ears. The other, Colbert's heart skipped a beat.

Colbert had seen many lands and met many people in his time as both a soldier and a scholar. He was no more a stranger to beautiful women then he was to beautiful cities. Even so, the woman standing beside Clyde and Emshael was very lovely. She was pale skinned with long dark hair that fell silkily bellow her waist. Standing tall with straight posture and poise befitting a noble woman, her hands clasped before her, face composed and serene. Bright green eyes, unusually shaped, regarded him thoughtfully. Her figure was garbed in strange, light green robes that were tied at her wasit. If not for the pointed ears, he could have mistaken her for some exotic creature from beyond Rub'al Khali.

The woman bowed her head graciously to Colbert. "I am Lady Sakuya of the Sylphs." She said, voice as clear as a bell.

"And I'm Alicia Rue, Leader of the Cait Syth." The girl beside her raised her hand, bouncing easily on the balls of her feet as if filled with pent up energy. Colbert felt some dismay that this cat like girl could be one of the Leaders that Kirito had been so insistent he meet.

"I am Professor Jean Colbert of the Tristain Academy of Magic, a young man named Kirito asked that I meet with you." Colbert said.

Lady Sakuya placed a hand to her forehead. "Going off without telling us first. I see that Kirito and Leafa have disobeyed me. Honestly, those two must have thought it would be better to beg forgiveness then ask for permission."

"Looks like that Spriggan is teaching your girl some bad habits." Alicia Rue snickered.

"It's not funny at a time like this." Lady Sakuya sighed and looked back to Colbert. "Though if Kirito was willing to make himself a hostage, he probably thought it was important." The dark haired woman frowned. "The Tristain Academy of Magic? Alicia, have you ever heard of it?"

"Doesn't sound like anything from ALfheim." The cat eared girl said. "Maybe another VRMMO?"

What did that mean? Colbert wondered, he was about to ask when Lady Sakuya replied. "There aren't that many on the market are there?"

"Excu-" Colbert tried to speak.

"Eh, maybe American?" Alicia Rue suggested.

He decided to wait until the mystifying conversation came to a pause.

"Mmm, it does sound like the system auto translate." Lady Sakuya said doubtfully, she looked at Colbert with a troubled expression.

"Pardon me." Colbert said, "But I believe that I am quite lost. What are you ladies talking about?"

Alicia Rue blinked in surprise. Lady Sakuya's expression darkened.

"You know. Another VRMMO, our latest theory is something's got the game scrambled." Alicia said.

Game?

"Alicia." Sakuya said quiety.

"Yeah, Yui-chan mentioned that ALfheim uses the same engine as SAO, I think most of others do too. Maybe the servers got borked or cross connected, maybe a virus, that sort of thing? Could that do it?"

"Alicia." Sakuya repeated more loudly.

"Cause there's definitely no place called Tristain in ALfheim." Alicia continued. "And I've definitely never seen an avatar that didn't belong to one of the Fairy Races."

Colbert was rather lost by the strange terms that came easily from the lips of his hosts. Lady Sakuya leaned down and whispered in Alicia Rue's ear. The ears stood up as the girls eyes went wide. "But that doesn't make any sense Sakuya-chan!"

"Even so, we should continue this conversation elsewhere." Lady Sakuya said. "Away from prying eyes. Professor, please follow me."

Ringing the atrium were hallways that ran around the perimeter of the tower. At the end of one of these hallways was an office with large windows that looked out over Arrun and the surrounding countryside. Carmond had placed an arm across the doorway, barring KoKo and the others from entering behind Colbert.

"We'll keep watch out here ma'am." Carmond said.

"Thank you." Lady Sakuya nodded as she shut the door.

Colbert nearly jumped out of his skin as something small and fast shot past his face. At first he thought it was an insect, or perhaps a humming bird, but on closer inspection it looked like a flower, no, that was just what it was wearing. It had the form of a beautiful little girl, hovering in the air before Lady Sakuya and Alicia Rue. She was no bigger than a sparrow, pale and slip thin with long black hair. Tiny translucent wings sprouted from her back like those of the Faeries in miniature.

"Is Poppa back?" The girl asked, voice anxious.

Alicia Rue smiled and gently plucked the girl from the air. "I'm sorry Yui-chan but your Poppa is still working to sort this all out. He sent this nice man to talk to us so we can get done faster."

The tiny girl gave a troubled nod and cast Colbert a suspicious look before flitting over to stand on Lady Sakuya's shoulder, using one of the woman's bangs to keep her balance. "Who are you and what have you done with Poppa?" The girl asked seriously.

"I am Professor Jean Colbert, how do you do?" He said, confused. "And, your Poppa?"

"She means Kirito." Lady Sakuya explained. "Allow me to introduce you, this is Yui."

Colbert blinked very rapidly as he tried to understand. "You mean that she is that young man's daughter?"

The girl nodded seriously. Colbert's mind turned over this new tidbit of information and waited for Lady Sakuya to further elaborate.

"Something like that." Lady Sakuya said. "I wouldn't think too hard about it." She advised as she settled down behind a large wooden desk and gestured for Colbert to take a seat. The girl on her shoulder sat down and hid herself partially behind one of Sakuya's bangs. "We've more pressing matters to discuss." She added

Colbert nodded. "Of course, you're quite right." He accepted a seat on one of the sofa's facing the desk.

"The strange happenings from earlier today." Lady Sakuya began. "As I understand, we all experienced an unusual and violent phenomenon."

"Yes. Something to that effect." Colbert agreed. "It was during . . ." Miss Zerbst's speculations from earlier that day bubbled up in the back of his mind but he pushed them down, no, that was just not possible. " . . . It was during class hours. The students were gathered for their lessons. The land began to glow until it was blinding, and there was trembling like an earthquake. It was accompanied by an unearthly noise that went on for the entire time, though I cannot fathom its origin. I would estimate it lasted perhaps one to five minutes."

"One to five minutes?" Alicia Rue asked. "That's not very specific."

"Time is subjective", Colbert observed, "I wouldn't trust my own opinion on the matter without a timepiece. The phenomena seemed to be violent but harmless enough, though I shudder to think what would have happened if the Academy wasn't so well reinforced. When it ended, the World Tree was visible from the Academy. The land had also changed. If I were to guess, I'd say it was some sort of spell but I know of no incantation that could affect such a wide area. And even if it could, no human could channel the willpower necessary. A hundred mages would kill themselves trying to summon something as large as the World Tree."

"I see." Sakuya said. "The phenomena was very different for us. Everyone I have spoken to has reported that they felt the world stop around them and then were suddenly assaulted by an overwhelming sense of pain. When we regained our senses, we were here. Wherever here is."

"Wait, who's to say we're the ones that were transported?" Alicia Rue asked. "It could be the other way around, or both, couldn't it?"

"Perhaps." Lady Sakuya agreed. "But I think, given what we've observed so far, that it is likelier that we were the ones who were transported. Professor Colbert, could you please tell us about your land, it may help us to understand what has happened."

Colbert agreed and aided by his years as a teacher began to recite a brief history of Halkegenia. The lecture was complicated by the face that neither of the Faeries had ever heard of Tristain or even of Halkegenia, forcing him to explain the Brimiric Kingdoms and their connection to the Founder, which then lead into an explanation of the Magic used by Halkegenian mages. As he finished, both Alicia Rue and Lady Sakuya were listening intently, neither looked happy about what had been said.

Sakuya seemed to compose herself for several moments, gathering her thoughts before she replied. "Professor Colbert, if I might ask, where do you hail from?"

"Ehh, isn't that kind of personnel Sakuya-chan?" Alicia Rue asked.

"I'm a native of Tristain." Colbert said, curious to see where the question would lead. "I was Born in the Capital during the reign of King Leopold."

Sakuya did not seem pleased by his answer. "You don't look like an NPC." She said thoughtfully, "No, Kirito is too discerning to have missed something like that. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you aren't a VRMMORPG player."

"Another of your strange terms." Colbert frowned. "I don't believe so, though I could be, not knowing what that is."

Alicia Rue listened curious. "You're joking right? Sakuya-chan, I get that something weird is going on, but what are you trying to get at?"

"Think about it, Alicia-chan." Sakuya said. "The sudden jump in damage rendering and the pain response spike are both things that should be beyond the capabilities of the AMUsphere to achieve. But they are perfectly natural in real life."

In real life? Colbert wondered.

"Yeah, okay, but that theory is even more crazy!" Alicia pointed out.

"Sakuya-chan's assessment is likely correct." The small girl sitting on the woman's shoulder said. "At least, in the absence of additional information I have to conclude that the world we are experiencing now is our reality."

"But that's not possible!" Alicia said, voice betraying a hint of panic. "I mean, that's insane! The AMUsphere is a game machine not a teleporter, there's not even a turntable to spin in reverse from the normal direction!"

Lady Sakuya nodded. "I would normally agree with you completely Alicia-chan. What I'm saying is impossible. But as Kirito-kun said, an impossibility cannot be disregarded when we have observed it."

Alicia Rue pulled on her ears. "Let's say, just for arguments sake, that you're right, what does that mean for us, what's happening to our real bodies?"

"I can't honestly say." Lady Sakuya replied.

"Real bodies?" Colbert asked, again the conversation had spiraled off into the indecipherable. The Scholar had come here for answers but he seemed to be face with only more questions.

Both women seemed to remember Colbert's presence at the same moment. Sakuya nodded. "To be clear, for you, this world is your reality and no other exists, am I correct?" Colbert stiffened. It was the woman's eyes, they starred right into him, measuring him, clinically. No matter what he said, she would have her answer. And yet, Colbert didn't even understand the question. "My Lady", Colbert said, eschewing philosophy entirely, "I have known only one world all my life and it is the one I was born to, to live as the Founder intended."

"I see." Lady Sakuya said quietly. She glanced at the window. "In this world, magic is common?"

"This world." Alicia repeated slowly.

Lady Sakuya's lips twitched.

"In . . . This world?" Colbert asked."Are you trying to say that you are not of this world?" Colbert shook his head quickly, "Yes it is common, magic is used in every field and industry."

"What about illusion magic?" Lady Sakuya asked.

Colbert frowned, "Such things exist, but why would you ask?" "This place doesn't exist." Lady Sakuya said. "Or rather, it shouldn't exist. In our land, we use illusions for entertainment, to play out fantasy. The World Tree, this city, these bodies, were all part of that illusion."

"You seem real enough to me." Colbert observed carefully. He was suddenly preternaturally aware of the Sofa he was sitting on, the texture of the fabric, the way the cushions sank under his weight. A simple illusion shouldn't feel so real.

The woman smiled. "I suppose that is our problem."

Colbert listened as Lady Sakuya explained. Her story was fantastic, like something out of a children's tale. The Professor trembled to consider an enchantment powerful enough that it could touch the minds of thousands at once and draw them into a waking dream, but he couldn't deny the appeal. Fool hardy young men seeking glory, Commoners dreaming of wealth and status, women seeking romance, and Nobles thirsting for what even money and power could not buy them. If such a thing existed, then he was sure it would be used just as Lady Sakuya described.

"We realized that something was wrong after we woke up here. There are . . . spells . . . that are used to enter and leave the dream at will, but they no longer seem to have any power. Also, these bodies should be nothing but hollow shells, but from the injuries I've seen today, I'm certain that if you cut down, you would find muscle, bone, and entrails within them now. This leads me to my conclusion. Something has brought us here and made our fantasy into reality. If such a thing is even possible."

Colbert shook his head in disbelief. "That is . . . quite a story."

"I would not blame you if you didn't believe it." Sakuya said calmly.

"It is not that I cannot believe it." Colbert assured. "But how can I prove this. I am a scholar, a philosopher by nature, My Lady." Colbert explained, he shook his head once more. "Just, what are you?"

Lady Sakuya looked him in the eyes. "We're human beings."

_

Henrietta de Tristain, Princess of Tristain and heir to her father's throne, accepted the canteen offered to her by one of her guards and placed its rim to her lips. The water was cold and tasted wonderful after exhausting the last of her willpower reserves. The first half hour had been trying as she had fought to staunch internal hemorrhaging and prevent necrosis or infection from setting in around the wounds. Though General Eugene had remained conscious, it was a wonder how he had managed to stand, much less fight. Muscles had been torn and ribs had been shattered. It was a small miracle that none of the vital organs had been damaged. The entire time, the Lancer Kagemune had sat at her side, alternately whispering prayers and words of thanks.

Captain Wardes had made himself busy seeing to Cardinal Mazarin and his men. Thankfully, as the Lancer had predicted, the effects of the pollen on her guards began to fade with time. Those that had been furthest from the plant had been the first to recover, being helped shakily to their feet by some of the red clad soldiers. The job of treating the General's wounds had been handed off to one of her recovered guards, a water mage with training in field medicine. Cardinal Mazarin, who's injuries were less pressing and had already been stabilized by Henrietta, needed only minor attention and had been laid down on a flat stretch of grass, pillows from her carriage were used to prop up the Cardinal's head as he slept.

The respite gave Henrietta a chance to take a step back, to observe. Cardinal Mazarin had told her once that eyes and ears were a ruler's greatest asset, do not turn a blind eye, and keep an ear to the ground.

At the moment, they had not yet moved from the sight of the battle. Her Guards and some of the red clad soldiers who had called themselves "Salamanders", had formed a perimeter around the small clearing. The looks that the Royal Guards gave the Salamanders were openly distrustful, though thanks to them, their lives had been saved. But the loyalty of the Guards was to Henrietta and at her insistence; they had grudgingly accepted an informal truce while General Eugene was treated.

"My Lady." Captain Wardes said as he approached.

"Captain." Henrietta said.

"The Cardinal's condition is stable. I expect we'll be able to move him soon."

"And your men?" Henrietta asked.

"The last of them have started to show signs of recovery, other than thirst, there appear to be no signs of any harm. My men are seeing to their mounts as we speak, the griffins seem to be recovering now, though my own mount will need time to heal before it can fly again. We've found Sir Canning's body and the corpse of his Griffin."

Henrietta nodded and closed her eyes, so two men had died in her defense. "I see. Thank you Captain. Please alert me of any new developments."

Wardes turned to leave and then stopped, looking over his shoulder to his sovereign, he asked. "Are you sure we should be so trusting of these people?"

Henrietta looked to the Salamanders. There were now ten of them in the clearing, three of the Salamanders who had run when their general seemed slain, had eventually returned. So far, there had been no sign of the other three. Several of the red garbed soldiers had gathered close around General Eugene, watching as the water mage worked.

"They saved us, Captain." Henrietta said. "And the Royal Family of Tristain has always repaid its debts. Besides, they knew what that monster was and how to fight it. It might have something to do with what happened earlier."

Henrietta of course referred to the event earlier that day when the land itself had glowed and trembled and the air had been filled with that awful warbling banshee's cry. The Princess, in the company of Cardinal Mazarin, had been paying a visit to one of the border garrisons when the phenomena had reached them, causing even the solid foundations of the garrison fortress to tremble. When the earth had stilled and the air grown quiet once more, Henrietta and her retinue had departed almost immediately for the Palace. They had made it no more than ten miles before falling prey to the vicious creature that had taken residents in the forest.

Wardes nodded his head in acknowledgment. "It is very likely, My Lady."

Henrietta stood slowly. "Perhaps it is time that we ask our questions." The princess made a straight line for the Lancer from earlier. Without his helmet, Kagemune cut a distinctive figure. His skin was slightly lighter than that of his General, and his hair a shade darker. Most striking for the gathered Mages were the pointed ears, Elf's ears.

"Princess Henrietta." The man bowed deeply. "Thank you again, thank you for saving our General's life."

"And thank you for saving the life of my Guards and myself, Mister Kagemune." Henrietta said. "I must know, during the battle, you displayed some experience with fighting that monster. Just what was it? Who are you, and where are your from?"

Kagemune cocked his head to the side. "You fight with water magic, but do not appear to be an Undine."

"And you have the visage of an Elf but have been quite courteous." Henrietta said.

Kagemune frowned and ran a hand across his chin. "The monster that ambushed you is called a Venus Man Eater, it's a field boss in this area, or at least it was before this area suddenly changed."

"Changed?" Henrietta asked, and what did he mean by "field boss"?

Kagemune nodded. "Yes. We were preparing to farm this area before . . . well . . . I think it was a server crash . . ." The man trailed off. "When we came to we were in a nearby Undine Village and the lands beyond the Village had changed. We should be in the wetlands right now but . . . Forgive me Princess, I truly do not know what is happening."

"I'm afraid I cannot be of much help either." Henrietta said, "Your words only leave me with more questions. During the battle you said . . . you said that it was just supposed to be a game. Were you on a hunt?"

Kagemune seemed to be at a loss for words but shook his head. "N-no, that isn't what I meant." He frowned. "I don't know how to explain it to you Princess. Forgive me for asking, but, this is real, isn't it?"

"Pardon?" Henrietta asked.

Kagemune shook his head. "It must be real, or what happened to Garsk . . ." He placed a hand over his eyes and was quiet for a time. "A hunt." He said quietly, "I suppose you could call it a hunt. A sport if you will. It was never supposed to be dangerous."

Henrietta glanced to the corpse of the Man Eater, such a creature was not supposed to be dangerous?

"While we were traveling, the whole world froze around us and there was this burning pain", Kagemune said, "And then we were here. We awoke in a small village some distance away. The townspeople were frightened, something was wrong, but we weren't sure what. General Eugene ordered half of our men to stay in the town while the rest accompanied him. We left the town to investigate and saw that the land had changed." Kagemune's face darkened.

"We thought it would be safe enough. Because of that, we didn't take the situation seriously at all. One of the monsters killed a friend of mine, it caved his chest in." Kagemune clenched his fists. "Some of us wanted to run. The General wouldn't let us give in though. He threatened to kill anyone who broke and ran. That's probably what saved us. Forgive me Princess, I am not a soldier or warrior, this was just supposed to be a game."

Understanding dawned and suddenly the peculiarities of the Salamanders made much more sense, the reason these men had seemed so undisciplined in battle was because they were not soldiers, they were huntsmen. It was a popular pastime amongst nobles and safe enough when careful and on familiar ground.

It sounded as if, whatever had transpired earlier had transported them and perhaps parts of their land, though Henrietta knew of no spell save a familiar summoning that could do such a thing. In an unfamiliar land, they had chanced upon Henrietta and her guards, and seeing them in danger, had done their best to help. If their armor and weapons were used for sport, it was no surprise that only the General had not been terrified in the face of a life or death battle.

Henrietta smiled kindly, "I don't believe I fully understand, but even so, thank you, you displayed great bravery Mister Kagemune."

The man shifted awkwardly and his skin darkened a shade. "T-thank you, Princess."

"You mentioned a village?" Wardes asked. "More of you Elves?"

Kagemune shook his head. "We're Salamander, and no, it's a place called Lila Village, the inhabitants are mostly Undines, water Faeries."

"Faeries?" Henrietta asked.

Kagemune nodded. "We Salamanders are on moderately good terms with them."

"My Lady?" Captain Wardes said with disbelief.

"Mister Kagemune, it sounds to me as if you were transported here from someplace very far away, perhaps you could tell us about the land you are from. As I said, you very much resemble an Elf, but I would never imagine a member of that race would intervene to save my life. And the only Salamanders I know are lizards from the Fire Dragon Mountains."

"I will try Princess." The man said.

Kagemune's story took some time to tell. Henrietta was forced to stop him and ask him to explain strange terms time and again. Eventually he managed to describe his homeland in terms that she could understand. He spoke of a land in his country where people went to play elaborate make believe. Powerful illusions were used to make fantasy seem like reality, but because it was all make believe, there was no danger.

In this land, people would take roles as heroes, villains, and rogue adventurers, dividing themselves into factions to play out games of power and politics. He talked of this place with a sort of warm nostalgia, describing with pride how he skillfully acted out the part of a Lancer in the army of the Salamanders. Henrietta recalled his actions during the battle, it had taken courage to face that monster for even a moment, she wondered, perhaps rightfully, if some of the skill and courage of a soldier hadn't crept into him while he played his role.

It would have seemed too fantastic to believe but there were many childish games that were tolerated in adults because they were indulged on a much grander scale, nobles commanding imaginary armies against one another in tournaments, or playing parts in elaborate masquerade could not imagine the power and wealth of such a kingdom that they could afford to set aside vast estates just to play pretend, perhaps beyond Rub'al Kali, that fabulous and exotic land on the other side of the Elven territories. When Kagemune finished with his tale, Henrietta was left only to wonder if it was a lie. Could a poor liar be so earnest? And would a good liar tell such a bold lie? She would believe him, for now, and repay good faith with good faith.

By that time, the water mage was finishing with his work on General Eugene. The huge man was currently unconscious, put under while the water mage treated his injuries. With the help of his subordinates, the outer and inner layers of his upper body armor had been removed to treat his wounds. The skin still looked impossibly tender where the roots had struck him through. As the water mage bandaged the General's sides, he warned that the General would require further treatment from a properly trained physician and should not be allowed to stand on his own until his body had had time to finish the job that the water magic had started. But true to Henrietta's word, the General's life had been saved.

After some negotiations, the Salamanders agreed to accompany Henrietta and her Guards back to the fortress where General Eugene could receive further treatment and the situation could be explained at Length. Stretchers were made from the remains of the carriage to transport the Cardinal and General. The body of the fallen Knight, Sir Canning, was wrapped in cloth and carried on the back of one of the Griffins while his own mounts remains was cremated with fire magic, a fitting and noble end for a loyal mount.

The Unicorns that had fled from the battle had not been found, but the one that had been tangled in its harness had turned out to be miraculously uninjured, and after calming the creature, it had been presented to Henrietta for want of her carriage. The unicorn had bowed its head to her as she neared. It was said that Unicorns were amongst the wisest of animals, and the sacred beast seemed to understand that Henrietta was in part responsible for saving its life. She ran a hand gently across the Unicorn's head and cooed gently to it. The creature sniffed at her curiously and then kneeled down, an invitation for the Princess to take her place on its back.

Their procession made haste from the forest, the Griffins keeping pace with Henrietta's own mount, their riders unwilling to take to the skies until they were certain the effects of the pollen had worn off. Several of the Salamanders flew ahead to scout while the remainder helped to carry their wounded General. Between the power and skill of her own guards and the knowledge the Salamanders possessed about any other dangerous monsters, the Princess was confident that they would make it safely back to the fortress. Even so, she breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the trees begin to thin and the fields open before them.

"My Lady, look!" Wardes pointed from atop his own wounded Griffin. Henrietta's heart quickened and for a moment she feared that they had spotted another monster like the Man Eater. But Warde's was pointing into the sky. In the distance the sky was filled with tiny black specs that grew into a shape reminiscent of birds, and then of men.

Henrietta gasped as the figures finally resolved themselves. Translucent wings and red armor. More Salamanders, and not just a small hunting party, there were over a hundred of them. They were a company on the march. The Salamanders flew in small formations of five or six which were then formed into four larger formations composed of six to eight of the smaller groups. Two of the formations were kitted in heavy armor and wielded lances and heavy shields, the third wore deep red robes and carried staffs, ranged mages, the last group wielded strange looking crossbows.

The formations were centered around a smaller group of ten Salamanders in deep red armor, all surrounding a loan figure garbed in robes of dark red and black.

"You!" Wardes shouted to Kagemune and clutched at his wand sword. "What is this?"

"I-I don't know!" Kagemune shouted. "That squadron is the Reserve Forces. But that would mean . . ." The man's eyes widened. "No, it could be, he's supposed to be in Gadan!"

Henrietta's Guards readied themselves, the two able Griffin Knights preparing to take to the air while the rest spread out from the road and readied themselves to cast. From the center of the formation, the small group descended towards the roadway.

"Stand down!" Henrietta shouted to her Guards.

Before any could protest, she spurred her Unicorn mount into a trot, preceding alone towards the landing Salamanders. She felt and heard Captain Wardes and Kagemune falling in at her side. The gathered Salamander formations hovered above them. Watching stoically as they neared the small group that had settled to the ground.

Henrietta noted their uniformly fearsome armor and the impressive looking swords carried on their backs. None of the grounded figures had drawn their weapons, the Princess felt certain that if they did so, it would only be to cause ruin. She remembered Kagemune's words, that it was an illusion, that it was make believe. But she also remembered the man's courage in battle, and the fearsomeness of General Eugene, if it was make believe, it was terrifying make believe.

The armored soldiers stepped calmly onto the road, barring their way. Henrietta brought her mount to a stop and looked to the dark robed figure at their center. "I am Princess Henrietta De Tristain, Princess of Tristain, in the name of my Kingdom and the Founder, name yourself!"

The figure gestured to armored soldiers who stepped aside. Henrietta, Wardes, and Kagemune preceded slowly.

"May I go ahead?" Kagemune asked. "I think it is best if I speak to him first."

Henrietta bit her lip but nodded. "Please do Mister Kagemune."

The Salamander flitted forward, the figure watched him approach and land at his side. The two conversed as Henrietta and Wardes drew near though the Princess heard none of what they said. Finally, Kagemune stepped back and waved for Henrietta to approach. The princess dismounted, and standing strait, approached the robed figure. This close it could be seen that figure was masculine, of medium height and build, his face was obscured by a fearsome helm like that warn by the Lancers, a cane was clutched in the left hand while the right was held at his side.

Henrietta stopped four mails from the man and starred him in the eye. "May I please have your name?"

The man reached up and removed his helm. Fiery red hair spilled down to his shoulders, the face beneath the helm was pale as if from long days spent indoors, it was a young face, handsome even, cold red eyes regarded Henrietta. "I greet you Princess Henrietta De Tristain. I am Lord Mortimer of the Salamanders."

The man bowed deeply. "Thank you for saving my brother."

_

The small fort located near the Gallian border was known as Fort De Arlon. The garrison was composed of some two hundred men, twenty mage officers and one hundred and eighty commoner foot soldiers and cavalry. It was normally a sleepy post even in these troubled times, meant more to keep an eye on the border and highway than to beat back an incursion.

The events of the morning had put the Fort on high alert. First with the surprise visit of Princess Henrietta and Cardinal Mazarin, and then with the strange occurrence that had lead to their sudden departure. Reports coming in from scouts and mounted messengers had only further ratcheted up the tension within the fort.

Corporal Bos scanned the horizon while clutching a crossbow tight to his chest. At his side the old Sergeant of the Fort, Sergeant Barents, sat reading a ratty, dog eared book. Bos had been slightly surprised to learn that the otherwise course Sergeant was literate.

"Well course I am!" The man had shouted. "Whos else in this place is gonn read the men their letters from home and write'm back. The officers?!"

"Ey, Sergeant?" Corporal Bos said.

"Wha-izit Corporal." The man growled, turning the page of his book.

"Yah think happened out there?" The Corporal asked.

The old Sergeant sighed heavily. "Looks ter be magic ter me." He decided. "Best to leave it ter the Nobles to deal

with. You and me just hold down the Fort an keep eir heads down when they start throwing thunder and lightning, aye?"

"Aye Sergeant!" Bos said quickly.

"Ere boy, have some water, we've ben up ere all day." The sergeant handed Bos his canteen.

"Thank you Sergeant. Eir, what you be reading Sergeant?"

"Oy, this?" My sister sent it. "Da, always wanted to be raising scholars. Hoped I'd become a scribe or secretary buh I never had the manner for eir. My sister married a printer, she loves books and he loves her and making'm. Sends me interesting one from time ter time. This one here's by some Romalian, called Niccolò di Bernardo, s'called The King, s'lousy bout all the things ya gotta know t'be a good ruler."

Bos struggled not to snicker. "Why you be reading something like that Sergeant. Plan on marrying the princess and becoming King?"

"Eh, shut your trap boy." The sergeant thumbed another page. "I's just figurine, if the Nobles run things, might as well find out where they be getting their ideas. Get in their head ya'see." The Sergeant tapped his own temple seriously.

"Well, tell me if it says why I always get ordered on latrine duty." The Corporal took a swig from the canteen and then almost immediately choked as the sound of distant warning bells reached his ears and he caught sight of the silhouettes in the distance.

Cough, cough, ack! Sergeant, Sergeant!" Corporal Bos waved his hand madly at the sky. "Wha-izzit boy?" The book fell from the Sergeant's hands. In the distance a swarm of black dots had appeared. They were too far away to be birds which meant they were big, big meant mounts, and lots of them. Which could only mean.

"Attack! Attack!" Sergeant Barent roared. "Mounts South, I say, mounts to the South!" Bells began to ring throughout the fort. Men scrambled to grab their weapons. Gun crews ran to their stations along the walls, readying ball and powder. The Fortress Commander, a burly giant of a man, a member of the Grammond Family, stormed up the stairs to the watch post followed by his aid and second in command.

"What's happening Sergeant!" Captain Grammond demanded.

"Aye, see for yourself Sir." The Sergeant nodded to the distance. The Captain squinted into the distance, frowning. "Are you sure, there's something out there?" The man asked.

"Aye sir, perhaps with your eyeglasses sir?" The man suggested.

"Bah! Rubbish things!" The Captain waved his hand.

Captain Grammond drew a wand from his pocket. Corporal Bos instinctively cringed and Sergeant Barent, with surprising forethought, stepped behind the Captain. Captain Grammond was a superb triangle mage of air, but had the duel shortcoming of being blind as a bat and thinking that he had perfectly adequate vision. Fortunately the spell the Captain cast was a good deal less destructive than the ones he showed off in battle or during training. The air before him swirled and compressed, distorting until it seemed as if the lens of some gigantic spyglass had appeared before him.

Sergeant Barent watched, arms crossed, while Corporal Bos peaked over the Captain's shoulder. "Eh, strange things. Are they using levitation spells, or are those wings?" A group of what could only be mages were approaching by air.

"Oy, Captain, what be that?" Sergeant Barent pointed his chin to something moving along the roadway.

The Captain adjusted the focus of the air lens with his wand. "My word, is that the Princess?"

"Sir?" The Captain's aid asked.

"Aye, it must be the Princess!" Sergeant Barent agreed.

"And how'd you know that Sergeant?" Bos asked.

"That be a Unicorn she's riding boy. How many invading armies you know that bring along a Pure Maiden?"

"Watch that tongue Sergeant or I shall have it cut out!" Captain Grammond warned. It was an idle threat, Barent said something treasonous at least once a day. "It does appear to be the Princess", Grammond decided, "Tell the men to hold their fire."

The Unicorn road to the fortress gate in the company of a trio of Griffins, Captain Grammond and his aid were waiting for them when they arrived.

"P-Princess?" The Captain asked.

The girl atop the unicorn was indeed Princess Henrietta, but far from her refined appearance that morning, her hair was in disarray, her dress was torn and muddy, and a bandage was tied about her arm. She looked to have gone running across a battlefield.

"Good day again, Captain Grammond." The Princess smiled warmly, "We met an army of Fairies and their Lord on the way back to the Palace, and need a place to entertain them, could we trouble you for the use of your fort?"


	8. Chapter 3 Part 3

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 3 - Part 3

In the office of the Headmaster of the Tristain Academy of Magic, four Mages and two Faeries were gathered around the desk of Old Osmond. A stack of reference texts, brought up by Tabitha and Guiche, were piled high on one corner of the desk, while maps and Atlases covered the rest of the surface in crisscrossing grids and lines.

Old Osmond pointed out Tristain and the location of the Tristain Academy of Magic on one of the maps. Kirito couldn't read the script identifying countries and cities, but basic layout of the Halkegenian maps wasn't too different from those found on Earth or the antiquated looking quest maps that appeared in some of the MMOs he had played before SAO. Unfortunately, being able to understand a map of Halkegenia didn't offer any immediate insight into what had transported them there.

"Mmm." Kirito sat arms crossed, thinking. "It looks a little like a continent back on our world." Kirito observed. The continent of Halkegenia did look a little like Europe, but he couldn't be sure, for an MMO addict such as himself, real world geography had never interested him beyond memorizing for school tests.

"A coincidence perhaps?" Old Osmond asked.

"Mmm. Maybe." Kirito said. He placed his index and middle fingers at the ends of the map scale and then measured off the height and width of Tristain. If he understood the units of measure, then all of ALfheim would have easily fit within the borders of Tristain which was itself dwarfed by the surrounding countries.

"What do you think Leafa?" Kirito turned to his sister.

Leafa leaned against the wall beside the table, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. His sister had grown gradually more quiet as the conversation with Old Osmond had progressed. He had seen this in the first days of SAO, though he had been too occupied seeing to his own survival to think much of it at the time. Some players had understood Kayaba Akihiko's words, but hadn't fully believed them for several days. At the moment, there was a disconnect between what his sister understood and what she felt. Kirito didn't know what to do about it other than be there for her when she worked through it.

"Hmm?" Leafa looked up. "What was that Onii-chan?"

"I was asking if the map looks familiar to you." Kirito said.

Leafa glanced over the map and nodded. "Mmm. It looks like Europe. But . . . Spain is missing and so are the Nordic Countries."

"So, Halkegenia looks like your homeland?" Kirche asked.

Kirito shook his head. "No. But it looks a little like a place far from our homeland." His fingers ran across the map, heading east until he reached a border beyond which was a drawing of a three headed dragon spitting fire.

"These are the Elven territories, right?" Kirito asked.

"Indeed." Old Osmond said. "Beyond them lays Rub'al Khali, a human kingdom to the East. Trade Caravans manage to make the desert crossing from time to time, but I'm afraid the territories beyond the borderlands are mostly unknown to Halkegenian cartographers.

Kirito shook his head. "I'm afraid this hasn't helped as much as I would have hoped." Kirito admitted.

"It was a distant chance." Old Osmond confessed. "I admit that I am not familiar with any magic powerful enough to do what you've described."

"Could it be some magic from your own lands?" Guiche asked. The boy had been quiet for most of the meeting, having found a corner to wedge himself in and observe.

"I doubt it." Kirito said, still studying the map. "Outside of the dream worlds, we can't simply cast magic the way you do."

The blonde boy choked on the off hand comment. "But that's preposterous! You said youselves you use these artifices to enter a living dream, how can that be possible save by magic?"

"It is quite hard to believe." Old Osmond admitted. "Perhaps more so than anything else you have told us." The old Headmaster didn't seem to fully believe Kirito's story of how they had arrived in Halkegenia, but he had been willing to entertain is so far.

"The philosophers of our land studied the world and applied what they learned." Kirito explained. "Thats how we made the AMUspheres and ALfheim."

"Natural philosophy." Tabitha supplied and frowned. "Maybe ambient magic?" The girl wondered aloud.

"I guess." Kirito said, still reading the map.

"Then you think whatever caused this had to come from our world?" Kirche asked.

"Mmm." Kirito said. "Its a logical conclusion, nothing in our world could have caused it." At least, nothing that Kirito knew of, and since they were no longer in their world, there really wasn't any point speculating about things they couldn't investigate. He paused, there was a note of something in the girl's voice. "Have you thought of something, Kirche-san?" Kirito asked.

"Head master, the familiar summoning was today." Kirche said.

"Familiar summoning?" Kirito asked.

"A right of passage for the second year students." Osmond explained. "A student who has reached their second year is given the privilege of summoning forth a familiar, an animal magically contracted to serve its master faithfully."

Kirito recalled the dragon from earlier and the open affection is had shown Tabitha. "So that dragon . . ."

"Sylphid." Tabitha said softly. "My familiar."

Osmond turned to Kirche. "What are you implying Miss Zerbst?"

"Louise Valliere was the only student today to fail the summoning ritual." Kirche said.

"Ah yes, Louise Francoise le Blanc de La Valliere, third daughter of the Valliere family." Osmond said. "Is she a second year already? I do not recall her receiving her Runic title."

"She hasn't sir." Kirche admitted. "We call her the Zero because of it. Every spell she casts just goes . . . boom."

"Boom?" Kirito asked.

Kirche shrugged.

"Boom." Osmond repeated. "Ah, now I recall, the young girl who blew out all of the windows in the first year primer classroom last year, yes this would be her second year wouldn't it." Osmond noted.

"That's her." Kirche confirmed. "During the summoning today, she attempted Summon Familiar and nothing happened. And that's weird, the Zero always fails, but her failures are always spectacular. I think that's why she gave up after her third try. She didn't make it more than a few hundred feet before she collapsed from willpower exhaustion, like she'd cast something that took everything out of her. It happened just before the World Tree appeared."

"You believe that Miss Valliere summoned the World Tree?" Old Osmond pinned the red headed girl with his gaze. Kirito perked up.

"I . . . think its a distinct possibility." Kirche said slowly. "Tabitha thinks so too."

"Do you agree Miss Tabitha?" Old Osmond asked.

The blue haired girl nodded once.

"Did you inform professor Colbert of your suspicions?"

"Yes Sir." Kirche said.

"And what did he say." Old Osmond asked gravely.

"He said . . . " Kirche frowned, "That it was completely impossible."

"And rightly so." Osmond agreed. "The willpower for such a summoning would not simply cause the caster to collapse from exhaustion. It would kill them outright. Even a hundred square Mages together would not have the reserves to cast a spell of such size."

"Then what other explanation is there!" Kirche cried.

"That is what we must find out." Osmond said. "But wild speculation must not guide us. There are texts and grimores kept in the private collection of Royal Palace that might shed some more light on these events." Osmond stroked his beard. "Though authorizing their release might prove challenging." Osmond perked up. "On that note, I do need to write my dispatch to the Palace and then of course there will be breaking the news to the students and faculty."

The sudden change of subject made Kirito recall the near hostile reaction from Professor Colbert and his students who had mistaken he and Leafa for Elves. He swallowed.

"Could you maybe wait to tell anyone else until we're far away from here." Kirito asked. He'd had his fill of being a despised outsider in society during the death game of Sword Art Online, he didn't need to repeat the experience in a place where the people who wanted to kill him could throw fireballs.

"That may be for the best." Osmond agreed thoughtfully. "Though I would still like your help in writing my dispatch to the Palace. There's no sense in adding more confusion to this situation."

"That's true." Kirito agreed.

Old Osmond looked to the gathered students. "Mister Grammond, Miss Tabitha, Miss Zerbst, I would also like your input."

"We'll help where we can." Kirche said, Tabitha and Guiche nodded sincerely.

Osmond glanced about for a moment and sighed. "I certainly wish this didn't have to be so clandestine. I would have rather liked to have dictated to Miss Longueville. But, need's must as they say." The Elderly man withdrew a strip of parchment and a quill from the drawer of his desk. "Now then, I do believe we should begin at this morning."

* * *

"It's been quite an eventful day." Princess Henrietta de Tristain said as she accepted a cup of tea from a stiff man wearing the uniform of a Noble Officer.

Captain Grammond and Viscount Wardes flanked her as she sat in the private office of the Fortress Commander. The chamber looked out on the fotress' courtyard, a square space three hundred mails to a side where the garrison would gather for drills. Salamanders and garrison soldiers milled about, sometimes mingling but mostly keeping separate.

"And I can only imagine it will grow more so." Lord Mortimer of the Salamanders said as he held his own steaming cup.

At his side stood Kagemune and one of the sullen armored knights from his personal retinue. Even as they spoke, General Eugene was being seen to in the fort infirmary, under the watchful eyes of the attending Water Mage physician and a petite blue haired woman, one of the previously mentioned Undines, who had arrived along with Lord Mortimer's forces.

"That monster that attacked us. It may not be the only one." Henrietta said seriously. The lighthearted warmth that she had effected moments earlier disappeared.

"Almost certainly not." Mortimer agreed. "My forces engaged and defeated several field mobs while traveling here from our staging area to the west. Though none of them were as powerful as a Venus Man Eater. It was during the extermination operations that we ran across several of my brother's subordinates who had run from the battle."

Henrietta nodded, that explained the three Salamanders who had not returned and how Lord Mortimer had found them when they left the forest. "Then, I would like to beg your assistance." Henrietta said. "If these monsters are as dangerous as you say, the People of Tristain will not be safe until these mobs", the strange word rolled off of her tongue, "Are eliminated."

"Of course Princess." Mortimer said. "This serves the Salamanders' interests as well. The displacement has put my own forces in a great deal of danger. To say nothing of the risk to the inhabitants of the settlements."

"Mister Kagemune mentioned a town not far from here." Henrietta said.

"Yes, Lila Village, it's mostly home to Undines." Mortimer confirmed. "I ordered a squadron to see to the village and reinforce my brother's remaining men, but if the mob aggression has increased as you say, it may be safer to move them, the village layout is relatively indefensible."

"How many villagers?" Captain Grammond asked.

"Lila village has about three hundred regular inhabitants, not including NPCs." Kagemune reported.

"Ehn-Pee-Sees?" Captain Grammond asked.

"They sound like a sort of golem from what Mister Kagemune has told me." Henrietta elaborated. "But they all disappeared when you were transported here, right?"

Kagemune nodded in agreement.

"So, three hundred total, eh?" Captain Grammond rubbed his chin. "I'd say bring them here, but that's a bit much even for the fort, and it sounds as if our own towns will be in danger soon enough."

"Which is why we need to organize patrols of the surrounding areas." Mortimer agreed. "Mobs tend to be highly territorial, so once we eliminate the ones close to towns and highways, the local people should be relatively safe, at least, for a time."

"What about erecting barricades around the towns?" Henrietta asked.

"We've four strong Earth Mages for maintaining the wards on the fort walls." Captain Grammond said. "Working together, with time to rest, they could put up walls around the smaller towns in just one or two days."

"That will buy us time to thin the mobs." Mortimer said. "I would also like to ask that you contact your Palace as soon as possible and determine just how far this displacement extends."

"Extends?" Wardes asked.

"Yes." Lord Mortimer nodded. "There are signs of ALfheim's terrain scattered all across this region, and Lila Village appears to be located at the same place relative to our staging area at the borders of Undine territory. Is it not likely that the effect could extend further?"

"From what mister Kagemune said, the estates of ALfheim were expansive, they could be scattered all over Tristain and beyond." Henrietta agreed.

This was quite troubling, if the monsters, the mobs, were isolated to just one area of Tristain, then dealing with them wouldn't be too difficult, but if they were scattered over the Kingdom, not only would they be a danger to travelers and isolated towns, they would begin to disrupt commerce. The army simply did not have the man power to patrol every highway and guard every town. And then, in this chaos, there was the possibility of a Faerie settlement ending up near, or Founder forbid, on top of a human settlement. The consequences could be disastrous.

"Arlon is a border fort. We're one of the main relays for messengers along the frontier, so we'll know about any happenings before the end of the day." Captain Grammond replied.

"Never the less." Lord Mortimer insisted coolly. "I would like to have some of your men accompany my forces and finish reconnoitering the surrounding lands. It is then essential that I make best speed to the South West. Before departing to find my brother, I dispatched messengers to Gaddan, the Salamander home city. It is essential I return as soon as possible and ascertain the situation."

Grammond glanced to his monarch. Henrietta nodded seriously. "That seems like a good idea." She looked to the Viscount at her side. "Captain Wardes, please see to getting a report to the Capital as soon as possible." Henrietta said.

"Of course, Princess." Wardes nodded. "Might I advise we have a team of wind dragons from the Dragon Knights sent here as well. It may be safer for you to return to the Palace by air, Princess."

"I will stay where I am needed." Henrietta said. Until Cardinal Mazarin had recovered, she had no choice but to lead.

"Then you should go to the Palace." Captain Grammond said. "The Capital contains the organs of government you will need to manage a crises and it is where people we look to for your leadership." The Captain glanced to Lord Mortimer. "I'll have mounted soldiers arranged to travel with your men immediately." Grammond said.

There was a knock at the chamber door.

"Enter." Captain Grammond called.

The Captain's aid appeared in the doorway and bowed quickly to his superior and his monarch. "My Princess, Captain Grammond, Lord Mortimer, the General has woken up."

"Oh, dear." Lord Mortimer said softly. "I should see to my brother before he decides to walk out of your infirmary." The Salamander leader placed his cup on the table before him and stood, smoothing his robes.

"He's already tried." The aid said. "Doctor Nabier and your physician will have to sedate him if this keeps up."

"What of Cardinal Mazarin?" Henrietta asked.

"The Cardinal has woken briefly already, but he's is still disoriented." The aid reported. "Doctor Nabier says he is loath to use magic to treat injuries of the head."

"And my brother?" Lord Mortimer asked.

"Lucid from what I gather, but you should see for yourself." The aid replied.

"That is fortuitous then. I can leave forces under his command to manage the situation in this region when I return to Gaddan." Lord Mortimer looked to Henrietta. "If I may, Princess, I would like to see to my brother."

"I shall accompany you." Henrietta decided, standing. "I haven't had a chance to properly give the General my thanks"

Mortimer regarded her, "Of course, Princess."

* * *

"Better?" The Cait Syth hunter named KoKo asked her passenger.

"Much better." Colbert agreed as he settled into the saddle atop the back of one of the Cait Syth's dragons. In their haste, both Kirito and Colbert had neglected to select a time to return to their meeting place. As evening fell, both the Faerie Leaders and Colbert had decided it was as good a time as any to part ways for the day, Colbert promised to ensure Leafa and Kirito's safe return if they had not already departed the academy.

The two leaders had thoroughly questioned Colbert on Halkegenia and Tristain and eventually they had come to the limit of what their dialogue could achieve, Colbert was no diplomat and lacked the authority to make decisions for the Crown. Lady Sakuya and Alicia Rue were also desperately needed to keep order amongst their people and the meeting had left the Professor with a great deal to consider and discuss with his superiors when he returned to the academy. A pair of the Cait Syth dragoons would deliver Colbert as close as possible to the academy, keeping a distance to avoid causing a panic.

"I wish you a safe journey." Lady Sakuya said. "Tell your headmaster that I would like to convene with him tomorrow, at the place you and Kirito met. We will be there at noon."

"Understood Lady Sakuya. May the meeting by fruitful for all of our sakes." Colbert nodded and placed a hand on KoKo's shoulder. The Cait Syth tightened the grips on the reigns of her mount and clicked her tongue. The squat reptile spread its wings, taking on a kite like profile and flung itself from the platform, a second dragon followed a moment later.

Lady Sakuya and Alicia Rue watched the dragons turn into silhouettes and then vanish around the curve of the World Tree. Lady Sakuya sighed softly.

"You alright, Sakuya-chan?" Alicia asked.

The sylph leader smiled weakly. "Of course not. How could I feel alright?"

Alicia's expression turned uncharacteristically sober. "Yeah. This is going to be tough."

"For the time being it is enough that we accept it and move forward." Sakuya decided, "Alicia, I'd like to try and use the moonlight mirror again once the sun has set."

"Eh?" The Cait Syth leader seemed surprised. "But Sakuya-chan, we couldn't reach anyone when we tried it earlier."

Between the tension in Arrun and the arrival of Professor Colbert, Lady Sakuya had been hesitant to send scouts further afield until they had a better grasp of the situation, a decision that had been proven justified after the meeting with Colbert.

"The mirror is more potent at night." Lady Sakuya observed.

Part of the reason for selecting their meeting place in the neutral territory was that Alicia Rue's moonlight mirror spell would be just within its minimum daytime range of both races' capitals. Here in Arrun, however, the spell could only reach as far as the Capital Cities at night when its range was doubled and its magic consumption was halved.

Alicia pawed at her ears. "Mm-yeah, it should be if it works like before." Her ears perked up and she grinned, "You know what this means right?"

Lady Sakuya shook her head. "What?"

"Magic." The Cait Syth leader said. "We can do real magic!" Alicia Rue was bouncing on the balls of her feet, worries briefly forgotten.

"I wouldn't be so excited." Sakuya said.

"I'm just trying to find a silver lining." Alicia defended.

"It's a dim lining." Sakuya said. "But I guess it will have to do." Anything to help them through this crises. Lady Sakuya wonder idly if that meant her Takemikazuchi was now really a rune enhanced mithril forged katana.

Back in the atrium on the top floor of Arrun tower, the ore lights had been lit and now shown off the brass reflectors at the center of the room, filling the space with a warm light. Activity had not yet abated even at this hour. Lady Sakuya spotted Novair amongst the crowd. The man jogged up to meet her, he looked more troubled than he had earlier in the day.

Novair, who had been tasked with taking inventory of the materials and resources within Arrun, had been amongst the first to suspect the truth about their situation and so Sakuya and Alicia Rue had admitted the truth openly. There was no point trying to hide it, amongst the gossip obsessed culture of MMO players, it would leak out all the sooner if they tried.

News of what had happened was slowly seeping down the ranks to the people in the city bellow. By the end of the night, everyone in Arrun would have heard. No doubt many would think that their Leaders had gone mad. But most would believe, if only because of their own experiences over the course of the day. The ones gathered in Arrun tower were the lucky ones, they had a purpose to occupy them and there was always something for an idle pair of hands to busy themselves with. Sakuya would work them until they were exhausted and then send them to get some rest and repeat the process in the morning. The people huddled down in Arrun had all too much time to entertain their thoughts.

"Lady Sakuya, this is the compiled list of foodstuffs from the commercial district, and also a list of all of the inns in the city, there should be just enough room for everyone." Novair handed his leader a small ledger.

Sakuya scanned over the first few pages. "Start by distributing food items with the lowest durability for now." She instructed. "Then we'll need to stockpile the rest at a central location to prevent theft or hording."

"There's the dragons to worry about too." Alicia Rue added in. "They're pretty big eaters, but I'd hate to have to put down so many tame mounts."

"Its an issue of whether we can afford to keep feeding them." Sakuya bit her lip. "They eat mostly raw meats, right?"

"Mmm. Meat, fish, small mobs, honestly they'll eat anything high enough up the evolutionary ladder to flee in terror." Alicia said.

There were twenty two dragons amongst the gathered Sylph and Cait Syth forces. They represented a powerful military force with their AOE breath attacks, high flight speed, and thick skins. Lady Sakuya hated the idea of losing them, especially in the face of the unknown.

"We can feed them for the next few days." Sakuya decided out loud. "Perhaps we can arrange to let them hunt in the local forests, that should fill their bellies for a while."

"Sounds good to me." Alicia said. "Maybe we can even get them to bring some back for the rest of us."

"I'd prefer to negotiate with the locals to fill our stomachs." Sakuya replied, handing the ledger back to Novair. "See to distributing the food. Start with the people at the inns first and then work your way to individual residence. Don't argue with anyone who you suspect might be hoarding supplies, the fights aren't worth it right now."

"Understood, Lady Sakuya." The man turned on his heel and ws off in the direction of a doorway leading to the outside of the tower. Many Imp and Spriggan players had offered their services as messengers, carrying instructions to the forces scattered throughout the city. A stream of players from the two nimble races were constantly coming and going from the top of Arrun tower.

"Who's next?" Sakuya wondered aloud.

"Carmond is supposed to be organizing volunteers into a city watch." Alicia said. "I'd rather not have a field mob march through the front gates."

Lady Sakuya grimaced. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

Leafa, Kirigaya Suguha in real life, and a swordswoman of the Sylph race from the world of ALfheim online, sank slowly onto the bed beside the window of the inn room she shared with her brother. The inns around the center of Arrun had been commandeered to house the displaced players who did not own residence in Arrun.

Leafa and Kirito had been lucky enough to find a room in one such inn on a side street. The room was small but comfortable, a pair of well stuffed beds sat against one wall opposite a fireplace beside which sat a small coffee table and a pair of sofas. A writing desk and a small dresser sat beside the open window. The room looked out from the second floor on a small garden in which was planted a fragrant olive tree. The night air that drifted in was warm and sweet.

Upon returning from the Tristain Academy of Magic and giving their report, Lady Sakuya insisted that they take the opportunity to get some rest. Leafa had tried to protest, observing the dark rings forming under the Sylph leader's eyes, but Sakuya would tolerate no further disobedience, they were to report back in the morning. Kirito had placed a hand on Leafa's shoulder and nodded. Only after departing the tower and settling to the ground in the central plaza did Leafa realize how exhausted she really was. It had been around 8:00 PM when the raid on the World Tree had begun. Save for an unknown period of time spent unconscious, she had been awake for over twenty four hours.

All of Arrun was currently in a stupor, ore lights along the side roads and among many of the houses remained unlit, giving the normally glowing Fairy city a sense of oldness that it had not possessed the night before. The anxiety from earlier in the day had transformed into a sort of dull shock that hung over the City like a fog. When the mounting evidence had started to confirm their fears, Lady Sakuya and Alicia Rue had begun the delicate process of breaking the news to Arruns inhabitants. The most disciplined and loyal members of the Sylph-Cait Syth alliance had been informed of the situation by Lady Sakuya herself. When the initial shock had finally passed, the news had spread from door to door. Fortunately, with the people divided into small groups of friends and family, rioting had not been a major issue save around some of the larger inns and the squares where people had refused to disperse.

Leafa fingered the wide cuff of her shirt feeling the softness of the fabric. She was currently dressed in a loose cotton shirt that fell to mid thigh, and a pair of draw stringed shorts. They were low level dress items from a clothing store nearby. Her brother had brought them up to their room along with their allotment of rationed food. He had said she would be uncomfortable sleeping in her day clothes and told her she should get changed before bed.

Kirito had left the room to allow her to change, which had been an ordeal in itself. In ALfheim, changing clothing had simply been a matter of un-equipping one garment and equipping another. Never in changing her clothes had Suguha ever thought of her avatar as anything but a dress up doll. But now . . . Her face had reddened as she'd stripped down to her undergarments. She kept reminding herself that it was her own avatar, it was basically her body, but it felt uncomfortably voyeuristic. She'd ended up changing while keeping her eyes squeezed shut. When she was done she had folded her clothes and stacked them on a chair in the corner of the room.

She heard a gentle knock on the door. "Sugu?"

"You can come in." She called.

Kirito entered the room, closing and locking the door behind himself. Her brother must have found someplace else to change, he was dressed in a black short sleeved shirt and a pair of black shorts and carried his clothes folded up in his arms. Yui sat on top of the pile of clothes as if they were pillow. It seemed that her brothers fashion sense was the same in any world. She couldn't help it, the thought made Leafa giggle.

"What is it?" Her brother asked.

"It's just", she wiped a tear from her eye, "You've always liked black." She observed.

Kirito's face soured a little. "I just look better in dark colors." He defended.

"It's true." Yui agreed, flitting up beside Kirito. "In SAO almost all of Papa's equipment was either purchased or died black. That's where he got his title, the Black Swordsman of Aincrad!" Kirito shot the little navigation pixie a betrayed look.

"You've never been very fashionable." Leafa teased and enjoying watching her brother grouch.

Kirito set his clothes down on one of the sofas and came to sit beside her. Leafa noticed a pair of small bottles in her brothers hands filled with a creamy white liquid.

"What are those?"

He handed her one. "It's called dew milk, they gave me a couple of bottles with our rations. The durability isn't very high so nobodies worried about rationing it."

Leafa took the bottle and took an experimental sip. It reminded her of coconut milk with a stronger cream aftertaste.

"How is it?" Kirito asked.

"It's good." She said.

They finished the bottles in silence, Kirito carefully offering some to Yui as she sat on his forearm. The quiet and togetherness were nice. A simple sense of belonging settled over her.

Leafa gazed out the window. Over the tops of the nearby buildings, two moons hung quietly in the sky, unlike either Earth or Alfheim. Unlike either . . . Leafa starred up at the moons, she felt the moment stretch on and on. Something inside of her, something that had been frozen since morning, began to slowly turn over once more. A hollowness replaced the warmth she had felt just moments before.

"This is really happening, isn't it." Leafa said suddenly, dully.

Not Earth.

Her brother gave her a concerned look. Yui flitted from his forearm and came to rest on his shoulder. "What's happened shouldn't be possible, I think." He said. "But it's definitely happening."

"By now, Mom probably knows something's wrong." Suguha said. "And she'll have called Dad. If we're here, and these bodies are real, then what about our bodies back home?" She began to tremble.

Not ALfheim

"I don't know." Her brother said. "But this doesn't seem like SAO. I think we should just focus on keeping everyone safe for now."

"When will we be able to go home again?" Her eyes began to sting.

She'd . . . She'd just talked to Mom that morning, she'd said . . . What had she said? 'See you tonight.' Not 'goodbye', or 'I love you.' Was that the last thing she would say to her mother? She wanted to go to her, to her mother, she wanted to hear her, to see her school again, such simple things, but they were impossible now. Would she ever see their home again, or would she die here? The sudden realization of what was happening, of what had already happened, was overwhelming. This was real, this was really real.

"I don't know." Her brother's arm tightened gently around her shoulder.

"I'm scared Onii-chan." Suguha whispered, her voice trembled. "How can this be happening. Why am I shaking now? I was fine all today." Up until this moment it had all seemed to unreal, it was just a waking dream. And now, this world she had fallen in love with had become a nightmare.

"It can take time for people to believe unbelievable things." Her brother said, he pushed her away so she could see his face. "You should let it out as soon as you can."

Suguha looked into her brother's eyes. His face had a gentle expression, he was telling her that he knew it was painful, and that it was okay. Was this what he had felt? That first day in the death game of SAO? The trembling grew and grew, no matter how hard she tried Suguha couldn't control it. She felt the first streaks of heat running down her face and than felt her head being pressed against something warm and soft. Suguha bawled into her brother's chest, clinging to him for dear life.

She didn't know for how long she cried, it might have been a few minutes, it might have been hours. All of her fear and anxiety drained away with those tears, and along with them, the last of her strength. When she was done, all that was left was a dull aching in her chest and an overwhelming sense of tiredness. She didn't even have the strength to open her eyes when her brother gently nudged her.

Suguha felt herself being laid down. Her head came to rest against her pillow and she felt a blanket being pulled up to cover her. She opened her eyes blearily to see her brother clearing away the bottles. The ore light faded as he adjusted it from its pedestal and then he came back and sat on the edge of her bed. He placed a hand on her head, gently stroking her hair.

He was like her, in this world his face, thought familiar, had changed, but the gentle expressions were exactly the same. It was strange, comforting. It reminded her of when she was little, before her brother had grown close again, before he had ever grown distant.

She fell asleep to memories of cold days and hot ginger tea.


	9. Chapter 3 Part 4

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 3 Part 4

In a small room, tucked into the corner of the school infirmary, a young girl rested in a cot. Covered in blankets and head propped up by a pillow, only her face and hair were visible as she slept peacefully, she looked to be a child of ten or twelve. It was hard to believe that Louise Valliere had already reached her sixteenth year,

At her bedside, Kirche Von Zerbst sat and waited. The school physician had barely sparred her a second glance when she asked to see Louise. The Doctor assumed that Kirche was a friend, and she was after a fashion, just this once.

Normally, a Zerbst wouldn't be caught dead helping a Valliere. Normally giant magical trees didn't appear in the middle of Tristain accompanied by Faeries. It had been a very abnormal day. It was eating at Kirche, the whole situation, there was an explanation that fit perfectly, too perfectly, but nobody else seemed willing to accept it save Tabitha. And maybe it really was nothing, after all, the faculty here were knowledgeable about magic and it flew the face of how how magic was accepted to work. Maybe the Zero's summon really had failed and this was all a big coincidence. But Kirche wanted to know for sure, and she wasn't the only one.

She recalled the last words spoken to her by the dark haired Fairy, Kirito. The sun had almost completely set by the time they had finished helping to write the dispatch to the Palace. It was around that time that Professor Colbert had returned to the Academy. He arrived on foot from the direction of the world tree, looking harried but otherwise alive and well. The Professor had conversed briefly with Old Osmond in private. While they had waited Kirito had spoken to her.

The black garbed Fairy had looked at her seriously. "You're idea from earlier." He said.

"What about it?" Kirche asked, surprised.

"I'd like you to pursue it." He bowed his head. "Please."

Kirche blinked. "It was just speculation." She said hesitantly, "You don't really think its possible, do you?"

"I don't know." Kirito had admitted. "I don't know anything about the magic of this place. Right now, I think anything could be possible." He seemed distracted by his own thoughts as he spoke. "The Headmaster and Professor Colbert seem really knowledgeable, but maybe a different angle will help, I think."

Colbert and Old Osmond had emerged from the Headmaster's office a moment later, cutting off any reply that Kirche could have made.

Instead, she'd broached the subject once more with Tabitha that night after dinner. The dinning hall had been abuzz with rumors that visitors had arrived from the direction of the World Tree. A few students had made the connection with the strange messengers from earlier and both Kirche and Tabitha had been thoroughly questioned by their fellow students in an effort to tease out any morsels of information. Guiche had seemed to enjoy all of the attention, especially from the fairer sex, fortunately, the foppish boy at least knew how to dodge difficult questions, sort of. What none realized was that Kirito and Leafa had already departed, slipping away via the top of the Academy Tower.

"Look", Kirche said as she sat at Tabitha's desk. The blue haired girl was already seated on her bed, thumbing through a book. "The problem is that we can't prove Valliere summoned the World Tree, right?"

Tabitha nodded.

"So what did Professor Colbert say?" Kirche asked.

"Willpower exhaustion, the summoning would have killed her."

"Right." Kirche agreed. "So, if Louise did summon the World Tree, that means that either her willpower reserves are impossibly enormous, or there's something strange about her magic."

"Or the summons was strange." Tabitha said.

"That too." Kirche agreed. "But we already know its strange, its a giant magic tree!" That was completely ignoring the city of Faeries that apparently lived at its base.

"Ok, so what else did Professor Colbert say? We have a correlation, but no causation, right? Help me on this Tabitha, by causation he means we have to show how Louise could have summoned the World Tree without dying."

Tabitha nodded.

"So how do we prove that? First we prove that her magic is unusual. Well we already know that, but how it is unusual?"

"We can observe her."

"You mean like spying?"

The other girl looked up and shook her head. "We'll learn more by interacting with her."

"Like, be her friends?" Kirche asked, the idea of being close with a Valliere didn't exactly appeal to her.

"Like tutors." Tabitha said, and then elaborated, "While she studies magic, we study her."

"I gotcha." Kirche brightened and then almost immediately her spirits sank, "But wait, everyone thinks she failed the familiar summoning right?"

Tabitha nodded.

"So, she'll be expelled."

"Maybe." Tabitha said.

"What do you mean maybe, that's the rule isn't it?" Kirche said, frustrated.

Tabitha looked up from the book she was reading and tapped on the cover.

"What's that?" Kirche asked.

"A book."

"I know its a book."

"Genealogy."

"You mean like blood lines?" Kirche asked.

Tabitha nodded. "Tristanian noble lines, all of the great houses and their histories."

"And how does that help us."

"Sub dots and magical failures, historically they were killed or disowned by their families."

Kirche's eyes widened, "You don't thing the Valliere's would abandon their own daughter. Would they?" Kirche was viewed by many as a complete disgrace, shuffled off to Tristain to keep her from causing her family any more headaches in Germania. Even then, their had never been any serious threats of disowning her. Well, none that had been carried out anyway.

Tabitha shook her head. "The practice has fallen out of favor. More preferable to marry her off to a low noble seeking status."

"Okay, sure a low noble might marry a weak Mage to associate with her family, but Louise is a sub dot!"

"That's why she needs to graduate. Even if she doesn't." Tabitha said.

"Wait, what?" Kirche almost jumped out of her seat.

Tabitha raised a finger to her lips. "The academy has bent the rule before." Tabitha said simply.

"You mean, they've given a diploma to a blunt so their family could marry them off?" Kirche whispered.

Tabitha nodded. "To save face."

"How did you find out about this?" Kirche asked.

Tabitha shrugged, "Open secret."

Kirche supposed it would be, all of the great families produced a magical blunt from time to time. There was no helping it. Once upon a time, such children would be drowned like the runt of a litter, but such things had fallen out of favor. Instead this harmless little white lie had probably been created to see that the unlucky runt that popped up every few generations was cared for and their family saved face, foisting the problem off on some rising noble willing to gamble on his progeny to grow his status. And if their unfortunate parent's ailment skipped the next generation or new blood revitalized the line, so much the better.

It was likely that every house in Tristain had made use of this maneuver from time to time. In which case they would no doubt turn a blind eye when it was the Valliere's turn.

"The diploma is honorary. They flunk out and the diploma is dated to a year or two after graduation."

"That way is looks like they came back and got tutoring. Nobody from their class years can argue it because they would already have graduated."

"Just have to find a way to keep her here for real." Tabitha said. "Keep pretense."

Kirche clapped her hands together. "That ones easy. Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Tabitha?" Kirche said.

"Need a Zerbst." Tabitha observed.

"Thanks Tabitha, I'd be lost without you, but wait, you've been thinking about this since at least dinner, how did you know I'd . . ."

Tabitha smiled a little. "We're . . . friends."

Kirche shook her head at the memory. If she could get along so well with Tabitha then she could at least tolerate a Valliere. Kirche leaned in, sleeping, without the constant aura of boiling anger, Louise was kind of cute. She looked like, well, she looked like every ones kid sister, Kirche decided. A days rest had done her wonders, there was a healthy flush to her cheeks and she was breathing easily. Kirche poked the girl's cheek. Louise's breathing shifted and her nose twitched.

"Look, Valliere." Kirche said to the sleeping girl. "I've been giving this some thought, and I think maybe I've been a teensy bit unfair to you." She paused and shook her head. "Okay, I've been really unfair to you." She sighed, "Tabitha says that I've been bullying you, but its not bullying when you fight back right? I mean, its just training for when you're older and a Zerbst steals away your husband."

Louise didn't say anything, of course not!

"But Tabitha did make a good point, you haven't really had a fair shot. So what I was thinking is, that when you wake up, Tabitha and I can help you out. I mean, you're always studying all the time so you must know something about how magic works. Obviously you just haven't found your talent. Someone told me, that a different angle might help, though this isn't really what he talking about, but I think its good advice, so maybe we can give you a fresh perspective." Kirche trailed off.

"Honestly, you're probably wondering why I would even bother to help a Valliere. The truth is, I've had a lot of fun with you Louise." Kirche smiled a little. "Back home, I'm kind of considered a joke, and the only person I have here really is Tabitha, but you've taken me seriously, and you've never backed down even though you've never once beaten me. Valliere, you're the best enemy a girl could have. So I'll make you a deal, the only one who gets to insult you is me."

Louise shifted a little, her face tensed.

"Valliere?" Kirche asked.

The girl groaned softly.

"Valliere, can you hear me?" Kirche asked, she peaked out the door to the small private room. The infirmary was empty save for the school Physicians at her her desk near the infirmary door. Every little while she would come by to check on Valliere, most recently had been about five minutes ago. Kirche quietly shut the door to the private room and went back to sit beside Louise.

The girls eyes had cracked open blearily, squinting even in the dim candle light.

"Valliere, are you okay?" Kirched whispered.

"Thirsty." The girl rasped. Kirche looked about, there was a glass and pitcher of water on the table beside the bed.

Kirche filled the glass and then helped Louise to sit up. "Take slow sips." Kirche said gently.

Louise drank the whole glass and then demanded more. She was definitely as bossy as a kid sister.

"Where am I." She asked, squinting. "Zerbst?"

"You're in the infirmary." Kirche said. "What's the last thing you remember?"

The girl tried to sit up further before wincing in pain. "Familiar summoning. What happened?" She shook her head slowly."I failed, didn't I."

"It . . . seems that way." Kirche said slowly. She wanted to tell Louise her theory, but there was lingering doubt, what if she was wrong? Not even a Valliere deserved that cruelty. "You passed out from willpower exhaustion."

The tiny figure in the bed seemed to deflate before her eyes, there wasn't even any fight left in her. Kirche felt a sense of pity for Louise, a Valliere without her simmering anger was like a Zerbst without her passion.

"Did you come to gloat?" Louise asked, she sounded tired, not just physically tired, but weary, old.

Kirche sighed and put a hand on Louise's shoulder. "No, Valliere, I didn't come to gloat."

"Right. . . I wouldn't be enough sport." Louise said bitterly.

"Valliere." Kirche breathed slowly, any other time she would have taken this as an invitation for some verbal sparring. But this was different, it wasn't fair that Louise got to punch low.

"Then what are you doing here? I don't . . . Need pity either." She threw Kirche a halfhearted glare. "Not from some Germanian harlot."

"I'm not here to pity you." Kirche said, okay, that wasn't entirely true, she felt sorry for Louise.

"There's nothing for you to say to me." Louise said softly. "I failed, that's all I needed to know. I'll be sent home soon. Until then, just let me sleep." The girl tried to turn over in bed to face the wall.

"Valliere." Zerbst said. There was no reply.

"Valliere." An arm weakly pulled the blanket over her head. Now this was getting ridiculous.

"Louise." Kirche said softly.

The covers didn't move, from somewhere under the blankets a small voice squeaked out on the verge of cracking. "Just . . . Go away." The words were so soft and final that for a moment she couldn't believe that they'd come from Louise.

Nothing more passed between the two girls. Slowly Kirche stood. She filled the glass from the pitcher once more and left it by the bedside. Walking out of the room she leaned against the wall beside the door and pretended not to hear the soft sobs that issued from within. The pain that Louise only let out when she thought no one was looking. The Doctor would come back soon and see that his patient was awake.

Kirche Von Zerbst sighed, this was going to be a lot harder than she'd thought.

* * *

"I still don't know what to make of it."

"Even in all of my years I've never seen anything like it, much less on such a scale."

"Is it spirit magic?"

"It is the only thing I could imagine working on such a scale, other than . . ."

"Yes?"

"No, it was just a suspicion, pay it no mind."

"But . . . "

"Pay it no mind I said."

"Do you believe them?"

"That they do not know? Perhaps. But I can only say that there magic was not like that cast be Elves. They may not fully understand it themselves if what the boy, Kirito, said is true."

"Then what if it was a mixing of magic."

"A mixing?"

"Yes, like with elements, but across magical systems. I don't believe it has ever been observed, but if there magic is based on neither the Brimiric Elements nor pacts with the spirits, then it may be possible."

"An interesting theory."

"You're distracted, what is it?"

"Have you heard about the Valliere girl?"

"Louise Valliere? I took her to the infirmary this morning, why? Has something else happened to her?"

"She collapsed from exhaustion did she not, and then the World Tree appeared."

"You can't be entertaining that theory as well!"

"You said yourself, a mixing of magic is a distinct possibility. In that case I must wonder just who's magic was mixed. It may explain how she survived. Perhaps the girl's affinities should be more closely examined. I believe Miss Valliere will be staying with us for the foreseeable future."

"But she failed to summon a familiar, the school rules are quite clear."

"I prefer to think of them as guidelines really."

"Headmaster!"

"Oh hush now, what's the point of living this long if I can't bend the rules from time to time for fun and profit?"

"But the other students, and her parents . . ."

"The Valliere's will be informed of course and the crown, a suitable cover story will do for everyone else."

"What of Tabitha and Miss Zerbst? Neither is loyal to Tristain."

"Those two? Oh, and that foppish young Grammond as well, they already suspect, marvelous insight on the part of your students, you should be quite proud. We'll be wed with Germania soon enough so there is little to fear from Miss Zerbst. Miss Tabitha will be difficult but manageable, and we have more to fear from the Grammond boys stupidity than any chance of disloyalty. Simplest is to let them know what we want them to know. Yes, that could work quite nicely."

"You seem to be enjoying this."

"What? Hardly, well perhaps, these are interesting times after all."

End of Chapter


	10. Chapter 4 Part 1

My standard disclaimer for my lazy writing.

Halkgenenia Online- Chapter 4 Part 1

Kirigaya Kazuto, Kirito, former "Beater" of SAO, and now a swordsman of the Spriggan race transported to the world of Halkegenia, floated silently above the city of Arrun, just above the cloud tops. Translucent black wings spread gently in the breeze, keeping him stationed directly over Arrun's central square. Though much of the city was still in the shadows cast by the World Tree's roots, the early morning sunlight refracted off the morning mist, haloing the top of Arrun Tower in a golden aura.

Kirito had woken before the sun had risen, unable to sleep. He had to keep moving and thinking, anything to feel like was doing something. Helping the Sylph and Cait Syth leaders, taking care of Sugu, and trying to make sense of this dangerous situation, they were the only things keeping him sane.

Kirito breathed slowly and with his right hand reached up towards the summit of the World Tree, fingers spread out as if he could grab hold of the lowest branches.

Something pressed against the tips of his fingers and then inched its way down as he pressed his palm flat. The air before his hand rippled, the subtle visual cue for an out of bounds area. The barrier felt like glass, perfectly smooth and clear, and so insubstantial he could have broken it by accident. Of course, the barrier wasn't a physical thing and could not be broken even with all of his strength, in ALfheim it had been a special game asset as indestructible as any immortal object. The infinitely thin barrier would allow game objects to pass through, but was impassable to mobs and player. Even Yui could not cross its threshold.

He had spent most of the early morning searching back and forth along the barrier perimeter, using some of the floating islands over Arrun to rest his wings. From what he could determine, the barrier was probably a sphere centered on the top of the world tree, which meant that no matter how he approached, he would never be able to get closer to Asuna than he was now. His left hand balled into a fist.

He had harbored a faint hope that when they had been transported to Halkegenia, the barrier would have collapsed or otherwise dissipated. But it seemed just as powerful as ever.

Kirito's best guess was that when ALfheim had been transported, whatever had put them in these bodies and given the World Tree and other game assets physical form, had also interpreted the barrier as some sort of magic. Under better circumstances he would have loved to dissect what that might imply for Halkegenia's magic system. Was magic interpreted like some sort of computer code? If so, what was running that code? And what was the underlying logic? Was it now possible to use that logic to create new spells? Now however, it was just a bitter reminder of what stood between him and Asuna. He would have punched the barrier if doing so wouldn't have broken his hand.

The Spriggan swordsman grit his teeth. "Yui." Kirito said quietly. "Are you still able to detect Asuna?"

The little navigation pixie shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry Papa. I was able to detect Mama's player ID because Arrun's central plaza shared the same server as the World Tree, but now . . ."

"There aren't any servers." Kirito finished. No, Asuna was still there, he was certain of that, certain of it, if the world tree had been transported and Asuna had been there, then it stood to reason she was still someplace among its branches.

"Yui, you said you can still detect Cardinal, right?"

Yui nodded her head, she looked troubled.. "Its a weird feeling." She scrunched up her face in thought, "I don't know if I can describe it properly, the connection seems corrupted, but its definitely still there."

Kirito nodded, he hadn't taken his eyes from the World Tree. The base of the Tree was still out of bounds, protected by the same barrier, which made scaling the trunk impossible, and the altitude barrier would have stopped him besides. It might be possible in this world to overwhelm the barrier with offensive spells, or maybe the Tristanians would have a way of dispelling it. If not, that left the quest, Guardians of the World Tree, as the only way to reach Asuna.

Kirito wasn't so naïve as to think that Lady Sakuya or Alicia Rue would be willing to risk their forces to assault the World Tree again, not when death had become a frightening possibility. Nor was he arrogant enough to think he could ask others to risk their lives for his own goals. Though, his hand brushed against his shirt pocket and the dull silver card, their might be something he could offer in exchange. But he couldn't make that decision for anyone else, he would need to bring it up with Lady Sakuya, and soon.

Bells began to chime from the tower bellow, announcing the beginning of the day, Lady Sakuya would want to see them soon and he couldn't afford to keep the Sylph Leader waiting. Suguha had still been sleeping peacefully when he'd departed. He was sure his sister would sleep in given the events of the past day, even so, he'd left a note telling her where he would be so she wouldn't worry.

"Asuna, I'll be back soon." Kirito said. "Yui, say goodbye to your Mama, we're going back for now."

The pixie girl nodded reluctantly, "We'll be there soon, stay safe Mama." Yui pushed off from the barrier and flew back to Kirito's side. With one last look Kirito closed his eyes and folded his wings, letting himself plummet towards the center of Arrun.

* * *

Kirigaya Suguha woke slowly to the sounds of birds singing and distant bells. The girl curled up tight beneath the covers, she didn't really want to get up, it was nice and warm in bed, and when she got up she'd have to go out and do her morning practice. The dojo was always so cold in the winter. Unfortunately, the world had other ideas and the comfortable warmth beneath her blanket gradually grew into a muggy heat. With a small groan, the girl tossed the heavy blanket aside and sat up blearily rubbing her eyes. She squinted into the morning light. It was too bright, too bright, she could barely see.

Slowly her vision cleared and her mind worked sluggishly to comprehend what she was seeing. She was in a room that was not hers, in a bed that was not her own. To her left, an open window looked out upon a small garden and a cool morning breeze wafted in the scent of a fragrant olive tree. Her eyes opened slowly as understanding dawned and with it dread, she looked wildly around the room, the other bed was empty, but a small note had been left on the nightstand, weighted down by one of the bottles from the night before.

Reaching over, Suguha snatched up the piece of paper. The message was short, which was her brother's style, he'd planned to be back before she woke up, but if she woke early he didn't want her to worry. She put the note down carefully. Her distress from the night before had faded, only to be replaced by a sort of dull resignation. None of this could be real, could it?

But it was, she was certain of that, otherwise she wouldn't have felt so awful. Her eyes strung a little and she felt a few hot streaks run down her cheeks, nothing like the flood last night, just a reminder of how much it hurt. She wiped the tears away with the cuff of her shirt.

She wanted to crawl back under the covers, pull them over her head, and hide until it all went away. But that wasn't going to happen. Instead, slowly, she climbed out of bed, feeling bare feet touch cold hardwood. She stood.

There was a mirror on top of the dresser, with her hair down, Suguha almost didn't recognize her reflection. Kirigaya Suguha had traditional Japanese features, dark eyes, and wore her dark black hair cut short so that it wouldn't interfere with her Kendo training. The girl that looked back from the mirror had long blonde hair that fell past her shoulders to the small of her back, her eyes were bright green. Despite the differences, Suguha could see bits of herself in that face, little pieces of familiarity, like the face of a long lost sister. It was the face of Leafa, the other Suguha that had been born when she'd first logged into ALO.

Suguha remembered that she had been briefly fascinated by her appearance when she'd first started playing the full dive game, she'd quickly moved on to her enchantment with flying through the skies of ALfheim, and by the time she had thought of it again she had grown accustomed to manipulating that face. She hadn't paid it any more thought until now. If what her brother said was correct, this was her real face now, at least for the foreseeable future. Suguha pinched her cheeks and shook her head, too weird.

She stopped. Slowly her hands fell to her sides and she took a breath. Suguha composed herself, she had to be strong right now, she knew she wasn't as strong as her brother, but, maybe if she could just muster a little bit of that strength, then maybe she could move forward. And her brother was here with her, the swordsman Kirito who had survived the death game of Sword Art Online. Lots of people had died in the game that was not a game, but lots had survived too. It was definitely possible. Even if the circumstances weren't exactly the same, there wasn't anyone else she would rather have had at her side.

Suguha turned and saw her clothes laying where she had folded them the night before. Her fingers played with the hem of her nightshirt, she took another resigned breath and began to undress, casting aside her night clothes, she carefully avoided looking in the mirror while she disrobed, that would still be too much, and started getting dressed.

She heard something land gently on the windowsill, a bird? Sylvain was lousy with small colorful species of sparrow that made their home amongst the bark of the world tree. She'd heard once that the birds around Arrun were supposed to be especially good luck if you could get one to eat from the palm of your hand. It was just a silly rumor, but it lifted her spirits. Smiling a little, Leafa tilted her head to catch a look at her guest and froze.

A dark figure crouched on the windowsill, holding perfectly still.

Suguha didn't hear the figure stutter her name or register the deer in headlights look on his face. The shriek that followed caused birds to take flight for blocks around, ensuring that the whole district would have no good fortunes for the rest of the day.

Suguha couldn't quite remember the series of events that had followed, nor could her brother for different reasons. But from the absent dew milk bottle and the sizable bruise forming on her brother's head, she'd been able to reconstruct them from the results. Yui's testimony confirmed it.

Kirito tenderly probed his forehead as he walked beside his sister on their way towards Arrun tower. After hurriedly getting dressed, Leafa had sorted out the incident with the other inn occupants and a patrol of Cait Syth who had been drawn by the noise.

"Jeez Sugu, I didn't know your thrown weapons skill was so high." Her brother mumbled.

They would have flown, but considering the not inconsiderable force with which Suguha had thrown the bottle, she wanted to have her brother checked out by someone with first aid experience. At least the glass bottle hadn't shattered against his thick skull.

"Knock on the door like a normal person." Leafa huffed.

"You should have closed the window if you were going to change." He insisted. "Someone might have seen you."

"That isn't the normal etiquette, Papa." Yui said sternly. "You should just admit you did a weird thing!"

Leafa paused in mid stride, "No, your Papa's right, sorry", she said and looked down red faced. Strictly speaking she should have known better than to change so casually in a world where everyone had wings, being on the second floor was no guarantee of privacy. She consoled herself with the fact that it could have been worse, at least it had been Kirito rather than some pervert. "Where did you go this morning?"

Kirito's hand fell from his head. "We were visiting Asuna."

"Oh." Leafa said quietly. "Do you have any new ideas on how to reach the top of the Tree."

Kirito shook his head, "Unless we can destroy the barrier, the only way up is still through the Guardians."

Leafa shuddered at that thought. They'd almost made it last time, but it had been a matter of both luck and skill, exploiting the lag generated by the gigantic army of Guardian Knights running on a single server in order to punch through with speed. They had no way of knowing if that would work now or if the Guardian Knights' attack algorithms had changed when they were transported.

It was also possible that the Guardian Knights had all disappeared along with the town NPCs, but there was no guarantee that was the case since mounts and navigation pixies were still present. The only way to be sure was to have someone go and trigger the quest and then run if they saw any Guardians. Kirito seemed to think that there was an autonomy threshold that had come into play when deciding whether or not an NPC was transported over. The town NPCs which were highly scripted had been left behind while mounts and possibly mobs had been brought along.

Leafa couldn't imagine Lady Sakuya risking another attempt on the World Tree until they knew more, much less ordering her forces to their possible deaths. When she had said as much to Kirito, her brother had just nodded.

"You're right." He said. "I can't ask Lady Sakuya to launch another raid just for Asuna." Her brothers hands clenched. "I can't . . . I can't endanger other people for our sake."

"Just for Asuna?"

"I can't be sure, but their could be something else at the crest of the tree that could be valuable if we can access it."

"You mean the Castle of King Oberon?" Leafa asked, her eyes went wide.

"Mmm. Maybe that too." Her brother agreed. "But it could be something even more important." He reached into his pocket and produced a small silver card.

Recognition dawned, "Thats -"

"The GM access card that fell from the World Tree." Kirito said. "I think Asuna dropped this to Yui and I as a message. If Asuna had this, then it should mean that there is an Admin access terminal at the top of the World Tree."

"Do you think it would still work?" Leafa asked.

"I don't know. What would it even do? There's no underlying game engine to manipulate, but at the same time, maybe it can do anything. We can't tell until we find it and try it out." Kirito put the card back in his pocket. "But . . . Sugu . . . Do you think this would be worth fighting to the top of the world tree? It's just, I can't be sure anymore." Kirito looked uncertain.

Leafa reached out and squeezed her brother's hand. "I don't know either." She said gently. "But it might be worth a try."

They continued on in silence, Arrun looked just as abandoned this morning as it had the day before, but in the early hours that seemed more natural and their walk was uneventful. There was a great deal of activity in the square when they arrived and curiosity got the better of both of them, they ran the rest of the way to the base of Arrun tower.

Lady Sakuya was directing the gathered players, the forces under her command, initially comprised of Sylph and Cait Syth players loyal to their respective factions, had swelled to include members of every race. Strong Gnomes were busy hauling supplies while the smaller Imps, Spriggans, and Leprechauns took inventory. Leafa even spotted a few Puca players sitting atop the nearby buildings where they could use their sound based magic to project messages across the city. A crowd of Salamanders, Sylphs, and Cait Syth were gathered around Lady Sakuya listening intently as she spoke.

"Leafa-chan, Kirito-kun, Yui-chan." The Sylph Leader greeted, at some point Lady Sakuya must have found time to rest, she was looking much more alert then she had the night before. "I'm glad you decided to join us just now."

"Has something happened?" Leafa asked.

Lady Sakuya nodded. "Last night, I had Alicia Rue use her moonlight mirror ability, we got through, first to Freelia and then to Silvain."

Kirito and Leafa both stood straight.

"W-wait, then that means . . . Did all of ALfheim get transported?!" Leafa asked.

"It would appear to be that way." Lady Sakuya observed. "I intend to leave early for my meeting with Professor Colbert and the Headmaster, hopefully they can help make sense of this and also contact their government so that we can avoid any conflicts. We could only maintain the mirror for a brief time but our forces in Silvain reported a nearby town and sightings of mounted figures reconnoitering from the North East. Freelia made similar reports and also claimed to have made contact with the captain of a ship."

"Then what about the other Capitols?" Kirito wondered aloud.

"That is still unknown." Sakuya said. "But I suspect we will find that they have been transported as well, this could be a problem."

"It's way too many people." Kirito said.

Leafa understood. At the moment, Arrun contained just over four thousand players and enough food to feed them all for two or three weeks depending on how long they were willing to keep feeding the dragons and other pets and mounts. The other settlements would have their own food supplies but they would also need to be supplied from outside before too long. On a slow night, ALfheim's Japan based servers would have anyplace from forty to eighty thousand people logged in at once.

At the same time, each additional settlement that had been transported was another chance for conflict in the ensuing confusion. They had been lucky that Professor Colbert had been a teacher and willing to listen to their earnest words, their first meeting could so easily have ended in violence. Other places might not be so lucky or so inclined to a peaceful resolution. She couldn't imagine the Salamanders being very diplomatic.

Lady Sakuya nodded. "That is why we must move quickly, if this situation is not handled with care we will have a much larger crises on our hands. Kirito-kun, Leafa-chan, please may I request that you come with me to the meeting."

"You're heading out now?" Leafa asked.

The Sylph leader nodded, "Now that you're here. I will be taking a small retinue but I'd like to avoid bringing any obvious guards."

"They already know us, and Kirito and I are strong fighters." Leafa reasoned.

The Sylph Leader nodded. "Exatly. This matter requires discretion both in matters of diplomacy and security, I can't think of anyone better to accompany me."

"We accept." Her brother said automatically. "But before we go, there is something I want to discuss with you and Alicia Rue, in private."

The Sylph Leader nodded hesitantly when she saw the troubled look on his face. "It will take a few minutes for the rest of my retinue to prepare their equipment." Lady Sakuya turned to the gathered faeries. "Novair, see to the final preparations."

The three Faeries departed for the top of Arrun tower and the offices that had been set aside for the private use of Lady Sakuya and Alicia Rue. When they arrived they found the Cait Syth leader laying drowsily on a couch.

Leafa cast a worried look at the Cait Syth and then to lady Sakuya. The Sylph Leader shrugged. "We drew straws on who would take the night shift, Alicia lost."

"That's why Sakuya-chan gets to go play diplomat this morning." Alicia said and yawned sleepily, exposing needle like canines.

"What is it that you wanted to tell us?" Lady Sakuya asked.

Kirito and Leafa looked at each other and then back to the Sylph leader. Kirito took the GM card from his pocket and showed it to Lady Sakuya.

"What is this?" She asked, curious.

"A GM access card." Kirito said.

Lady Sakuya looked surprised and even the exhausted Alicia Rue sat bolt upright.

"Where did you get this?" The Sylph Leader touched the card carefully as if it would disappear if she wasn't careful.

"It's from Mama." Yui said.

The Sylph Lord looked confused, "I don't understand." Lady Sakuya said, "Yui-chan, you said your Mama is the person you're trying to find at the top of the World Tree."

Yui nodded sadly. "Before this all started, I detected Mama's player ID, we couldn't reach her because of the altitude barrier around the World Tree. But she must have heard us because she dropped this."

Lady Sakuya shook her head in disbelief. "You two really are full of surprises." She said.

"If Asuna was able to get this, then it probably means there's an admin access terminal someplace within the World Tree."

Lady Sakuya exchanged glances with Alicia Rue. "Kirito-kun, you do realize how valuable, how dangerous this thing might be?"

Kirito nodded slowly. "That's why I brought it to you. If the different aspects of ALfheim have become real, that means that this city, the World Tree, and these bodies are no longer just data on a server. An admin terminal may be completely useless, but it may have been transformed into something capable of effecting the real world." He hesitated, "It may be worth risking another attempt on the World Tree."

Lady Sakuya took the card carefully and examined it. "Alicia, what do you think?"

The Cait Syth leader seemed to uncharacteristically hesitate. "Even if it is, I don't think we can do it right away even if we wanted to." Alicia said. "Right Sakuya-chan?"

Lady Sakuya nodded. "I understand that this gives us a good reason to unite to reach the top of the World Tree." Sakuya said. "But there are much more pressing matters at hand. We have to consider the welfare of every player. And if the game has become real", Lady Sakuya bit her lip, nobody had been willing to test it, but amongst the former players there was an unspoken acceptance that death was now an all too real possibility.

Kirito's head sank. "I understand. Just, please, consider it soon, if this world has become real, then there's no way to tell how long Asuna, Yui's Mama, can survive alone at the top of the World Tree."

Sakuya gave him a grave look but nodded. "I understand, Kirito-kun. And as you say, it may be worth risking everything for. But it isn't my decision to make alone, nor is it one we can make hastily. Please, I ask you for just a little time." She handed the card back to Kirito, placing it back in his hand and then folded her own hands around his. "Yui-chan told me about Asuna-san. She must mean a great deal to you. Until the day that we can stand at the top of the World Tree, please hold onto this. It belongs to you, and I wouldn't trust it in the hands of anyone else. In fact, you should tell no one else that you have this, if people knew such a thing existed . . ."

"I understand." Kirito said. "It's a dangerous thing to have. I wasn't even sure I should show you, but it seems like I'm running out of options."

"I agree with Sakuya-chan." Alicia said, "Its definitely worth a shot, but we'll need to be extra prepared with how dangerous it will be. We can't make any promises, but if it can be done, the Cait Syth will have your back."

"And the Sylphs will be at your side." Lady Sakuya added.

Kirito put the card away once more. He close his eyes. "Thank you." He said softly.  
_


	11. Chapter 4 Part 2

So here's the latest installment. Been busy recently. Forgive me if things seems a little out of order. I have quite a few snips planned but I keep trying to switch their order around to maintain flow. Also I would like everyone reading this to know right now that while Louise will continue to make brief appearances from time to time, it will be quite a while before she is mainstreamed into the story. Probably a bit after the conclusion of the current arc. Much apologies.

But hey, at least you get to find out what's happening to Asuna!

* * *

Halkegenia Online-Chapter 4- Part 2

"Hmmm, does this look like anything to you Baku-san?"

Nishida turned to the other players that had gathered around the admin terminal. The group was a varied bunch, there was no distinction among them between high level members of the clearing group and the more pedestrian guilds and merchants who had simply tried to get by in Aincrad. Nishida had addressed his question to one of the later, a thin man with hair the color of straw, a former member of the gigantic guild known as The Army, he had been a network engineer in real life, just graduated from college and hired on to a prestigious company when he was trapped in SAO. The man seemed genuinely pleased that he was now able to put his skills to use to help effect their final escape.

"Baku frowned, it looks like . . . It actually doesn't look like anything to me, it's definitely not Japanese or English. Maybe a language preset got scrambled in whatever system failure released us."

"Hmm. Maybe." Nishida frowned. "It's definitely not Greek. Maybe Cyrillic or Arabic?" The old man sighed.

"Nishida-san, has there been any progress?" Asuna strode up to the group of gathered players. The past day had been hectic for the gathered players, confusion, anxiety, hopefulness, all mingling and driving them onward. Asuna had undergone a subtle change in that time, though still clothed in the dress of the Faerie Queen, a rapier borrowed from one of the other players now hung at her hip. She looked tired, but carried on with the same bearing she had effected as the sub commander of the Knights of the Blood Oath. The surety of purpose that she projected keeping the other players inline and obedient to her wishes despite outward appearance.

Within hours of their awakening, the players had thoroughly explored most of the lab interior finding only more empty lab spaces, and a number of storage rooms filled with strange obsidian monoliths. Nishida had told her that they were VR representations of servers, but they all seemed to now be offline. They had also found a handful of locked rooms and what could only be described as an opulent throne room that looked out upon the branches of the World Tree. Asuna could only guess that it was where Sugou had indulged in his fantasy of lording over the unknowing players below. The locked rooms remained unexplored for the time being, they seemed to require a key combination or possibly the GM card to open.

The players who had ventured out onto the branches of the World Tree had come trickling back over the course of several hours with their reports. The first thing that had become apparent was that the area in which they could travel within the branches of the World Tree appeared to be limited. An out of bounds barrier encapsulated a small spherical section of the World Tree's crest. Upon further examination the cordoned area appeared to be centered on Asuna's former cage. Other than that, they had found precious little of any use. Having exhausted things for the gathered players to do, most had been moved to a different, smaller lab room, or the throne room, though Asuna couldn't stand the ostentatious space.

"Ah, Asuna-san." Nishida said. "I'm afraid we've run into a problem." Nishida gestured to the admin terminal, a geometric block of engraved obsidian that floated above the floor of the now empty lab space. The terminal looked a little different from the one she had first seen in SAO but the interface, a holographic keyboard and projected display, were basically the same, or had been during her first aborted attempt at escape. Now however . . .

"I've been out of the industry for almost three years and I was just a manager for the ten years before that, but I should still be able to make some sense of this!" Nishida complained, crossing his arms, he looked like the archetypical grandfather frustrated with using new technology. He had been a manager with Tohto Broadband, the company responsible for running network security for SAO before the game's true nature had been revealed.

In the monitor space above the terminal, where an option menu or a computer command prompt would normally have been displayed, there floated a strange string of flowing symbols, they moved, revolving and spinning around one another in eye watering patterns. At the center of the space spun a series of spheres, layered matrioshka like, covered in endlessly rearranging symbols. It made Asuna dizzy just to look at it.

"What is this?" Asuna asked.

"We wish we could tell you." Baku said. "That GM card you got from the slug opened the terminal alright, but this is all that it will display, and the keyboard seems to be locked."

"Baku here thinks it might be a corrupted language preset, we might be able to reset it but . . ." Nishida trailed off.

Asuna sighed softly. "We're going to have to talk to Kimura-san about this." The gathered players shifted uncomfortably, none of them felt safe around the slug type monster, even if it could speak, its resemblance to the thousands of such mobs that had been slain in SAO just made it too disturbing.

"Why do you bother calling him by his name?" The sword user who had fought beside Arguile asked, Asuna had been a little surprised to learn that she was actually an incredibly tomboyish woman named Caramella, "He's just the 'slug' to us."

"Probably because I won't be like him." Asuna said, recalling her first interrogation of the Slug, of Kimura.

It had been roughly half a day ago when the slug had finally stopped groaning over his wounds. At that point, while still weak, it started to look like the mob based avatar would pull through. Slug types had a high regenerative ability that along with their considerable strength and dexterity had made them dangerous opponents despite their unwieldy builds. A half dozen players, all veterans of the front line, had been assigned to guard the Slug in case it should try to attack or make any effort to log out. By morning he had already been showing signs of a full recovery with the terrible lacerations along his flanks taking on a pale puckered texture and even the severed tips of his tentacles looking considerably less raw. Strangely the graphical effect of his injuries seemed much more detailed than those found in SAO. Asuna wondered if it was an effect of improvement in the game engine. She had noticed similar small scrapes and scratches that had been rendered faithfully on the bodies of some of the players. When he had started to complain incessantly about his rough treatment, Asuna had decided it was time to give him something to really complain about.

Asuna had approached the slug and his gathered guards, the slug had been moved into one of the smallest lab rooms where he could be safely watched without disturbing any of the other players. Arguile was waiting when she arrived.

"Asuna-sama." Her subordinate said gesturing politely to lead the way.

"How is he?" Asuna asked, nodding to the slug.

"As well as to be expected." Arguile said. "He's been cursing us for the last thirty minutes."

"He's an unpleasant creature." Asuna agreed, she wondered if he was one of the slugs that had recaptured her. There was no way to tell externally of course, the slug avatar was based on a monster from SAO and therefore all of the Avatar's would be identical. "We need information from him." Asuna said. "The sooner the better." They had an unknown time limit, Sugou would not allow anything to interfere with his research. There shot at freedom would last only until Sugou could reassert control, so they had to make the most of it.

"Might I suggest you leave the interrogation to me, Asuna Sama." Arguile said.

"What, why?"

"I must confess that at the moment you do not cut the most intimidating of figures." The man's lips quirked. "With all due respect."

"You might be right." Asuna admitted.

Looking around she caught sight of a player, a young boy leaning against a nearby wall, he wore a knit cap atop light brown hair and had a scarf wrapped tightly around his neck, from his clothes she guessed he frequented the colder floors of Aincrad which made him a medium tier player, one of the many mid level players who ventured out from towns into low levels dungeons where they could farm for col and item drops with a wide safety margin. What he was doing in the room with the slug, other than simple boredom, was beyond her. The boy noticed her as she approached and stood up straight.

"A-Asuna-sama!" The boy stuttered his face going red. He bowed deeply, arms held stiffly at his side.

Asuna raised a hand to hide a small smile of amusement. She had been forced to contend with the attention of many of Aincrad's male, and a few of its female, residents over the past two odd years. The net effect was that she had become fairly good at determining what kind of 'fan' they were. This boy fell safely into the harmless category, an innocent little crush on the popular girl.

"Excuse me, may I borrow your sword?" Asuna asked politely.

"O-of course!" The boy said, fumbling with the straps before offering the scabbard to her. "Anything for Asuna the Flash."

Asuna unsheathed the blade, it was a rapier, a weapon familiar to her from almost two years now. This one was more familiar than most, in fact, it resembled one that she had possessed for about half a year, she had traded up after Lisbeth, her friend and blacksmith, had maxed out the weapons upgrade potential. "May I ask your name?" Asuna asked.

"People call me Kino." The boy said. "It's not my real screen name though, I'm actually a little embarrassed of that."

"Oh?" Asuna asked. "This is an excellent blade." She noted. "I used to have one just like it."

"I know!" The boy brightened, "You used it up to level forty, I saw your picture with it in the Weekly Argo at the celebration after clearing the floor boss! They say you were amazing in that battle!"

"Really?" Asuna asked awkwardly. "I'm sorry but I really can't remember." And she really couldn't, many of the old battles had blurred together, though she could still remember the boss and the general progression of the battle, she couldn't say for certain what she had done that would be considered incredible.

Kino must have misinterpreted her hesitation, his eyes widened, "No, don't get me wrong, I'm not a stalker or anything!" He waved his hands desperately, "I'm just . . ." He bowed his head down, "A lot of the players on the lower levels didn't seem to think much of it, but we all had faith in the finishing group. Everyone in my guild thought that you were really cool, Asuna-sama, you and the other members of the front line like Heathcliff-sama, and the black swordsman . . ." He shook his head quickly, "I'm sorry, I'm babbling."

"No, it's alright." Asuna smiled. "Thank you, Kino-san, it's very flattering of you."

"Asuna-sama?" Kino asked quietly.

"Yes?"

"We will get out of here, right?" Kino asked, refusing to look her in the eye. Judging by his appearance, she guessed he was one of the younger players, even younger that her and Kirito, maybe thirteen or fourteen years of age. He probably hadn't even left the town of beginnings for the first year of the game, and only then to avoid harassment by the army.

Asuna smiled encouragingly, "Of course we will, all of our friends and family are waiting for us on the other side. We'll definitely get out soon, just stay strong for a little while longer, Kino-san."

Kino smiled shyly, "Thank you, Asuna-sama."

Asuna turned from Kino and back to the looming bulk of the slug. Her expression grew far harder and much more sincere. The slug watched as she approached its eyes rising over its body on long stalks. She would have been lying if she said she wasn't disgusted by the creature's appearance, but far more disgusting was the person inside, someone who would knowingly help Sugou with his research, the very thought of such a person made her nauseous. Yet such a person could definitely exist, as she had seen when she had attempted to plead for her freedom.

She approached the front of the slug glaring up into its eyes with menacing intent. She was going to get answers out of this creature, but first she wanted to know.

"Do you know who I am?" Asuna asked coldly.

The slug's eyes rose and fell on its stalks, it spread them wide and then back together. "You are . . . The girl from before." It said in a soft, almost disturbingly neutral voice that seemed to emanated from its whole body. Beneath a thin layer of slim, the slug's skin seemed to vibrate as its spoke. Maybe it used its whole body as a giant speaker.

In the blink of an eye, Asuna demonstrated her title, drawing Kino's borrowed blade and thrusting forward until the sword tip was bare inches from the right eye of the slug. The eye stalks recoiled fearfully. "Which one are you?" Asuna asked.

"I - I am . . ."

With a flick of her wrist Asuna slashed the rapier across the right side of the slug's face, the wound was barely more than a paper cut but still the slug cringed in pain. "And don't lie. Lying will be worse for you."

"Asuna-sama!" Arguile shouted in disbelief. The other players looked amongst each other nervously.

"I'm the one who restrained you." The Slug said quickly, "Please . . . please don't hurt me."

Asuna tilted her head, he was either stupid or too scared to lie. "What is your name?" She asked. She didn't really care, but she recalled the things it had said, how this was all far more 'humane' then she thought it was, his utter indifference for the lives he had been playing with. Anything she could do to separate herself from this monster was essential.

"My name? My name is Kimura." The slug said.

"I want to know what happened, Kimura-san, why are all of the SAO survivors like this?"

The stubby tentacles around the slugs face twitched and waved. "I don't know." He confessed. "I really don't!" He said quickly as Asuna menaced with her rapier. "One moment we were examining the response data and the next there was this blinding pain. When we came to, the test module avatars were gone and the test subjects were waking up. We tried to restrain them with console commands but nothing worked, not even our user menus, so we couldn't log out either. Then they started attacking us when we tried to restrain them." Kimura spat angrily. "They slashed at us with swords and look at what they did to Ishikawa!" He said angrily. "That all really hurt and the pain receptors were supposed to have been disabled, I specifically remembered doing so this time!"

"It sounds like you got what you deserved." Asuna said coldly, Kimura declined to answer. "What could have caused you to be unable to log out?"

"It must have been a system crash. In which case Cardinal should have immediately rebooted from the most recent backup of the local server." Kimura said. "That must be how you got out of your cage this time, you were restored to the nearest backup spawn point. They're an artifact from the best test. But the test subjects shouldn't have even been able to return to consciousness without a system command."

Asuna nodded slowly, his explanation made a little sense. "We need to log out, there's a terminal here but we need an access card to open it."

"No." The slug said, the voice sounding entirely too dispassionate.

"Why not?" Asuna asked.

"You must think I'm stupid if you think I'll help you log out." Kimura said.

Asuna's eyes narrowed, "We can make this very unpleasant for you." She didn't like the idea of torturing someone, even someone like Kimura, though it did make the matter much easier, but if it was a choice between the slug and the three hundred players, she knew which one would win out in the end, she could hate herself later. "You've done an evil thing here Kimura-san, help us and I'm sure the courts will look on you favorably."

"The same courts that wouldn't let us do our research?" The slug asked, disgust tinged his voice. "Do as you like." The slug said, cringing even as he spoke. "At worst, when this body is destroyed, I'll be logged out, and then you won't have anyone. It's just a matter of time before we have you all contained again."

"So you really don't care what happens to you?" Asuna asked idly, she began to circle the slug, forcing Kimura to move his eye stalks to follow her.

"It hurts." Kimura agreed, "It hurts a lot." The slug admitted. "But I'm not stupid. If I don't endure this and help you log out instead, I will be sent to prison. The worst you can do it make me feel pain until my avatar HP reaches zero and I'm forced to log out."

"That's very brave of you, Kimura-kun." Asuna said sweetly, she let the very tip of her blade trace a line across the slugs flank, not penetrating the skin, but simply following the contours of the flesh. A thin layer of slime came away when she withdrew the rapier. The slug shuddered softly.

"It's just rational self interest." Kimura said. "Hopefully the pointlessness of torturing me should be clear by now." The slug said a little too quickly.

Asuna smiled, "You've definitely given this a lot of thought. You must be really smart . . . Kimura-kun." The slug watched her warily. "But I think you're forgetting some things."

"Oh?" The slug asked.

"Mmm." Asuna nodded. "It's been almost half a day since we all woke up, why hasn't someone logged you off from the outside."

"That is . . . " Kimura paused. "The system must still be down on their end."

"But they could just pull the Nerve Gear off of your head, right?" Asuna asked. "Did you and Ishikawa-san log in from the same room?"

"Why do you ask?" Kimura asked.

"I'm just wandering." Asuna said. "It just seems that, if Ishikawa-san is on the other side, the first thing he would have done after dying painfully is pull your Nerve Gear off to save you from the same fate."

"We log in from the same room." Kimura admitted slowly. "Why does that matter?"

"I'm just thinking." Asuna said, examining the rapier in her hand. "If that's the case, you should definitely have been logged out by now. You know what I think, I think Ishikawa-san is dead, he died when his avatar's HP hit zero."

The slug let out a rumbling laugh. "Do you know how ridiculous that is? No matter what this looks like, Ishikawa and I are completely safe. There is no way for us to end up like the SAO players." Kimura said. "Technology has advanced since you entered SAO, the safety features of the AMUsphere and the modified research Nerve Gears would make that impossible."

"Then why haven't you been logged out?" Asuna asked again.

"It must be . . . It must be other technical difficulties." Kimura said the joviality leaving his voice, "It's definitely other technical difficulties! There are software blocks in the research nerve gears."

Asuna smiled. "Someone told me once that there were lots of safeties in the standard Nerve Gear too, but Kayaba Akihiko was able to override them. And then Sugou told me how he reused parts of SAO to create ALfheim, including the Cardinal system. I'm sure he was very careful, how do you know something didn't slip in? Kayaba Akihiko was a very smart man after all."

"Th-that's not possible." Kimura said. "You're lying, you have to be lying. It's . . . impossible." Kimura sounded doubtful.

"And if it's not?" Asuna asked. "Think, you would have definitely been logged out if possible. Which means something is preventing it. The most likely case is that something happened to Ishikawa when his avatar died and now they're afraid to log you out." Asuna tilted her head. "Do you want a know a secret, Kimura-kun?"

The slug's eye stalks twitched from side to side, she had no way to tell but she took that as a sign of curiosity. "RECTO Progress, the company that Sugou works for, my father is its CEO."

Kimura's eye stalks went far apart, examining her from all sides. "So?" Kimura asked, he sounded nervous now.

"Don't you think the father of an SAO victim in that position would closely follow any other incidents that occur, no matter how small? Especially if they happen inside of his own company? I bet the reason you haven't been logged out is that your partner was injured in some way. In which case there will definitely be police investigation, and an internal investigation by RECTO, Sugou's work won't remain hidden for much longer."

"That . . . That's not true, Sugou-sama can cover it up, even if what you say is true and Ishikawa-san had somehow been killed . . ."

"You're probably right." Asuna agreed. "I'm sure Sugou has the power to hide the death of a single employee. He can make it look like an accident or arrange it so that it looks like he died somewhere else from some other cause. But it will look suspicious if you die too, won't it?"

"W-what are you talking about?" Kimura said.

"Asuna-sama, you can't be serious!" Arguile said, stepping forward from the players who had stood by silently, watching the exchange.

"At the moment we don't have any other way to get a message out." Asuna said, "No doubt Sugou is racing to control the situation, but if two of his subordinates die in rapid succession it will draw questions."

"You . . . You wouldn't dare to kill someone." Kimura trembled, the slime along his flanks was thickening like sweat. "You're just a kid, aren't you? Just some little rich girl."

For an instant Asuna paused, would she kill him? She was sure she could, she would kill this person if she had no other choice, wouldn't she?"

"You're right. She won't kill you." Arguile said calmly, placing a hand on Asuna's shoulder. "Because if it comes to that, I will be the one to end your life."

"Arguile-san?" Asuna looked up, shocked.

The man smiled down at her, "He's right about one thing, you're too young to have to carry a burden like this, Asuna-sama." Arguile looked back to Kimura, the slug was trembling now. "In SAO, I was among the members of the top guilds who participated in the subjugation mission against the murderers Guild. I've already taken a life once. I won't lose any sleep over doing it again for a worthy cause."

"B-but, I haven't done anything!" Kimura whimpered. "None of the test subject have been harmed, you're all perfectly fine! Our research wasn't going to hurt anyone!"

"And now?" Asuna asked, "You should realize what Sugou is going to do to us to keep this covered up. What he'll do to me. There's nothing for me to lose if Sugou starts to regain control."

Arguile looked to Asuna, concern apparent on his face. "Asuna-sama. This man, Sugou, he hasn't . . ."

"He hasn't done anything, yet." Asuna said, voice dripping with loathing. "But he's made threats of what he was going to do once he completes his research."

"Then we truly have no choice." Arguile said, looking back to the slug. "It seems you have a choice to make, Kimura-san. Help us to escape and take your chances with the courts, or take your chances with my blade. I'll give you some time to decide."

The slug looked back and forth between Asuna and Arguile before looking to the other players. "You . . . You would really let these people murder me?"

The faces of the gathered players grew hard, those that had volunteered to Guard Kimura had all seen people die, many of them far more deserving of life than their former prison warden.

Kimura shrank down, seeming to collapse in on himself, the eye stalks sank down until they had almost retracted into his face and the short tentacles at his front that waves about like whiskers began to tremble softly. Whether he'd gone into shock or was simply weighing his chances it was impossible to tell. The motivations and emotions that crossed that nonhuman face could only be guessed at.

Finally the slug spoke again. "You just need a GM card to access the admin terminal, right?"

Asuna and Arguile look to each other, Asuna nodded.

The slug's foot pad rippled as he heaved himself off the floor, a tentacle slithered down and recovered something small and silver. Asuna felt a wash of relief when she saw the small silver card. The slug extended the card towards Asuna and Arguile, Asuna accepted it, careful to touch only the corners of the slime covered card before handing it to Arguile. "Take this to Nishida-san in the lab. I'm sure he'll know what to do with it."

Asuna turned back to the slug who now looked considerably deflated. "Thank you, Kimura-san." She said stiffly before returning to Arguile's side.

"Thank you for stepping in back there." Asuna said to her subordinate as they stepped out into the cylindrical hallway leading to the main lab room. She suddenly felt very tired.

"It was nothing." Arguile said. "But, Asuna-sama, you weren't going to kill him, were you?"

Asuna looked away, "I don't know, maybe. I just wanted to frighten him." Asuna said.

"Forgive me for asking this, Asuna-sama, but even in SAO, you never took a life, did you?" Arguile asked. He looked deeply concerned.

Asuna smiled painfully, but shook her head, "I came close a few times. I was prepared to do it, but I got lucky, it never came to that."

"I see." Arguile said with relief.

They had parted ways, Arguile to speak with Nishida and the other technically oriented players while Asuna went and checked up on the groups scattered throughout the lab and World Tree branches. Most of the people had gathered in the smaller rooms where they could find comfort or privacy surrounded by any friends or acquaintances who had also been trapped. She slipped into her persona as leader as she walked among them. Some smiled hopefully, while others tugged gently at her hand as she passed, pleading for some reassurance. She comforted them, told them what was being done, but she couldn't bring herself to promise them anything, to lie.

Her wandering had eventually taken her to the lab entrance. A pair of player's in mid level gear stood guard at the doors. The two were polar opposite, one tall and lanky with bony cheeks and messy dark brown hair, the other was shorter and stalkier with a broad set build and lighter hair cut short. They seemed strangely familiar as they greeted Asuna and warned her not to travel too far out. Out among the branches of the world Tree, a handful of the more daring players were standing watch, hoping to catch sight of something or someone close to the World Tree. Anything that could draw attention from the player's bellow might be the thing to save them.

She walked out along the branches, carefully avoiding her former cage, until she reached the very edge of the world Tree. The world stretched away beneath her feet, she could see the distant curve of the earth and far, far below, what might have been the streets and plazas of a city. She shivered, it was so close, so very close. Her hand reached out and something offered resistance, pale ripples appeared before her. The out of bounds barrier that rendered travel down from the World Tree impossible. Even if they were to attempt to climb down the trunk, they would be met by this impenetrable barrier.

She had stood there for a long time, thinking to herself, and expressing her doubts to the emptiness that expanded outward almost forever. "I'm sorry, Kirito-kun, I'm trying to be strong right now. But for now this is as close as I can get to you. I hope you're having better luck reaching me." She smiled to herself. "I'm not giving up, we'll see each other soon. You and Yui, stay safe for now."

She had returned to the labs not long after that and found a quiet corner in which to rest after telling Arguile where to find her. Heavily stuffed pillows and thick rugs had been taken from Sugou's throne room to serve as sleeping mats. It wasn't very comfortable, but Asuna felt bone weary and had fallen asleep almost as soon as she had laid her head down. She was woken by Arguile some time later, to find that she had slept into the afternoon and that Nishida and the others wanted to see her.

"We've tried everything we could think of after getting the card." Nishida said. "But this is all it will display. I think you're right Asuna-san, we're going to need Kimura-san's expertise."

The other players had grudgingly agreed, even Caramella who looked non to happy at the thought of letting the slug avatar anywhere near the terminal. Kimura arrived not long after under heavy guard. The slug looked both better and worse than when Asuna had last seen him. His wounds were almost completely healed but he moved slowly, his eye stalks downcast, and he seemed somehow smaller.

"Kimura-san. We need your help again." Asuna said.

The slug looked up. "They told me." He said. "I already gave you my GM card, I'm not a system admin or GM so I don't know much about the system controls."

"That's alright Kimura-san." Nishida said. "We were just hoping you could tell us what these symbols are."

The slug looked slowly to the terminal. "Those are words in the language of the Fae." Kimura said.

"Language of the Fae?" Nishida asked, frowning, "Hmm, is that European?"

"No, like Faeries." Caramella said, rolling her eyes.

"Yes. It's an artificial language designed for the game of ALfheim, the logos and script are used in many locations throughout the game world, and also in the spell system."

"Then what are they doing here?" Baku asked, gesturing to ever changing script and the densely packed sphere that spun at the center of the display window.

"I don't know." Kimura said. "I've already given you the GM access card, that was all that was asked of me." The slug turned slowly to leave before finding himself confronted by Asuna's blade.

"The agreement was that you would help us log out." Asuna said. "You'll do that, or I'll try my hand at escargot."

"She's a very good cook." Arguile added. "Though I don't think even she would be able to do much with your carcass."

Kimura looked between the terminal and Asuna, eyes resting on the rapier in her hand. "If you're so sure that you will be rescued, why are you trying so hard?"

"Because I'm not sure we'll be rescued." Asuna said, looking Kimura in the eye. "But I know that there is at least one person trying. My offer still stands, Kimura-kun, help us escape and I'll do everything I can for you."

"You don't know what Sugou will do to me." The slug said softly. There was fear in the slugs voice as it spoke.

"I have an idea." Asuna said quietly.

Kimura was silent for a long while, eye stalks slowly turned to examine the monitor. "These symbols should not be able to display here. They look like logos from the ALfheim's magic effects. But they are much too complex."

"Too complex." Nishida asked.

"Yes. It is a pseudo language developed for the game, spells are cast with effects based on length. More complex or powerful spells require longer incantations, but none exceed more than two dozen words. There is no reason for it to appear here."

"So, does that mean the GM console is busted?" Caramella asked.

"Maybe." Kimura said. "I cannot say."

"We certainly can't use it to log out if that's the case." Nishida said with a grimace. The gathered players looked to each other, lost. The terminal had given them hope of finding a way to log out. But now that the hope was fading they were uncertain of what to do. Their common purpose was falling apart.

This wasn't good. Asuna thought quickly, the technically adept players were the most likely to think of a solution. None of them could be allowed to sink into despair. "Hold on for a second, Nishida-san." Asuna said. "Our main goal is to log out. But there's a couple of ways we can do that."

"What do you mean?" Arguile asked.

"I mean we don't necessarily need to log ourselves out. We just need to be sure that other people know that we're here."

"If we can alert other players, are cause a peculiar phenomenon it would certainly be investigated." Arguile realized, he stroked his chin thoughtfully. "That might work, MMO players are pretty curious. Any strange occurrence would warrant an investigation."

"Right." Asuna agreed.

"But we're locked in here." Nishida said. "And there's a barrier outside. Without the GM console, we can't do anything."

"Actually." Kimura said softly. "You can do something." The gathered players turned to the slug who seemed startled by the sudden attention.

"And why should we trust anything you tell us?" Caramella asked, face screwed up in a sour expression. "Last time I checked you were trying to eat us."

"We were trying to restrain you." Kimura said. "And the answer is simple, I've doomed myself either way." When Caramella looked unconvinced, Kimura continued. "The research that Sugou is having us do will allow him to access and interpret the memories of those wearing a Nerve Gear. It is a certainty that if this incident does not uncover our research, then he will use this technology to review what has happened. He will see that I was willing to surrender my GM card to you, even if it was in order to save my own life, Sugou-sama is not a forgiving man."

"Seems awfully convenient." Caramella said suspiciously.

"I'm merely looking out for my own best interests. The known facts dictated that helping you to log out and accepting a prison sentence would be better than risking my own death or a longer prison sentence. New facts dictate that I continue to help you or risk facing Sugou-sama's wrath."

"What a self interested little sea slug you are." Arguile said with a note of distaste. The top of the slug's body rose and fell in an exaggerated shrug.

"Enough." Asuna said, silencing the murmurs of the other players. "What do you have in mind, Kimura-san?"

The slug looked to her. "A game exploit, more of a bug actually. Though I suppose it isn't a bug with the game, it's with your avatars."

"What do you mean?" Asuna asked.

"Sugou-sama has a room here where he keeps his trophies, mostly unbalanced items and beta features. There is a reincarnation feature scheduled to be released in the upcoming 4.0 update."

"Reincarnation?" Asuna asked.

The slug's eye stalks bobbed in an approximation of a nod. "Yes, at this time players wishing to change races in ALfheim must create a new account, however, with the implementation of the 4.0 patch, players will be able to transfer their game stats and be reborn as one of the other Faerie races of their choosing."

"How does that help us?" Caramella asked, the woman's temper was clearly growing short as she stood with her arms crossed.

"When the player is reincarnated, they are re-spawned in their new faction's capitol. It is the only method of teleportation in ALfheim." Kimura said.

Asuna's eyes widened, if such a thing could bypass the barrier and get them down from the world Tree then they could contact the other players and plead for someone to report the incident IRL. Certainly many people would be suspicious at first but it would draw attention and even an investigation. And if she could get to Kirito and explain, he'd be able to take the matter to her family. Sugou would be in custody by the end of the day.

"There is a problem though." Kimura added, freezing Asuna's hopes.

"What problem?" Asuna asked.

"In order to use the chalice of rebirth a player needs the permission of their new faction's leader and must surrender a large sum of money." The slug explained.

"Then what use is it to us?" Caramella shouted. The woman reached for her sword either to swing it at Kimura or else simply brandish it. The other players piled onto the hot tempered swordswoman before she did something she might end up regretting.

"Allow me to explain. It has to do with your avatars." Kimura said.

"Our avatars?" Asuna repeated. She glanced over her shoulder at the translucent wings that lay folded neatly against her back. She intensely loathed what Sugou had done to her, he'd turned her body into his plaything, but if some peculiarity of this body could help her to free herself she'd gladly accept it.

The slug bobbed his eyes again. "There's a bug in the chalice of rebirth that the programmers haven't gotten around to fixing yet. Someone who steps into the chalice without the necessary funds or the permission of a Faction leader will be transported to their current faction's Capitol. However none of you have a faction, with the exception of Asuna-sama's avatar, your avatars are all set to the default template."

"And what about my avatar?" Asuna asked.

" I checked your character data when I was returning you to your cage. The racial description was given as Maeve. I believe it is a special Beta version of the ALF race or perhaps a special avatar created by Sugou-sama. It shouldn't be a problem though. The thing that all of our avatars share is that they do not have a default re-spawn location, they can only be spawned with console commands. When the rebirth feature was being tested, the game testers tried it on all of the races including the default template. The default template users regularly ended up teleporting to the highest point in the Heimdoll shield that surrounds the World Tree."

"Why would it do that?" Nishida asked.

"It must have to do with how it references the re-spawn location." Baku suggested.

"That is most likely correct." Kimura agreed. "The programmers thought it was a bug in the location data caused by the Chalice being located here in the world tree. It wasn't patched because players don't have access to the default template and the Chalice will be moved to Arrun when it is implemented."

"If we use this. We can get down from the World Tree?" Asuna asked.

"It should be possible." Kimura replied. "The Chalice should be in one of Sugou-sama's private rooms. You'll need the GM card to access them."

This could be a trick, Asuna thought, she'd be an idiot not to consider that very real possibility. But how long could they stay up here? She may simply have to take the chance and entrust Kirito to find her if she was trapped once more. "Please show us to the Chalice of Rebirth, Kimura san."

The room that Kimura lead them to was on a lower level of the Lab, it was easy to get turned around but Asuna thought it was directly beneath Sugou's throne room. The door to the room wasn't any different from those leading to the other rooms save for a small slot at its center. Asuna pressed the GM card against the slot and watched as a tracery of light ran across the doors surface and its vanished into the wall.

Asuna entered the chamber, followed by Arguile, Caramella, and the others, Kimura entering last. The room was dimly lit and it took a moment for Asuna's eyes to adjust. When they did she let out a small gasp. She heard Caramella let out a low whistle from beside Arguile.

"Looks like we hit the jackpot." The former army player said softly.

Asuna had to agree. The chamber was about a quarter the size of the lab space above them, but unlike that austere space, the room was packed tightly with shelves full of weapons and items. Without an appraisal skill, Asuna couldn't really say much about any of the gear, but it all looked to be of top quality. Sugou's trophies no doubt. Above each item was a small brass tag inscribed with a name and number, probably the items spawn command.

Asuna had to fight to remain focused on the reason that they were here, her instincts as a player were to examine this windfall before moving on, it was a fight that some of the others were losing. Caramella had already walked over to one of the display racks and rather irreverently picked up an impressive looking sword for examination. "The Blade of Jenkins?" She read the inscription. "That's a stupid name."

"Kimura-san, where would the chalice be?" Asuna asked.

"Its in the back of the room." The slug said, slithering past a distracted Caramella and traveling deeper into the room past the close packed shelves. Only the center row of the room was wide enough to accommodate his wide body. The room went back further than Asuna expected eventually opening up into a domed space at the rear, in the middle of which sat the Chalice of Rebirth.

The chalice wasn't really a cup like the name implied, instead it was a large brass bowl in which burned a magic flame. At least, Asuna assumed it was magic as the flames licked chaotically in riot of different colors, the light from the flame playing against the back wall of the chamber to form a tapestry of flickering light. Asuna stepped forward to get a closer look. Though the fire was large and fierce, Asuna felt only a faint warmth as she stood by its side. She reached out carefully, a blue flame licked up caressing her hand, for a moment a sense of coolness and the long forgotten sensation of real water rushed across her skin.

"Asuna-sama!" Arguile shouted.

Asuna turned away from the chalice in surprise. "What is it?"

"For a moment, you're wings and hair . . . they turned blue." Arguile said.

"Blue?" Asuna said.

"One of the effects of the Chalice." Kimura said. "You probably simply saw what Asuna-sama would have looked like as an Undine." Arguile looked unconvinced, but nodded.

"Arguile-san, bring everyone here. We need to make a decision." Asuna said.

It took time for the other players to be gathered from throughout the lab and the branches of the World Tree and more time to make sure they hadn't missed anyone. When they were all gathered about the Chalice, Asuna had explained the situation in the same concise fashion with which she had conducted the raid meeting prior to fighting a Floor Boss. She asked for volunteers to accompany her through the Chalice of Rebirth in hopes of finding a way down from the World Tree.

"You really think this is our best chance, Asuna-sama?" Kino asked from the front row.

Asuna nodded. "I'm sorry, but I think we've exhausted all of our other options. There isn't any way down from the World Tree and the terminal is locked. If this game exploit works, it may be our only hope of contacting the outside world. At the same time, I won't ask anyone to take this risk with me."

The players were all quiet, each of them thinking about what Asuna had said. No doubt mulling over the risk. In the end, the survivors of SAO had been conditioned to consider risk, risk to themselves, and possible reward, many of these people were not the dedicated members of the front line, but the lower ranked players who had simply sought to get by in their two year in Aincrad. She was offering them a chance at freedom but given their circumstances it was no guarantee, rather, it was a risky proposition at best.

Arguile was the one to break the silence. The Knight stepped forward, taking his place beside Asuna. "I will stand beside Asuna-sama, and join her on this mission."

The other players fidgeted nervously, looking about to see who would answer the call next. Caramella sighed loudly, "If the Knight of the Bloody Oath is going, the Army has to show its colors too, you have my sword, Asuna-sama."

"I'm going too!" Kino said suddenly. Other voices began to call out from among the gathered players. Nishida shouted out and hefted his fishing rod over his head like a spear. More and more of the players stepped forward, gathering around Asuna. The former sub-commander found herself once more surprised by the willingness of others to rally around her. She allowed the voices to quiet down before she began to speak again.

"Is the vote unanimous?" Asuna asked. "Anyone who does not wish to leave can stay here for now, Kimura-san says that the Chalice will work for anyone."

"But wouldn't it be best if we all went together?" Kino asked. "After all, we'll be appearing on a mountain at the top of the game world. We might have to fight monsters on our way down."

"You could stay here." Asuna observed. "You don't need to go."

"I think everyone here agrees with me when I say that we're done waiting." Nishida said. The elderly fisherman placed a hand on Kino's shoulder. "We're with you in this, Asuna-san."

Asuna felt a faint heat building behind her eyes. When she looked into their faces, she didn't see blind faith, she had told them the risks and each person had accepted them, not because they weren't scarred, but because they were brave enough to overcome their fear. It was humbling, it was frightening. She pushed those feeling downs, deep within her own heart and gave a resolute nod. "If that's the case, the frontline members will lead the way. Arguile-san, look over the equipment in this room, we may need some of it. Caramella-san, start organizing people into squads, we'll go through in groups. Kimura-san, you're coming too."

"M-me?" The slug asked.

"You said you're avatar is like ours, it doesn't have a default spawn point right. That means you can come to."

"Ah, but, that isn't necessary." The slug said quickly.

Asuna gave the slug a dangerous little smile. "Oh? You aren't scarred are you? After all, you'll be going first."

"W-what?!"

"It's your idea after all." Asuna said. "Unless you think it won't work, in which case, we're back to plan escargot."

The slugs stubby tentacles curled up tightly. "If that is your wish, Asuna-sama." The words came out curtly.

It wasn't long before the players were able to organize themselves. The Lead squads were arrayed near the Chalice followed closely by groups of escorted players. The Lead squads would go through first followed by the players in order to descending combat ability until they were all through. Hopefully this would ensure that the stronger players were in position to defend their weaker companions by the time they teleported through.

The search of Sugou's vault turned up many interesting items but in the end only a handful of healing potions and some of the lighter special items were taken. The players had no idea what the abilities of the other equipment was and were better off sticking with their own well known weapons and armor.

Asuna glanced over to Kino. "Are you sure you don't want your sword back?" She asked.

The boy shook his head. "I'd be honored if you keep it, Asuna-sama." He patted his vest where a quartet of small throwing blades were sheathed. "Besides, I'm actually better with these than I am with a rapier."

"Thank you again, Kino san." She bowed her head. "Kimura-san, are you ready?"

"Of course not." The slug muttered. He stood beside the Chalice of Rebirth, eyes examining the flame from every angle. "I don't have a choice in this, do I?" The slug asked.

"No." Arguile said, and gave the slug a solid kick to his hind quarters. With a resentful sound Kimura slide into the flame, Asuna half expected to hear the sizzling of his slime and loud scream of pain. Instead the flames brightened for a moment swirling up around him like a Cocoon. Kimura's form glowed bright white and then a flash of light swallowed him up.

"I'll see you on the other side, Asuna-sama." Arguile said before stepping into the flame and vanishing in another flash of light.

"Jiranimo." Caramella said and went through after her partner.

It was now Asuna's turn, she looked back at the gathered players, all watching her with anticipation. She smiled encouragingly. "So that we can all meet on the other side someday." She nodded and stepped into the flames.

The feeling from before had been strange, but this was a dozen times more so. She felt the colors with all of her senses, rushes of wind and cypress, a flash of heat and brimstone, the bite of a cold winter morning and the comfort of depths, the smells of Liz's furnace and the resounding clang of metal, the gentle trembling vibration of a perfect score, the warmth of the sun on a spring afternoon, the mysterious light of the moon, the wonder of a secret hidden and uncovered. They rushed over her overwhelmed her until they froze in a strange Tableaux. Then the world started back up again.

Asuna opened her eyes, feeling her skin sting as her face was whipped by the wind, the world was white around her, cold mist ran past her face. She saw something dark and massive above her, she twisted in the air desperate, confused, trying to get away. But the shape closed in. And then she realized, what was nearing was not above her, it was bellow. Yuuki Asuna, Asuna the Flash, former member of the Knights of the Blood Oath, let out a scream and she plummeted towards the rapidly approaching earth.


	12. Chapter 4 Part 3

Well, people probably aren't going to be happy about where Asuna's part of this story is going for a while. Or you might be happy, because its going to be the major action element for the time being. For those not in the know, this story actually has a considerable back log of written material that hasn't been posted yet. Originally, the snips were written in a different order. But as they're posted here they will be consolidated and rearranged to make for a better flow. However I will not promise a posting schedule because real life isn't perfect and neither am I.

I also know a lot of people are going to feel like this story is dominated more by the SAO side and ZnTs supporting cast rather than Louise. Don't worry, Louise will play a role, much later on, and she will continue to appear in the background until then. I know many people won't be crazy about this choice, but I thought I'd warn you all now in fairness.

Sincerely, zero0hero

* * *

Halkegenia Online-Chapter 4 Part 3

Yuuki Asuna, Asuna the Flash, former member of the Knights of the Blood Oath, let out a scream and she plummeted towards the rapidly approaching earth. The old instincts began to kick in, Asuna stopped struggling wildly. In SAO her final stats had been blatantly superhuman, allowing her to run at incredible speeds or leap so far that her motions approximated flight. More importantly, she had learned to safely control a body capable of such feats. Her back arched as she twisted in the air like a cat, getting her arms and legs beneath her and extended to absorb the impact. If the fall was more than thirty or forty meters, it would almost certainly kill her, even with her old SAO stats. What would happen then? Would her Nerve Gear fry her brain? Would she wake up? Or would she perhaps be trapped in some limbo between the real and virtual world?

Asuna didn't have time to come to a conclusion or even to fully articulate these thoughts as the darkness closed in. Blackness surrounded her, racing past to either side and then she hit the ground, or rather, she hit something that she thought must be the ground, it was firm, and slippery, but also spongy and sank down as she landed. She imagined it felt like those trampolines that firemen carried in the old movies to catch victims trapped on top of burning buildings. Whatever it was, Asuna crashed into it, sinking to her hands and knees and then bouncing back up, she landed again and found herself sliding swiftly down the side of whatever had broken her fall, stumbling forward as she felt damp earth beneath her feet, she was caught up by two strong arms.

Asuna looked up to see the rough and concerned face of Arguile. "Are you alright, Asuna-sama?" Arguile asked quickly.

"I'm fine." Asuna gasped and looked about, there was another scream from high above.

"Get back over here and help me hold Kimura still!" Caramella shouted, Asuna looked over to see the former Army knight pushing against the flank of the struggling slug. Asuna suddenly understood what had broken her fall.

"I am not . . . Oof!" Kino landed solidly on Kimura's back and bounced once, higher than Asuna, before coming down, landing like a startled cat on all fours. ". . . A cushion!" Kimura finished indignantly.

"Shove it, Escargot-san!" Caramella grumbled, "You're the biggest pillow we've got right now and the fall obviously didn't hurt you that much, so man up and take it like a slug!" Caramella's comment was punctuated by another startled shout from above and another "Oof!" From Kimura.

"Asuna-sama, Kino-san, help me hold him still!" Arguile called. The players continued to trickle through one after another. The members of the clearing forces and the mid tier players had gone through first in no particular order, followed by the weaker players, those that spent most of their time in town or had never left the Town of Beginnings. Kimura became increasingly indignant with each impact but eventually he began to anticipate the falls, catching some of the heavier players with his remaining tentacles while allowing the lighter ones to land on his back.

Asuna began to tally the players as they landed. In all it must have taken the better part of an hour for them all to come through with one arrival roughly every ten seconds. The last handful through consisted of a small group of frontline players who had remained until the very end as a rearguard.

"Three hundred." Asuna counted off. "That should be everyone." Asuna said.

"Finally." Kimura groaned just as a pair of screams came from above. The two oddly familiar players, one slim and one stocky, who Asuna had run into at the entrance to the lab crashed as one into Kimura's back with a resounding thud. The slug let out one last "Oof!" And deflated. "You're too cruel, Asuna-sama." Kimura exhaled softly.

"Ah, sorry, I miscounted." Asuna apologized, wait, hadn't Caramella corrected her just a moment ago?

"Quit you whining." Arguile breathed as he looked around. Asuna and the other lead players had been too distracted making certain that everyone made it through safely to pay much attention to their surroundings, and until they had taken a head count, nobody had been allowed to leave the immediate surroundings. Now that the constant stream of indignant shouts and screams had halted and they had time to take stock of their situation, they found themselves in a sparse forest. Asuna's eyes had rapidly adjusted to the dark and she was able to easily survey their new surroundings.

The had deposited them on a gently sloping hillside in the middle of a lightly forested area. Asuna could make out the shapes of the conifers that thinned off into the distance towards open meadowlands. In the opposite direction, the peak of a low mountain loomed up, casting its shadow across the land. The air was filled with the smells of the forest, the soft rustling of the trees, and distant animal noises. If there were any mobs about, they hadn't made themselves known so far.

"Kimura-san, shouldn't we have ended up at the top of the mountain?" Asuna asked.

"I don't know." The slug admitted miserably. "I simply knew about the bug, not the specifics, I don't play ALO for fun. But these don't look like screen caps of the Heimdoll range."

"Well, whatever happened, it got us out of the World Tree." Caramella said, "So thank goodness for small blessings."

"We'll need to scout around." Asuna said as she looked about. "And find our way to the nearest town."

"If this is in the mountains, there should be towns towards the lower elevations, below the flight limit." Kimura said.

Asuna nodded carefully and looked to the other players, everyone was gathered around, waiting for instructions. "We'll start heading downwards then. Front line forces, form into your teams, we'll create a perimeter around the low level players as we move. Everyone else get familiar with the people near you and stick close to them, we don't want anyone to get lost."

"So is this a fieldtrip now?" Someone called. A soft chorus of laughter filled the air and Asuna smiled, at least now they were moving forward. They soon set out, Asuna, Arguile, and Caramella leading the way in the company of Kino who tagged along like a limpet at Asuna's side. The young knife user scanning to and fro with a strained look in his eyes.

"Kino-san, what are you doing?"

"Perception skill." The boy said.

Asuna blinked in surprise, but now that she thought about it, when she focused on something around her it became distinctly clearer. She was so used to using her perception skill in SAO that she had taken it for granted.

"Is that working?" Caramella asked at his side, "Didn't Escargot-san say that these are new avatars, you shouldn't have your skills from SAO anymore." Asuna wasn't so sure, she felt a lot like her old self right now, maybe she had just grown used to how weak Sugou had made her.

"What about you Caramella-san?" Kino asked, "You hit way harder than a newbie player when you attacked the other slug. And you were really good, even without using any sword skills, I don't think I could do anything like that without the auto assist."

"Ah, well, I'm just naturally that awesome." Caramella defended. "And really, my body just wanted to move that way, it's like the auto assist moved inside my head, you know? But yeah, you're right, and our gear and everything is here. Maybe because ALO re-skins SAO's engine? That seems a bit lazy, doesn't it?"

"Kimura-san?" Asuna called to the slug following close behind, "What do you think?"

"Carmel-san is correct . . ."

"Caramella." Caramella said.

"As I said, Carmel-chan, is correct in assuming that SAO and ALO share aspects of their avatar creation. The SAO engine was simply added to in the development of ALO, the hiatus in VR development caused by the SAO incident means that the original SAO engine is still very competitive with current technology. Some skills were deleted but common skills share the same stats and scale relatively closely to their SAO counterparts. However, I cannot say why you still have your equipment, ALO's inventory list was completely updated, the system shouldn't be able to make sense of most of your items." Kimura explained as Kino and Arguile struggled to hold back an enraged Caramella.

"It's weird though, shouldn't Kino have to equip his perception skill?" Arguile asked. That was right, none of the players could even access their menus now.

"Passive skills in ALO were entirely streamlined and preempted by the system, that was actually one of my improvements." The Slug said with a hint of pride.

"So you don't just poke around in our brains?" Caramella asked.

"Sugou-sama had to justify our presence somehow." The Slug shrugged. "So we did odd tasks between test cycles."

Asuna wasn't sure if she wanted to know what all of those "odd tasks" were.

The forest gave way to meadows and then the meadows changed into fields. Excitement filled Asuna's heart as she caught sight of a roughly hewn fence and a roadway beyond, sure signs of a nearby town. If they could just meet a player, someone who could log out, and convince them to contact the authorities, this would be over, they could finally go back to the other world.

They were almost at the roadway as moonlight shined down ahead of them, marking the transition out of the shadow of the mountainside behind them. As they crossed that threshold, something caused Kimura to pause.

"What is it?" Arguile asked the slug.

Kimura's eye stalks had swung around, back in the direction they had come. "Odd, that doesn't look right."

"What doesn't look right?" Caramella asked, annoyed.

"The moon, there should only be one." Kimura said. Asuna looked up and just as the slug had said, two moons were cresting the top of the mountain at their backs. That didn't seem too strange to her, Aincrad had only one moon, but there was no reason for ALfheim to be like the real world or Aincrad, was there?

"I wonder what that means." Kino said out loud.

"It must mean the server isn't just borked back at the world Tree." Caramella observed, "It must be going on everywhere."

"You might be right." Asuna said, feeling suddenly anxious. "We should just keep following the roadway, we can find out what's happening when we get to a town, Arguile-san, Caramella-san, stay up front, Kino-san, help me do another headcount now that we're out of the forest."

The former SAO players had formed into a long column trailing back towards the forest, people sticking close to their friends and acquaintances. Members of the finishing group flanked the column on each side, offering a much needed sense of security, and more importantly, making it harder for the low level players, many of whom had never even left the Town of Beginnings, to become separated from the group. Nishida waved as he passed by along with Baku and some of the other technically inclined players who had tried to access the terminal.

"Are you alright Nishida-san?" Asuna asked

"This is nothing Asuna-san." The Old man said easily, "The aches I'm feeling now aren't nearly as bad as the ones my real body will be having when we get out." Asuna smiled and nodded. That was probably true, no doubt their first months back would not be an easy experience for any of them, yet Asuna was actually looking forward to it, even as it frightened her.

When they finished the count, Asuna and Kino returned to the head of the line, Kino balancing along the stones that marked off the road from the surrounding fields, while Asuna with her bare feet, preferred to stay on the soft grass beside the roadway. The night was quiet and calm now that they had left the forest behind and entered the moonlight without a mob or other soul in sight, at least, that was the way it seemed at first. Before long, they saw the first signs that things were not as peaceful as they first appeared.

"Is that smoke?" Arguile asked pointing ahead of them where the stars in the sky flickered and vanished from time to time.

"Where's there's smoke there's fire." Caramella observed.

"And there there's fire, more than likely you'll find a town." Kino chimed in.

"Wait." Arguile raised an arm. "This doesn't smell right."

"It smells like smoke to me." Caramella said, receiving a glare from Arguile.

"I mean, there's too much smoke. It's not like something burning, it's like someplace burning."

"Maybe it's a quest event." Asuna suggested. "After all, if we're in ALfheim's game world now, it would make sense we would run into quests and missions flags, especially if we follow the major thoroughfares.

"In either case we should check it out." Caramella said thoughtfully. "After all, even if it's just a quest flag it'll draw players, right?"

"Right." Asuna said, feeling unsure. Her instincts told her that something was very wrong, but she couldn't quite place it. And in any case, there was the chance that any players would mistake them for part of the quest and attack without thinking, they had no way of knowing how the Nerve Gears would register their deaths. The former Sub-Commander thought. "But just in case, we should scout ahead with a small group first."

"Good idea." Caramella glanced to Arguile, "Oh, she mean's us, doesn't she?"

Asuna nodded and gestured for their band to come to a halt, relaying the message down the line. The former SAO players seemed grateful for the rest, few had been able to sleep in the day since waking in the lab, and fatigue was finally beginning to catch up with them. Asuna left Baku and Nishida in charge of overseeing the other players while taking Arguile, Caramella, and Kino with her to investigate.

They cut across some of the fields and back into a grove of trees that hid the source of the smoke from the roadway, emerging on the other side, they approached cautiously along a low hill. Kino tugged for Asuna to get down as they neared the top gesturing for Arguile and Caramella to follow suit, crawling the last few feet to the crest.

Asuna's heart fluttered when she saw the village, a wall-less collection of small cottages and larger buildings that were built along a pair of intersecting roadways. At the far side of the village a small church sat before a town square, and a large building, perhaps a manor, overlooked all from the top of another low hill. As Arguile had warned however, things were very wrong. Smoke rose from among the buildings of the village and light could be seen flickering in the windows of the Manor House, but it wasn't the steady illumination of game lighting or even candles. When Asuna focused on the manor she felt her perception skill kick in, the distant building becoming clearer, more distinct. The manor was a wreck, its windows shattered and its doors broken open.

"Damn." Caramella whispered. "If this is a quest, ALfheim must be a pretty bloody game."

"Should we get any closer?" Kino asked anxiously.

Asuna glanced to him and nodded, "I think we have to. Arguile-san, Caramella-san, we're going to skirt the edge of the town cautiously, both of you go counterclockwise, Kino and I will go clockwise and we'll meet up behind that church. If you run into anyone, try to sneak around them. If you can't, come back here and wait for a time, if we can't meet up, use your discretion, return to the main group and get away from here. Is that understood ." They all nodded.

They crawled back down the hill and split into two groups running along the edge of the town. The buildings were in even worse shape up close. Though the construction was obviously not of the highest quality to begin with, the houses and their surroundings looked to have been badly damaged in the recent past as if this had been the sight of a battle . . . No, a slaughter. This stood out to Asuna who was used to buildings and other important pieces of terrain being classified as . Either ALfheim allowed much more destructible terrain or this was a special location as Caramella had suggested. As they approached the smell of smoke mingled with something else . . . it smelled like cooked meat and something repulsive, burned hair? Who would put something this tasteless in a VR game? Asuna's instincts screamed at her that something was wrong, very wrong.

They were about halfway around the circumference of the village when the screaming started. Asuna froze, those indistinct, helpless chords were accompanied by muted voices, and then more screaming. She grimaced, if this place was a quest area then it wouldn't be protected by the games and would be open to abuse by players. But what if this was just part of a quest? The scream came again and was accompanied this time by laughter.

"Asuna-sama?" Kino asked nervously, his eyes filled with fear, his right hand rested on one of his throwing knives.

"Kino-san, stay back, I'm just going to take a closer look." Asuna whispered reassuringly. "If something happens, I want you to run back to the others."

Crouching low, Asuna unsheathed her rapier and crept out from behind a low wall and into confines of the town. Save for the two main roadways, there were only a few side streets, more like dirt paths, connecting clusters of cottages. Asuna noted the signs of looting, chicken pens hung open and refuse were scattered around the open doors of the buildings as if someone had left them there after sacking the contents.

The voices were clearer know, but it just made them worse.

"Oy, are you done having a look or are you going to have your go around? Cause I'll busy myself if you don't mind." A nasally voice called in a strange accent.

"Shove it off and go keep watch, I'm not getting what you 'ave again you Arse." A deeper voice graveled.

The voices were followed by soft groans. The sounds came from beyond the next cottage. A doorway hung open, sticking to the shadows Asuna crept closer. The inside of the cottage was a mess, the few furnishings had been smashed or upturned as the small space, barely larger than a four and half tatami matt room, was thoroughly searched. Any food or valuable furnishing had been stripped, Asuna saw a pair of half used candle sticks lying broken on the floor along with wooden bowls and a few pieces of rotting fruit, wait, rotting? The cries came again from outside. Asuna rushed across the room to the front doorway. Sliding up against the door frame, and careful to keep her unsheathed rapier out of the moonlight, she peaked around the corner. She had dreaded what she might see, but it still made her blood run cold.

In the moonlight two men squatted, squabbling over a third prone figure. One was busying himself with the prone person who struggled feebly.

"Just 'urry it up!" The Nasaly one complained again. "We're falling far enough behind as it is!"

"And here I was thinking you was just fighting for the Good Cromwell's coin. I though you wanted something a bit more outa this, indulge yourself, live a little!" The Gravely voice replied. It belonged to a square faced man with a thick mustache and what looked to be several days stubble along his jaw, an odd sight in SAO where hair style and other minor cosmetic changes were simple and persisted until deliberately altered.

"Hah, more than this! We don't get stuck in it soon the others'll have picked Albion clean all t'way to Newcastle. "

"Quit yer barking then, and enjoy the bone we got for th'night. She's a damn sight finer than the wenches we've been having." The man leaned back from the prone figure and for the first time, Asuna could see that it was a woman, neither young nor old but somewhere between, with high delicate cheeks and dark brown hair. Blood trickled from her forehead and she seemed to be in a daze, even so, the man had bound her hands to a fence post with a length of course looking rope. "Sides, I didn't lead you wrong with what was in that trunk she was carrying. That's a fair treasure for just the four of us."

"Oy, true enough, but the real treasure is in the homes of those Royalists, not just family heirlooms and trinkets, now get on with it!"

"Aye, aye." The man grumbled as he went to work pulling roughly at the woman's clothes. Asuna's stomach churned. She had been disgusted by Kimura, but this was on a whole new level of loathing. Given what they were about to do, she couldn't stand idly by, VR or not, this certainly couldn't be a quest. Asuna recalled the way the media made claims about violent games, but having spent two years among dedicated MMO fans, Asuna knew something like this would never have been tolerated in gamer culture. Were they like the murderer's guild? Were they exploiting some undiscovered loophole in the game? No, that couldn't be right, this didn't add up, but there was no time.

Asuna felt her perception skill activating again, the first man, Gravely voice, had his hands full with the woman, at his side lay a sword, unsheathed and glinting with fresh blood. The second man, Nasally voice, was much more alert, he was keeping watch, walking around the roadway and looking inside each of the cottages. They'd probably done this before she thought. Wait, they'd said four, so where were the other two? Something moved in the moonlight up on the roof of the far building. Asuna grimaced, a man was standing on the rooftop with something in his hands, it was blunt and ugly and utterly alien to SAO. It was a gun, a musket or an arquebuse or some such other thing, Asuna wasn't a military Otaku, so she couldn't be sure what type, in any case, it was like the ones that they used in historical movies.

Asuna bit her lip, she was confident of her speed and rapier skill, but she had no idea how that would hold up to a gun. Wait, weren't early guns really inaccurate? Now, where was the fourth . . .

So focused on the scene before her, Asuna's first and only warning came in the form of a motion at the corner of her eye. Something heavy and solid connected with her head and drove her temple against the door frame. Everything went white, and then black.

The world snuck back into her vision in the space between the darkness. Blindness turned to swirling splotches that obscured her field of view and a distant, cotton headed throbbing pounded at her temples. The world spun around her, she was being carried, no, dragged. She heard voices as if through a layer of water.

"What 'ave we here?" The Gravely voiced man asked.

"Dunno, found her in the cottage, little thing, but she held that Rapier like she knew how to use it." A voice, thicker this time, said. "Funny she's still alive, I clocked err pretty good with a hammer."

"Oy, look at 'er ears!" Asuna blinked away the splotches in her vision, three men, Gravely Voice, Thick Voice, and Nasally Voice were looking down at her. All three were unkempt and dressed in mismatched body armor that would have looked to be in poor condition even on a level one player. Nasally Voice squatted at her side, she felt a hand tug painfully at the point of her ear.

"Ha! An elf! The Priest is right, island must by lousy with'm!"

"Half elf by the looks of 'er, hair is all wrong." Gravely voice said.

"How'd you know?" Nasily voice asked.

"Elves are all blonde haired, hers is tha' chestnut color, an right . . . y'know what, there was a Noble who was put to death over consorting with an elf, been . . . yeah it'd have been long enough and we're not too far from that place. Thought it was just a rumor but it explains things. I'd be willing to bet this 'ere is the fruit of the poor bastards loins. Probly other's been 'iding her. Oy, Good Cromwell would pay more than a pretty coin for this one!" Gravely voice started to chuckle deepy. "See, and you'd were complaining we'd fallen behind! Looks like we got ourselves some 'eavy loot here!"

"Sure she's an Elf? S'not so tough, I thought they were supposed to have all sorts of mystical powers." Thick voice said, sounding uncertain.

"Cause she's only a half'an Elf. The rest of 'er is human," Gravely voice said. Elf? Asuna thought slowly, no, I'm not . . .

"S'what do we with 'ere?" Nasaly voice asked.

"Take'r along with us maybe, Reconquista would pay a coin for 'er head."

"Just 'er head." Nasaly voice observed.

"What're you sayin?" Thick voice asked.

"I'm saying, she's a damn sight nicer than this one." Nasaly voice said and licked his lips, even through a thick fog, Asuna's skin crawled.

"The Priest headin all this would have _your_ head for that, heretical to consort with Elves." Thick voice responded.

"No reason the Good Cromwell has to know . . ." Nasaly voice trailed off.

"Oy you lot, he'll pay us more with're head still attached to 'er shoulders. That means she stays outta yer grubby 'ands! You can have your fun with the other one, then slit 'er throat and we'll be on our way." Gravely voice grunted.

Asuna grit her teeth, fighting to regain control, her arms and legs would barely move. She was rolled over onto her side and felt herself being lifted roughly. "Oy, look at this? She's got wings?" Thick voice grunted.

"It's just part of that dress she's wearin in'it?" Nasally voice said.

"Nah, look." Asuna felt a faint tugging at her back, alien and unwelcome. "They're not attached to anything really." Thick voice said.

"Must be magic then." Nasaly voice decided, "Better make sure she's tied up good'n tight, might be able to fly away with those when she gets her wit's bout her."

"What are you all on about down there!" A fourth, Rasping Voice called.

"Got ourselves an Elf, or an 'alf Elf! Can't be as powerful as the real thing or we'd all be dead, aye?" Gravely voice shouted back, chuckling darkly. "Jangler, tie her up and gag her, don't want her invoking her magics."

"Will that work?" Nasally voice asked, stroking his chin.

"Worked well enough on that Royalist Mage a few nights back." Gravely voice observed. Asuna was lifted back up, hefted roughly into a fireman's carry, Thick Voice carrying her away from the cottage. Her arms hung down his back, fingertips brushing against the hilt of a knife. She tried to reach for it feebly, but it kept slipping from her fingers.

Thick voice realized she was coming to and with an easy motion through her from his back. Asuna's landed heavily as the man came down to pin her. "Alright Love, don't struggle and at the end of this there'll just be a quick chop. They say that machine they're using makes it painless." He grabbed hold of her left wrist with one hand and a length of rope with the other. Behind him, cries from the woman rose once more along with the tearing of fabric. Asuna's hands twitched and balled into fists. Her whole body wound up like a spring. She didn't have Kirito's unarmed skill, but she wasn't some low stat player, she couldn't standby while this happened, 'move, move, MOVE!'

Thick Voice let out a shout of surprise as Asuna wrenched free from his grip. Quickly he reached down to try and pin her, but again underestimated the strength in the small body beneath him and couldn't get a good hold. "Davies! Help me with her, she's stronger than she looks!" Thick voice shouted as he drew his knife, brandishing it in an attempt to frighten her into submission.

"Can't even tie up a girl." Nasally voice sneered, "Why do we keep you round? I don't even . . ." Nasally voice stopped mid sentence, eyes going wide before beginning to paw as his neck. In the moonlight, a bare inch of something bright and silver protruded.

"Davies, 'urry up!" Thick voice shouted, turning back from Asuna. She didn't think about it. This was her chance. Gathering her legs she kicked off of the man's chest, curling her back, she felt an odd sensation of pressure and flexing as she rolled over her wings and came back up in a low crouch.

"What're you . . ." Thick voice began to growl before shouts came from the other two men.

"Davies! Someone else is 'ere! To arms you lot!" Gravely voice screamed and made for the sword lying on the ground. He had no more reached it then something raced from the shadows. The man got his sword up into a clumsy block which was batted aside by the two handed blade of his opponent.

Arguile let out a roar as he crashed into the man, driving a shoulder brutally into his stomach before whipping around with his blade and cutting the man from left hip to right shoulder. Gravely voice wailed as he fell to the ground with a short ugly spray of blood. A sharp crack exploded from the rooftop and the earth at Arguile's feet geysered. The man on the roof, Rasping Voice, discarding his long arm, grabbed for a pistol on his belt and leveled it on Arguile.

"Arguile-san!" Asuna cried out. Another figure, sprinting across the ground, leaped high into the air, describing an impossible arc before landing heavily on the rooftop beside Rasping Voice. The man turned, "Flight? A mage!" He screamed.

"No! Jump good!" Caramella shouted as she slammed into him with her one armed shield.

Thick voice was the only one still standing, desperately he tossed aside his knife and grabbed at his belt where a number of crude pistols hung. "Oy, stop!" The man roared, "Stop or I kill this girl!" He leveled one of the weapons on Asuna and for a moment she was frozen, starring down the pitiless bore of the gun. She fell backwards.

Arguile, standing beside the mortally wounded Gravely Voiced man, and Caramella straddling Raspy Voice in the midst of pummeling him into submission, were suddenly frozen. "Good!" Thick voice snarled. He glanced about, and seeing the body of Nasally voice and the position of the blade through his neck, looked to the cottage. "And you, the one who through the knife!" Thick Voice shouted towards the cottages.

Slowly, Kino emerged from his hiding place in the shadows and raised his hands wide. An angry expression crossing his face.

"How many more of you are out there?" Thick voice shouted.

"A -a whole squad!" Kino shouted quickly. Even dazed, Asuna could have told it was a bluff.

Thick Voice laughed once and turned one of his pistols on Kino. "Liar!" The man squeezed and with only a split second delay, the pistol cracked, a burst of smoke and a tongue of flame issuing from its barrel. The knife using boy stumbled back out of view.

"Kino!" Asuna shrieked, Arguile was already moving, sprinting towards Asuna and the Thick Voiced man. Thick Voice tossed the pistol aside and reached for another on his belt to dispatch Arguile.

The world around Asuna slowed down, she had perhaps one second, one second to do something, anything. She felt something on the ground beneath her right hand, the smooth feel of well worn leather, the hilt of Thick Voices knife. The blade was simple, straight edged, more like a small sword. It was a crude weapon designed to slash and stab, nothing like the controlled violence of a rapier. But it would be more than enough. Her hand closed around the hilt of the blade.

Asuna let out a shriek of rage. Thick Voice spun his head around, Asuna saw his hand starting to tighten down on the gun leveled on her chest. No armor, nothing between her bare skin and a bullet but a thin layer of fabric. Asuna moved. She could see the man tensing up in anticipation as she pushed off from the ground, she could see the firing mechanism slowly winding down, she could feel her eyes sting at the jet of smoke, and her back burn as something barely grazed across her shoulder. She reached out, extending her right arm in a simple attack. There was no glow of light, no rush as the system assist took control of her body, even so, she knew what to do, a cold familiarity taking hold, a thousand past battles flashing before her eyes and burning down her nerves.

And then all familiarity ceased as the blade plunged into the man's chest with a sickening wet crunch. The man recoiled, no, he . . . bounced, was pushed back, the knife blade withdrawing slightly in the process. Asuna blinked once, twice, she felt something hot and wet running down her hand. The man looked at her confused for a moment, she could smell his rank breath, see the fine patchwork of scars that stitched through his unkempt beard.

"Haaaeeeeehaaaaaaaa" Air escaped from his mouth and nose but failed to shape into words, his hand dropped the empty pistol and reached weakly to grab at the knife, falling short. Then the light faded from his eyes and he began to sag, pressing against Asuna who recoiled in horror. There were no last words, his body didn't disintegrate into fragments and particle effects, he fell, and simply lay there with no further ceremony, like a puppet cut from its strings.

In the silence that followed Asuna looked from the still body of Thick Voice to her hands. This was . . .

"Asuna-sama!" Arguile cried out, the knight was on her in an instant, shaking her desperately when she didn't respond.

"A-Arguile-san?" Asuna said weakly. She didn't look at him, she looked past him to the body still lying on the ground. It wasn't like the other slug, Ishikawa, in the lab, where she could think of the corpse as some bloated food item or something not even human, it was a million times worse.

"Asuna-sama, are you alright? Are you hurt?" The two handed sword user asked.

Asuna looked up, eyes hollow. "Arguile-san? What is this horrible place?"

Less than a day after being freed from her prison. Yuuki Asuna, Asuna the Flash, Former Sub Commander of the Knights of Blood, had taken her first life.


	13. Chapter 5 Part 1

Halkegenia Online- Chapter 4 Part 2

Louise Valliere, third daughter of the Valliere family, had been in a state of mental turmoil for the last three days. The same thoughts ran through her head endlessly, like rereading the same book with a particularly unhappy ending. She had squandered her last chance to prove herself as a Mage. She had failed, not only failed, but failed so catastrophically, so completely, that there could be no chance to redeem herself. Not only had she been unable to properly summon a familiar, she had nearly killed herself from willpower exhaustion. Her failure would be a disgrace to the house of Valliere. Now all that was left was for the school to alert her family and send her back home.

Blissfully, for those first few days, the symptoms of willpower exhaustion kept her asleep more often than awake, too tired to even dream. During that time she received few visitors save for the school physician who had thoroughly examined her upon waking and would come to check on her condition hourly. However, as the days passed she found that she was less and less able to sleep as her body recovered. The Doctor seemed pleased, saying that it looked like she would make a full recovery. But the prognosis had given Louise no joy.

Isolated in the infirmary and preoccupied with her own worries, Louise had barely noticed the happenings of the Academy. She had been too humiliated to leave her hospital room and too weak besides. The strange comments made by Doctor Vesalius and the maid who brought her meals went without investigation and the ongoing visits by the Germanian Harlott had been vigorously turned away. What did that Zerbst want from her?

The only other visitors had been Professor Colbert and the Headmaster, both of whom had questioned her extensively on the summoning. No doubt her exceptional failure had drawn special attention. They had wanted to know what preparations she had taken for the summoning and asked to examine the notes and references she had used. Louise had come out of her stupor just long enough to tell them that she had only reviewed the standard curriculum, including the first year primers, and her class notes which were no doubt still scattered across her desk in her room. The only other materials she had reviewed was a book from the library on the Elemental alignment and care of common familiars.

She had begun to feel a sense of worming dread churning about within her. Each passing day brought her final judgment closer. Would mother come to collect her personally? Or would she send Eleanor? Or perhaps Louise was no longer considered worthy of the attention of either and would simply be sent home on her own. That last one would probably be for the best, she could disappear into anonymity that way. The only thing worse than having to confront her mother or eldest sister would be to face Cattleya.

'Founder, please don't let news of this worsen her condition.' Louise thought.

Louise knew that her older sisters loved her, but while her eldest sister, Eleanor, had little faith in her, Cattleya had always been supportive. It was thanks in part to Cattleya's gentle insistence that their mother and father had allowed Louise to attend the Academy. The thought of letting Cattleya down took her to a new low in her cycle of self loathing. She would almost have welcomed her mother at that point. Why couldn't she have just died? There would have at least been some dignity in that!

It was on the third day of her mental self flagellation that the maid who brought her food said something that snapped Louise out of her near catatonic haze.

Louise, who had been busily fretting about what she was going to say to her mother and father slowly looked up. "Wait, say that again?" Louise said so suddenly that it startled the dark haired girl and almost caused her to knock over the water pitcher beside the bed.

"I said, the news amongst the school staff is that the Princess will be arriving tomorrow." The maid said.

"W-what? Here? She's coming here?" Louise asked in a brittle voice. Not that she expected Henrietta to remember her childhood playmate, but Founder forbid if she did, or if she asked how Louise was doing!

The dark haired girl looked surprised. "Of course, the Princess has come personally to speak with the Faeries."

Louise's internal panic came to a screeching halt. "Wait, what? Faeries?" Louise blinked and then shook her head, "Make sense you commoner!"

The girl raised her hands defensively. "I'm sorry, Miss, I thought you would already have known. It's been the talk of the school. Surely you remember the earthquake and light from three days ago, and what came after of course."

Louise shook her head again, the Zerbst had tried to tell her something on one of her visits before Louise had shouted her out of the room. "I had . . . I'd just fallen ill." Louise said, "I must have been unconscious."

The maid accepted the explanation with a concerned nod. "Well, I don't know if I'm the best one to explain. I'm merely a commoner, Miss, and not versed in affairs of magic. But before noon three days ago there was this terrible shaking and an unearthly noise accompanied by blinding light. When it cleared there was an immense Tree to the north of the Academy. I was told some of the staff went to investigate and met with a party of Faeries. The Headmaster says that something transported the Tree along with an entire Faerie city. Wh-what is it?"

Louise squinted hard at the maid, wondering if she was perhaps deranged. "Is this some sort of joke?"

"I don't understand, Miss." The maid said cautiously.

"Did that Von Zerbst put you up to this?" Louise asked coldly, was she to be mocked even in her humiliation? The anger was good, it gave her something to focus on, something other than her own inadequacies, though inevitably she would come full circle.

"I don't know what you're talking about. If you don't believe me, then you can look out a window for yourself." The maid said quickly. Louise sat up in bed. The window by her bedside looked out on Vestri courtyard and blue sky. She cast a suspicious glance to the maid.

"Ah, this room faces East, Miss, you would have to go out into the infirmary to see it." The maid explained. What are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" Louise said. "I'm getting out of bed so I can go see for myself." The girl took a couple of tottering steps, dizzy from both the after effects of willpower exhaustion and three days spent bedridden. The maid rushed over to her side to steady her. Louise gave her a resentful glare but said nothing, silently thankful that the servant girl had come to her side rather than let her fall.

"Shouldn't you remain in bed?"

"I'm a noble woman, I can take responsibility for myself." Louise bit out, she wasn't going to be made a fool of by letting a farce like this go on.

"Very well, Miss." The maid adjusted her grip on Louise and helped her to walk to the door. The attending Physician, Doctor Vesalius, a small wide set noblewoman wearing a thick pair of glasses, stood from her desk when she saw the maid helping Louise from the room.

"Miss Valliere? Are you feeling alright? You shouldn't be walking about yet." Doctor Vesalius said, coming quickly to her patient's side.

Louise ignored the Doctor as she glanced out the window, again seeing nothing but empty fields of the academy courtyard and clear blue sky over the wall. "So it really was just a joke on the part of that Zerbst, I bet the Princess isn't really . . ." Louise Trailer off as the maid carefully turned her to face the other direction.

"That was South, Miss." The maid said politely.

There was indeed a tree, rising up above the academy wall to the north. At least, it was tree like, in that it had something that could be called a trunk, and branches, and green that might be leaves. But something was wrong, Louise squinted, and then realization began to dawn, her mouth went dry. Clouds, there were clouds in front of the tree. She swallowed. Thin clouds wrapped around its trunk and nestled its crest in fine trails of cotton white. "Wuh- b- buh - Big . . . Tree." Louise stuttered.

"That's what I said, Miss." The maid supplied.

The maid hadn't been lying, in which case, in which, case, she might not be lying about the Faeries, but more importantly, Henrietta! Louise's legs gave out beneath her.

"Miss Valliere!" Doctor Vesalius shouted. "You, Servant, help me get her back to bed, she shouldn't receive any shocks while she's in such a delicate state."

"I'm sorry." The maid said, clutching Louise, "But she seemed quite insistent."

"It's alright." The Doctor said, "I can't expect a Servant to stand up to bossy noble, but if she does this around you again you have my permission as her Doctor to refuse."

Louise was helped back to her feet and marched back to her cot. Doctor Vesalius took her vitals, checking her pulse and feeling her forehead before muttering under her breath about poor humors. "Now then, what caused her to get up?"

"The Princess." Louise said in a small voice. "She's coming here?"

Doctor Vesalius blinked, "Why yes. She's expected tomorrow. The Headmaster has offered her the use of the Academy so that she may meet with the representatives of the Faeries. It has been reported that Cardinal Mazarin is recovering from an incapacitating injury at the moment so the Princess seems to have taken charge of diplomatic affairs." The Doctor smiled, "I must say that if this is her style she will make a fine Queen in a few years."

"But - W-When did . . . I . . . this . . . What?!" Louise shouted the last word. "When did this happen? Why wasn't I informed of these developments?!"

"Miss Valliere, nobody hid any of this from you, if you remember I mentioned the World Tree several times during your examinations, but you did not seem to respond. You have been very out of sorts for the last few days, are you feeling well now?"

Louise shook her head slowly. "I'm fine, fine, I'm quite alright. Don't give me that look!" She said accusingly at the Doctor's unconvinced expression. Louise caught herself and took a breath. "I'll be fine." Louise said carefully. "I just need time to adjust. "You said the Princess will be staying at the Academy to speak with . . . Faeries?"

"That is what the staff has been told." Doctor Vesalius said. "A whole floor in the Tower of Water is being vacated for her private use. Though I imagine the Princess will be too busy to inspect the Academy. Certainly not until this is all sorted out. Are you sure you're well Miss Valliere."

"Quite well." Louise said in a small voice. Henrietta, here, Henrietta, here. Her eye twitched, no, there was no way that she'd ever think to ask about Louise not if, if, well if there were really a city of Faeries. Was she happy that there was a city of Faeries? Faeries?

There was a loud banging on the infirmary door. " I'll be back to check on you." Doctor Vesalius said and went hurrying off to answer the door.

Louise glanced to the maid who was busying herself with clearing Louise's lunch, a bowl of vegetable soup that had hardly been touched, a half eaten loaf of bread, and a small bowl of fruit. Louise could barely remember eating any of it. But she must have at some point. The maid looked familiar, she frowned.

"Are you always the one that delivers my meals?"

The girl looked to Louise. "Yes, Miss. I just happen to be free immediately after meals are served in the dining hall so I usually deliver food to the staff and infirmary."

Louise squirmed as she sifted through foggy memories from the last couple of days. "You talked whenever you came." Louise said.

"Yes, Miss." The maid said, looking nervous. "It's just, you seemed lonely just sitting in here. I thought I would try and cheer you up, and you didn't seem to mind, so . . ." The girl trailed off. "I meant no offense."

"It's alright." Louise said quietly. "I've kept you long enough, I'm sure you have other duties to attend to."

The maid gave Louise a worried look and then glanced to the nearly untouched meal. "Truthfully Miss, I usually return to the Kitchen to eat my own lunch after this. Is there anything else you need?"

Louise hesitated, as soon as the maid left she'd turn back to the gnawing anxiety within. Now with fears of Henrietta closely behind the feelings she had for her mother and sisters. No, that wasn't it, she wasn't so childish, she wanted to know more about what had happened when she was, indisposed, that was it, she wasn't so childish that she would want a Servant to pay attention to her!

"Excuse me? But I don't recall your name."

"Oh, its Siesta, Miss." The maid bowed her head.

"Well then, Siesta." Louise said carefully. "You spoke truthfully about that tree and the Princess, so the Faeries are real too?"

"Yes, Miss." The maid said. "At least, that's what they call themselves, though they don't much look like the Faeries from the stories. They claim to be from a place called Alfheim. The city at the base of the World Tree is their Capitol."

"And they just appeared with that . . . Tree?"

Siesta nodded again, "Yes. Or that's what they claim. There's been lots of talk amongst the staff about that. Some people seem to think they're Elves." The maid quickly waved her arms when she saw Louise's eyes widen. "But the Headmaster says they're not."

"What are they . . . No a servant wouldn't know anything like that." Louise mumbled to herself.

"What are they like?" The maid smiled. "Actually, I had the honor of helping to serve lunch when the Headmaster met with their leaders and I've seen several more since, at least one or two have been at the Academy since the Headmaster informed everyone."

Had she really been so closed off in her own World? Louise wondered. On recollection, she supposed she had. Louise Valliere had always been an obsessive person, the only relief from one focus was to find another and almost defensively she latched onto Siesta's stories to sate her curiosity and find some relief from her worries. She urged the maid to tell her everything she knew, recalling what Siesta had said about eating, Louise eyed her own lunch, it was healthful food, plane but filling, certainly if it was fit for an ill noble it would be suitable for a commoner. She said as much to Siesta and the girl had hesitantly accepted.

It turned out that the maid was very well informed about the events around the academy. Louise supposed she shouldn't have been surprised, the academies servants were innocuous by virtue of being everywhere. Nobody ever paid them any attention and so they were free to collect interesting tidbits of information and pass them on. As the nearest town was a solid half a day's ride distant the servants no doubt mostly entertained themselves with gossip picked up about the nobles. Louise was sorely tempted to ask about Von Zerbst, but she really couldn't imagine there was anything left for the Germanian Harlot to be ashamed of.

"The Headmaster sent messages out to the Palace and the surrounding noble estates almost as soon as he met with the Faeries. Only two answered back before the meeting, it was very short notice. I believe they were Count Woestte and Baron Le Murrow?" Siesta said.

"Le Marou." Louise corrected. "He's the local Garrison Commander and Count Woestte owns lands adjacent to the Academy, get back to the Faeries!"

"Oh, of course." Siesta took a small sip of the soup and continued. "The Headmaster met with one of the Faerie leaders named Lady Sakuya." Siesta frowned a little, "It's funny, that name should seem strange to me, but it's not, my grandfather used to tell us stories about a Princess named Sakuya." Siesta shook her head. "She was very beautiful, I almost mistook her for a noble woman when I saw her, and she brought her retainers with her."

"Retainers?" Louise asked, the thought of a Fairy noble woman was peculiar to her, Faeries were just creatures of myth and fable. They didn't really exist. But, here she was discussing them with a servant girl.

Siesta nodded. "I always though Faeries were supposed to be small and childish, but some of them were taller than the Headmaster and one was gigantic, they called him a Gnome and they called Lady Sakuya a Sylph. There were other funny names too, uhm, Cait Syth, and Spriggan, and one that they called a Salamander, but those are big lizards aren't they?"

"Amphibian." Louise corrected, she plucked a piece of fruit from the bowl and popped it in her mouth. She suddenly felt a bit hungry and was regretting how easily she had offered up her meal to Siesta.

The maid nodded at the correction. "I think it's like being Germanian or Tristanian, that's the way it sounded. I'm afraid I didn't hear much of the conversation between the Headmaster and Lady Sakuya, but it sounded like lots more of their people were transported and not just here. The Count got angry because it might affect his lands and the Baron seemed worried about something to do with animals in the forests. I'm sorry but it was a little beyond me." The maid apologized.

"No, you've been very helpful, this is all interesting." Louise said quickly, and the more she heard the more she felt certain that Henrietta would have no time to visit a long forgotten playmate. With a sense of relief she could go back to fretting about how her failure would affect her family without having to worry about seeing Henrietta.

Siesta brightened a little. "If you like, when I bring dinner, I can come back and help you to the window tonight."

"W-what, why?" Louise asked.

"The Faeries have been sending messengers back and forth between their City and the Headmaster's office. They usually arrive just before sunset and leave after the sun has fallen. They have these beautiful wings and when they fly at night they look like shooting stars." The maid explained.

"Really?" Louise asked. Something struck her as curious. "You don't seem very frightened of these Faeries. In the stories, aren't they supposed to play tricks on commoners until some Noble comes to banish them?"

"Is that so?" Siesta asked. "In the stories I was told, the Faeries would always play tricks on the Nobles until a commoner went and found out what they wanted. Usually, someone had stolen something from them."

Both girls looked levelly at each other and then began to giggle. It felt really good, Louise thought, really good, almost enough to banish the dull pain inside.

"To answer your question, no, I wasn't afraid. Well, I was a little scarred when I was told we would be going to meet Faeries. But after I saw them, and they didn't do anything mischievous, they just seemed like people that can fly. They don't even seem like nobles." Siesta said.

"Well of course they wouldn't, they're Faeries after all." Louise said, realizing that she had no idea how a Faerie would act only after having spoken.

"I suppose so." Siesta agreed thoughtfully, "But they definitely weren't like the Faeries from stories."

The conversation concluded not long after that and Louise excused Siesta to go and attend to her other duties. Doctor Vesalius returned and to check on Louise noting that she seemed to have be doing much better today that she had yesterday, her collapse aside. Louise asked the Doctor if should could sit in the infirmary room and look at the World Tree. Vesalius had been surprised but agreed so long as she remained seated, she was still not ready to leave the infirmary.

Louise had spent most of the rest of the afternoon lost in thought starring at the Immense Tree in the far distance. She was quiet, so nobody bothered her and even Doctor Vesalius. It was so big that even though it was far away it seemed to be just outside of that window. She remained there, lost in her thoughts as afternoon turned to evening. Siesta came back with her dinner, another bowl of a soup and a fresh roll of bread, still warm from the Academy ovens. As darkness settled Louise saw two brilliant green stars flickering in the distance, the streaked past the infirmary window silently. Those must have been the Faeries that Siesta had mentioned. The maid told her that they came in all different colors and that the Green light meant that they were Sylphs. She wondered idly what they were like. It didn't matter of course. Nothing much mattered for her any more, which was in a way liberating, wasn't it?

She must have dosed off at some point because the next thing she remembered was being lain back down in her cot and a blanket being pulled up to cover her. In the darkness her thoughts drifted aimlessly, too tired to worry. What was it that Siesta had said? The World Tree had appeared three days ago. 'Just after I failed my summons . . . Could it be?' Louise wondered drowsily, 'No, of course not, that isn't possible. But wouldn't that be wonderful, it would show that Zerbst.' And with that thought she drifted into a fitful sleep.

When morning came, Louise woke to the sound of birds chirping outside her window. As with the previous three mornings her return to the waking world was met first with confusion and then with a sense of comprehension that turned to dread and the desire to remain under the blankets and just wish the world away. Even so, she felt better today than she had the night before, Doctor Vesalius had apparently been right about her recovery. She sat up slowly and rubbed at her eyes. She opened them slowly, and then wider, and wider. She was not alone in the room this morning. Blood drained from her face and she felt certain that her insides were about to knot themselves around her spinal column. As bad as she had thought it would be. It was tine times worse in real life.

"M-Mo-Mother?" She squeaked.

Seated in a chair beside her bed, the Duchess Karin De La Valliere regarded her daughter with cool eyes. "Good morning Daughter. It seems there are matters of your education to discuss."

* * *

From the doorway of the private infirmary room, Professor Jean Colbert watched and waited as the Duchess Valliere spoke with her daughter. Features pale and grave, the Duchess shared much with her youngest daughter, at least outwardly. Colbert had felt a sense of apprehension when he had first met the elder Valliere, garbed in durable travel clothes rather than the dress of a noble. The Duchess was middle aged but still in the trim of a much younger woman. Age and a comfortable living appeared to have done little to soften her as it did many noble women in their later years. Colbert felt an acute sense of discomfort in her presence, something about her resonated with him; the way she carried herself, the way she spoke and regarded others. It was all far too martial for a mere noble woman.

"Good Morning Daughter." The Duchess said in a tone that revealed nothing. "It seems there are matters of your education to discuss." The Duchess sat at her daughters bedside as she had through most of the night.

The Valliere estate had only received word from Old Osmond a little less than a day ago, the confusion of the past few days slowing the messages arrival. Colbert had helped to craft the letter requesting the personal attention of the Valliere family in a matter pertaining to their daughter's failure to summon a familiar. The Duchess had set out almost immediately upon receiving word from the Academy, arriving on nothing less than a Manticor, having traveled at a breakneck pace through the late evening to arrive at the Academy grounds. Any weariness from the past few days or the journey was hidden behind a face that remained as composed and emotionless as a mask.

Louise looked downcast, refusing to meet her mother's gaze at first. "Look at those that address you, Daughter." The Duchess said, the voice carried no hint of threat or of anger but was a command as surely as if the woman had shouted it to a troop of knights.

Louise complied, looking up meekly at her mother. "We received word from the academy, you failed your familiar summoning." The Duchess said.

Louise went as pale as her sheets, her hands balled up into bone white fists. "I - I apologize, Mother." Louise said quickly, "I would have sent word myself, but I was hospitalized for . . . for . . ." The girl was fighting not to glance away. "I have shamed our family, the responsibility is mine." Colbert watched as Louise spoke the words carefully, how bitter they must have tasted to someone so prideful. "I am ready to accept whatever punishment you deem fit, Mother."

The Duchess was still for a moment, studying her daughter, and then she nodded, satisfied. "That is a proper answer for a daughter of the Valliere line. I have already spoken with your teachers and the headmaster. They agree that your failure to successfully cast summon familiar is quite unusual." She looked gravely at her daughter, Louise cringed. "Normally, you would be expelled immediately", Louise shrank away as her mother continued, "But given your academic standing in non applied studies and the specific nature of circumstances surrounding your failure, the Headmaster has suggested that an exception be made."

"A-An . . . Exception?" Louise squeaked.

The noble woman nodded, "It seems that your unsuccessful casting has given the Headmaster and your professors some ideas of where your problems may lay. They have suggested the preparation of a special curriculum to correct for this. This would of course mean extensive study of your magic and special tutoring."

"But . . . I'm to be expelled, those are the rules!" Louise said, confused.

"That is the rule." Her mother agreed. "But it is also the rule that this school is under the authority of the Headmaster and he may make exceptions when it pleases him." She said. "Of course, ultimately the decision is yours, Louise. I trust you will not squander the good name and reputation of our family. Choose wisely."

"You mean, I can stay?" Louise whispered to herself, the girl's lips quivered and her hands loosened, she looked desperately into her mother's eyes, "Please, Mother, give me this chance to redeem myself. I'll do everything I can. I promise to succeed this time!"

The elder Valierre regarded her daughter with an appraising eye. "Is that your final answer? Your sister Eleanor is very insistent about having you back."

Louise nodded again eagerly, "Please, Mother, I know I can do this, and if, if there's anything that I can do to prove myself, I want to try!"

The Duchess nodded. "I am pleased, Louise, you haven't shied away, despite your setbacks. I will expect to see results in due time."

"Yes Mother." Louise said faintly she shook her head furiously. "I mean, thank you, thank you mother, I promise not to disappoint you. But . . . Just what does the Headmaster think is wrong with my magic?"

There was a pause, "Headmaster Osmond said that he has his suspicions but that he would prefer to study your magic without first telling you. The Headmaster and Professor Colbert believe that if you knew now, you might try to conform to their expectations. You will learn what they know once they are satisfied that you are ready. Do not trouble them about it before then."

"Y-yes, Mother." Louise repeated, sounding uncertain but relieved. The girl sagged back down weakly in bed.

"Are you feeling well, Louise?" The Duchess asked her daughter clinically. "Doctor Vesalius has informed me that you should make a full recovery. Endeavor to return to your studies as soon as possible."

"Yes Mother. Has the Doctor said when I will be released?"

"At the moment she seems to believe you will soon be well enough to walk and return to your own room. Though, you are advised against strenuous activity and may not attempt to cast magic until you have been fully discharged from her care. Classes are canceled at the moment, but I will expect you to return to your studies as soon as you are able. You will be required to return to the infirmary twice a day for further examinations. You may ask Doctor Vesalius about the rest."

"Of course Mother, thank you, thank you!" Louise started to tear up but squeezed her eyes shut.

The Duchess De La Valliere stood slowly, straightening her riding clothes, she looked to the doorway, and the waiting Professor Colbert. "There are matters I must attend to while I am here at the academy. I intend to offer my services to the Princess when she arrives. Opportunity permitting, we will dine together this evening."

"Understood, Mother." Louise said, swallowing, "Mother, you're going to offer the support of our house for Henrietta's dealing with the Faeries, right?" Louise asked in a small voice.

"Yes." She paused, eyes resting on her daughter. "I cannot fathom what has lead to the strange events that are sweeping our fair kingdom, but I am obliged to ask if the monarch has need of me, now more than ever. The Vallieres are always at the service of the Royal family." She said.

"But Henrietta hasn't been crowned yet." Louise said. "Forgive me, but is that acceptable?" The girl asked.

"Under other circumstances it would be quite forward of us to bypass the Princess' regent." Her mother agreed. "But Cardinal Mazarin is presently incapacitated and the Royal advisers are already engaged in managing this crisis. For the time being Henrietta is acting with the authority of the Crown, though tenuously. She is inexperienced, which means she will be in even greater need of her most loyal supporters." She said. "I will return later, Louise, rest until then." The elder Valliere turned on her heel and left the room, shutting the door quietly behind her.

Colbert noticed an almost imperceptible draining of tension from the Duchess Valliere's frame as she closed the door. He imagined it was the assertion of the weariness that the Noble woman had been carrying for more than a day, he did not believe she had slept the night before, instead choosing to stay at her daughter's bedside and bring herself up to speed on the situation, but it vanished as quickly as it had arrived, perhaps it was just his imagination. She turned and began to walk from the infirmary gesturing for Colbert to follow. They traveled in silence down the hallways of the Academy, passing students and staff.

Since the announcement had been made about the Faeries, the school had been alive with gossip and rumors. The most common stories were those that involved the fables about the Faerie races, that they were immortal, and beautiful, and natural tricksters. The more adventurous told more frightening tales from chldren's fables. A few had caught glimpses of the messengers that arrived frequently from Arrun and the different Faeries races seemed to be causing the students a great deal of confusion. Every book in the library on Albionese fables had been checked out and read hungrily by the young members of the nobility. Students were speculating wildly about the origin of the World Tree and wondering when they would be allowed to see the city at its base for themselves.

Thankfully the atmosphere was dominated more by a sense of curiosity than fear. Which had of course led to its own problems. Classes had been canceled since the world Tree's appearance so that there would be enough teachers on hand to keep watch over the entire school. More than a few adventurous second and third years had been caught trying to sneak off in the middle of the night to catch a glimpse of a Faerie or the city of Arrun.

This was especially perilous given reports of the strange and aggressive animals that had been seen in the surroundings forests. Colbert had seen some of the carcasses, Beetles the size of large dogs and huge white furred creatures wielding crude stone clubs, like hairy orcs that were, thankfully, even stupider than the real thing. Lady Sakuya had already offered the services of some of her own guards to help the local garrison with eliminating the beasts, an offer that Baron Le Marou, the garrison commander, had accepted diplomatically.

The silence between the two dragged on uncomfortably and Colbert was left to wonder if this was some sort of interrogation technique on the part of the Duchess. Finally, the woman spoke. "Professor Colbert, do you trust the Headmaster's opinion in this matter?"

"Pardon?" Colbert asked.

"Speaking to the mother of one of your students. Do you trust the Headmaster's opinion in the matter of Louise and her magic." The Duchess asked.

When the Duchess De La Valliere had arrived late in the evening, her Manticore setting down upon the grass of the Vestri courtyard, Louise had already been asleep in the infirmary and as commanding as the Duchess had been, she had stood down in the face of Doctor Vesalius who spoke with authority as Louise' physician. It was fortunate as it had given Colbert and Old Osmond time to take the elder Valliere aside and explain their suspicions. When the Headmaster's letter had arrived, Louise's mother had set out despite the crisis in the surrounding lands, entrusting her husband to see to the estates while she went to retrieve their daughter and show the Valliere's support to the Crown. Traveling the suddenly dangerous countryside, she had reported encountering and disposing of a double handful of strange flying creatures on her journey. She had arrived at the Academy ready to make arrangements for Louise's immediate return to the Valliere manor. It had taken a great deal of effort to convince her of the merits of not doing so.

The Duchess had expressed disbelief at the Headmasters Theories, her reaction bordering on anger until Colbert had stepped in to mediate. "His expertise cannot be understated." Colbert observed. "I know he may be an eccentric, but no one else alive knows more about magic then the Headmaster, no one human in any case."

"Then let me ask you this, what is your opinion on this matter."

Colbert chose his words carefully, he was acutely aware that anything he said would be examined with the utmost scrutiny. "I confess that I am skeptical," He admitted, "There simply isn't enough for me to say one way or another as things stand. That is why, while I do not agree with the Headmaster's conclusions, I do believe observation and study of your daughter's unique condition may prove enlightening. And if it does have to do with the Faeries as the Headmaster suspects, then it will be vitally important that we ascertain how they are connected as soon as possible."

The Duchess mulled over the words. "As you say, I will accept it for the time being. And have my wishes been honored these last two years?"

Colbert frowned, "Of course. Your daughter has received the same treatment from me as any other student."

Nodding to herself the Duchess replied. "Good. My daughters do not require coddling."

When Louise Valliere had first stepped into his classroom, Colbert had paid her no more mind than any other pupil, she was one of many students taking their first steps towards magehood, perhaps more straight laced then some, with a glint of real ambition lacking in so many young nobles, but nothing about her truly stood out as remarkable at first. The arrival of the youngest Valliere daughter had been followed a month later by a letter barring the seal of the Valliere family and addressed to him personally, though he learned later that the other teachers had received similar messages. The letter had been brief, a formal request from the Duchess Valliere asking him not provide any special treatment for a daughter of the Valliere family. Colbert had felt distinctly insulted that anyone would question his academic honesty, even someone so highly placed as a Duchess.

Colbert had watched the girl of course. Out of deference to her mother's wishes and school policy he had let Louise fight her own battles, and she had fought many of those from the gossip that made its way around the school, losing more often then she won. That was the natural way of things for the children of nobles and would toughen her skin to the petty insults and underhanded tricks of her peers as she grew into a young woman. Louise was an excellent student, studious and attentive in class, despite or perhaps because of her lack of talent. It had made her failing all the more painful to watch. Colbert was certain that if Louise had even an eighth as much innate talent as she had determination and self discipline in her studies, she would be at least a solid line mage by now. Alas, any attempt to successfully determine her element had turned up nothing conclusive and the other teachers who specialized in earth, water, and air, were reluctant to be anywhere close to Louise when she cast a spell. Colbert had eventually been left to hope for the best and let her stagger along as best she could.

"May I ask that you see to this personally?" The Duchess Valliere asked suddenly, they had reached the end of the hallways and stepped out onto the covered walkway that connected the Academy Tower to the Tower of Water. Servants were busily rearranging one floor of the tower to serve as a private suite for the Princess during her stay. "I will put my daughter's tutelage in your hands for now."

"I would be honored." Colbert said, surprised. "I didn't know you thought so highly of me, after the letters you sent to the staff."

"The letter was merely a precaution." She said. "Too many have tried to gain favor with my husband and I by bequeathing their own favor on our daughters. Most by now have learned that doing so is not a swift way into our good graces." There was a hint of something in the woman's voice, Colbert would have dared to call it amusement, but he wasn't brave enough to ask. "Truthfully there is no ill blood between us, when Louise was enrolled I took the liberty of learning what I could about the reputations of the staff, her instructors in particular."

"And what did you hear about me, if I may be so bold?" Colbert asked quietly. His history was not well known in most circles, but the Valliere's did not travel in most circles, and if the Duchess was as thorough as he was beginning to suspect . . .

"That you were an exemplary teacher who challenges his students, and that many of your pupils see great improvement after attending your classes. I have not seen anything to prove this false." The Duchess said, Colbert let out a small sigh of relief. "Although," She continued, "There appears to have been a period of time that no one I spoke to could account for, you were in the army yes?."

Colbert felt his stomach churn. "Yes, Madame." Colbert said. Did she suspect?

The Duchess was silent for a time. "Well, I suppose it is common enough that service histories are lost, I'm sure it is nothing. You retired honorably in any case and selected an honorable profession to pursue in your later years, so I see no reason not to entrust my daughter's tutelage and the observation of her condition to you for now."

"Of course. Thank you, Madame." Colbert said. "Be that the case, do your instructions still stand? By definition she will be receiving special treatment in her studies from now on."

"I am well aware." The Duchess said, "Which is why I would like you to be hard on her. Do not show her any softness, Louise does not need it."

Colbert paused in mid stride. "Some may think that could be part of the problem."

The Duchess glanced at him, "Explain."

"Emotional turmoil can cloud a mage's abilities." Colbert observed. "If the mage does not have faith that they can cast, then they often cannot do so properly."

"You don't need to remind me of that. That's what drills are for, to be sure that a mage can maintain focus." The Duchess said.

"And tell me, Madam, did you put all of your daughters through those drills?" Colbert asked.

"Of course." She said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "They needed to know how to handle themselves, magic that cannot be used under duress is useless when it is needed most."

"Has it occurred to you, that may be exactly why Louise struggles to cast even basic spells?"

The woman stopped in her tracks, the look on her face would have terrified anyone, it should have terrified Colbert, but unfortunately for her, he had grown used to seeing that look of simmering anger more on the face of the daughter then the mother. "What are you implying?"

"I am suggesting that her element aside, Louise fails to even cast simple spells such as a Levitate or Holy Light. These should be simple enough for a dot of any element. It's a certainty that she has the power given the potency of her failed spells, which leads me to consider that she may simply lack control."

"You speak to me about a lack of control?" The woman asked icily, "I placed Louise through the same exercises as her sisters. Both Eleanor and Cattleya took to them well, but with Louise the results were, substandard."

Colbert tried to think of a proper response, how to broach something so delicate in a diplomatic fashion. "I mean no disrespect. You're daughter seems very determined to succeed. I have rarely seen a student so driven. I believe if she could only find a way to channel her talents properly she would go far in a very short amount of time."

His answer seemed to placate the elder Valliere, her face smoothing and her composure became less forced. "That may be true, I do see something of myself in my youngest daughter, but it is . . . diminished, she must distill that, nurture it, if she is to be of use to the Kingdom."

"Then perhaps she doesn't see it in herself." Colbert suggested. "If we are to study her magic then I will need to be free to treat her as I would choose to treat any other pupil under the same circumstances. I will not give her special treatment one way or the other. Of that I promise."

The Dutchess looked at him for a long time and then nodded. "If that is your professional opinion as her teacher, I have no choice but to accept. Though know that I will be expecting to see results and will hold you accountable." There was a note of approval in the woman's voice.

"Of course." Colbert said with relief.

The Dutchess returned to walking and Colbert fell in at her side. "There will be more to arrange no doubt. This will have to be made believable to the other families so as not to appear that the Valliere's are simply using our influence."

"Ah, the Headmaster may have a solution to that." Colbert offered.

"Oh?" The Duchess asked, "And what might Old Osmond have devised this time? When I asked he played that game of having gone senile and tottered off. I imagine he planned to have you tell me."

Cursing Old Osmond, Colbert replied. "You may not like it." He said.

Colbert knew little of the Duchess' personal history but he was well versed on the history of house Valliere and the other noble families, as was expected of a teacher ay such an esteemed place of learning. As part of his job, he was expected to balance the tempers of the many factions represented within the Academy and keep rivalries from boiling over needlessly, and at the moment he felt that the headmaster was asking him to be the one who tossed the oil into the fire.

"Professor?" The Duchess asked calmly.

"The headmaster wanted your agreement before the Princess arrived." Colbert explained.

"I have no use for wasted words, Colbert. Tell me what Osmond has devised." She said.

"Three of my students seem to have suspicions along the same line as the headmaster." Colbert explained, "That Louise may be connected to the arrival of the World Tree, one of them is the youngest son of General Grammond, but the other two are foreigners, one from Germania, and the other from Gallia."

"The Germanian is of no concern with the Princess about to marry their King. And the Gallian can always be dealt with discretely."

"Duchess Valliere, these are my students you are speaking about!" Colbert said in outrage.

The woman blinked once, twice, "I merely meant that a reason could be found for expulsion."

"What?" Colbert said.

"Did you think I would suggest cold blooded murder?" The Duchess asked with a small tilt of the head. "Such a thing would ignite a diplomatic incident and be far too obvious besides."

Colbert let the tension drain from his body before he continued. "No, of course not, you didn't mean that at all. Forgive me. But no, that wouldn't work in either case. The girl is a skilled Gallian Mage with ties to their royal family, and she's far too smart to not see through an expulsion and draw more Gallian attention. The Headmaster has suggested that we use them to our advantage. By keeping them close to Louise we invoke less suspicion and the situation can be defused by leading them to believe that this was all just coincidence, as it may be."

"An elegant solution." She observed. "Can it be done?"

"I believe so." Colbert said, he wasn't much for conspiracy and surely he was a poor conspirator being as he lacked faith in the whole affair, but he explained. "If they are so interested in your daughter's condition then we can use that to our advantage. The Gallian Girl, Tabitha, is one of my star pupils, I'm sure her expertise will of use in tutoring Louise, and the Germanian is an excellent fire mage."

"I fail to see how this helps." The Duchess pressed.

"Yes, I was just getting to that. Louise has been at odds with these two girls before but I suppose you could say they are fond of one another. At least, there quarreling seems more amicable then that between anyone but friends. At least, they've never needed to be disciplined for it. Besides their obvious interest in Louise's possible connection to the World Tree, they have exhibited some concern for her and seem to be hatching a plot to keep her at the academy. They have been quite vocally noting her failure and sure expulsion unless the headmaster takes special measures."

"The headmaster is taking special measure." The Duchess said.

"I mean political special measures." Colbert explained.

"They're claiming that my daughter is a blunt?" She asked dangerously, "They have no business looking down on their betters."

"They're implying it." Colbert agreed, "It's actually quite clever, I think they're trying to force your hand to keep Louise enrolled."

The twitch on the Duchesse' lips may have been amusement. "Quite clever." The woman repeated. "I suppose so. Bold at least. We will of course be expected to go through the motions."

"I see no way to avoid it." Colbert agreed. "If Louise's magic can't be helped then your truly lose nothing in doing so."

"Then which family will the Valliere's be requesting a favor from to end these slanderous claims?"

"Ah, that's what you might not like." Colbert said. "You see the girl orchestrating all of this is Kirche Von Zerbst."

The Duchess stopped once more and turned her head slowly to face Colbert. "You want the Vallieres to ask a favor from the Von Zerbsts?" She asked, her voice carrying only the faintest hint of anger. That even that much had escaped was signs that a tempest was brewing beneath the Duchesses otherwise calm face. "Have you perhaps gone mad?"

"Madame, please, do this for your daughter and the crown." Colbert pleaded.

"For the crown and my daughter." The Duchess corrected. "If that is the price, then I pray for Old Osmond's sake that his suspicions are correct and for my daughter's that they are unfounded. Enough of this for now. The Princess will be arriving shortly, and if what Baron Le Marou has said is true she will be in the company of another of the Faerie Lords."

"Ah, yes." Colbert felt a surge of relief as they passed on to a safer subject. "Lord Mortimer I believe. Lady Sakuya says that he is the Lord of the Salamanders, they're a race of fire aligned Faeries."

"I've read the reports." The Duchess said. "The different Faerie races have different affinities. Not unlike a mage's element, correct?"

"That is what I've been led to understand as well." Colbert agreed. "The Sylphs are masters of air while the Undines are strong water mages and the Gnomes are natural earth users. Though", he added, "I would point out that this seems to be a coincidence rather than a parallel with our own magic system, there are other affinities and perhaps even distinct elements within the magic system that the Faeries use." Colbert bowed his head respectfully, only the fact the Faeries were not human prevented such words from being sacrilege.

The Duchess nodded, "If the reports are to be believed. You've spoken quite extensively with the Sylph and Cait Syth leaders, correct?"

"Yes, I've been serving as a sort of diplomat with classes canceled." Colbert said rather proudly. He had been pleasantly surprised to find that he had a knack for speaking with the Fae, to the point that they had asked for him to be present for the coming meeting with the Princess. Serving the crown for peaceful ends much better suited him then his previous occupation.

"I hope to be present for some of these negotiations personally. I would like to know what your impression is of this Lady Sakuya." The Duchess said.

Colbert thought carefully back to his meeting with the Faerie leader. "She is quite a lovely woman and very cordial. I've had the pleasure of her company while waiting for meetings to begin and she seems very much a noble woman. I should think you would find her quite refined . . ."

* * *

"Ah-choo!"

"You alright Sakuya-chan?" Alicia Rue asked as the Sylph leader regarded the fine spray of mucus and saliva that coated her hand with a degree of distaste before discretely wiping it off on a handkerchief she kept tucked into the sleeve of her robe.

"I believe someone was talking about me." Sakuya said, "Hopefully they weren't spreading rumors."

The two leaders were standing at the top of Arrun tower, awaiting the arrival of the Salamander Lord who was traveling in the company of Tristain's Princess. When word had arrived from the Academy that Princess Henrietta would be arriving along with Lord Mortimer, both Sakuya and Alicia Rue had read the report in mild disbelief. In less than twenty four hours of arriving in this strange world, the Salamanders had made a favorable impression with the local monarch and then gone to work contacting the Capitols and scattered settlements of the Imps and Undines. With such organizational skill on the part of their leader, and the discipline displayed by their faction members, it was not difficult to see why the Salamanders had been known as the strongest race in ALfheim. Sakuya had already spoken briefly with one of the Salamander Lord's subordinates by using moonlight mirror to contact Gaddan, the Salamander Capitol, however this would be the first time she had ever met Mortimer in person.

Over the past several nights contact had been established at least briefly with all of the Capitol cities of ALfheim, confirming that the transition had encompassed the entire game world. Kirito had suggested that, based on the reports from each of the Capitols, it was likely that the settlements were still located at the same points relative to one another, in which case Sylvain would be Near the Gallian border and Freelia would be only a short distance off the coast, while the World Tree and Arrun sat near the heart of Tristain. By now, most of the Faerie settlements had made contact with the natives to some degree or another. Fortunately, thanks to the general tendency for the native people to flee in terror at the first sight of "Elves", there had been little bloodshed save for a few isolated incidents between confused players and local army garrisons. For the time being the most pressing concerns were dealing with the rogue mobs that had begun to menace human and Faerie settlements and finding a way to supply the Faerie cities as quickly as possible.

"Maybe it was one of your fans." Alicia joked.

"I should hope not." Sakuya sighed.

"Relax, I was just kidding." The Cait Syth leader said and then pouted. "You're lucky though, at least your fans have good taste, mine are all Otaku or Lolicon perverts."

"I suppose that's what you get for choosing to become the queen of the catgirls." Sakuya observed chidingly.

"Well, it has its advantages." Alicia said, "For one thing, nobody can nap like a Cait Syth and absolutely everyone loves the cat ears."

Sakuya frowned, "If it isn't rude, I've been meaning to ask you, Alicia-chan. The ears don't bother you, do they?"

"Nyeh?" Alicia looked surprised. "No, not really." She said, tapping the tip of one ear and watching it twitch reflexively. "Most Cait Syth players get used to them really quick. They're just big ears after all, I guess it's a little weird how they move. The big one is the tail."

"The tail?" Sakuya asked.

"Nnn." Alicia nodded, "The tail's really weird to get used to since humans don't have one, and when somebody touches it, there's a super weird feeling that runs all the way up your back. It's partly why so many Caith Syth keep their tails wrapped around their waist. Though I've heard some people really like the sensation. What's that look about?"

"Hmm, I was just wondering, you haven't felt any different in the last few days, have you?" Sakuya asked.

"Different?" Alicia asked.

"Yes." Sakuya nodded, "An urge to eat something or a feeling to do something you don't normally do."

"You mean do I feel more like a cat?" Alicia asked, startled. "You're asking if I'm feeling like a cat!" Alicia pointed accusingly.

Sakuya nodded thoughtfully, "People have been reporting strange urges and preferences over the last few days. Several Sylph players have said that they feel uncomfortable indoors if there isn't an open window and some Undine players have been complaining excessively about the dry weather. I thought I'd ask you if you've noticed anything among the Cait Syth."

Alicia frowned, "Well, I can't think of anything, I've always liked fish and I've always been able to nap anyplace, so I guess I was already a Cait Syth even IRL." The girl laughed. "Maybe they're just projecting their characters." Alicia said sagely. "But it sounds like something we should have checked out. How is Novair's little side project going? Maybe he's found a psychologist or two."

"Well enough." Sakuya said. "Though it's surprising how stingy people are still being with their personal information, I suppose what we're asking is rather impolite. Though I think anyone with useful skills IRL has already stepped forward." Sakuya said. "All that's left is to compile a list for administrative purposes."

"Did we find anyone good?" Alicia asked.

"Some, there were bound to be a few out of four thousand people." Sakuya said. "A few doctors and nurses and a handful of other professionals. Fewer then we could have hoped, but more than I expected. I suppose we should be thankful that ALfheim has such broad appeal."

As the Leaders had completed their census and inventory of Arrun, Novair had come to them with an interesting proposition. Over the past few days, many players had experienced a strange sense of familiarity when using magic or other skills that had a component based on their in game stats. The phenomena had first been observed with cooking, players that could barely boil water IRL found that they could now expertly navigate a kitchen provided they had spent time cooking in ALfheim, a similar phenomena had been witnessed amongst blacksmiths and artisans attempting to practice their craft with the effect growing in strength with greater mastery. In other words, players who had focused on certain skills, had found that they had truly attained them now that they had been transported to Halkegenia. In the meantime it had been determined that the players had not lost any knowledge they had previously attained IRL. This raised many questions, not the least of which was what else the transition had done to their minds and bodies. Sakuya intended to find out and had instructed Novair to begin compiling a second listing of all of the players in Arrun, this time listing any skills that they possessed in game.

Novair had suggested that the listing be broadened to include useful skills that the players may have possessed in real life. The reasoning was fairly simple, ALfheim had blacksmiths, tailors, skilled artisans, farmers, hunters, and many other professions aside, but there were many fields in which there was no parallel between ALfheim and real life, an artifact of ALfheim being a game with player enjoyment being paramount. Healing magic had become less effective in the transition, though still miraculous. From reports sent by the Salamanders it was known that in a few hours a skilled healer could re-knit bone or in minutes diagnose a common ailment, but in matters of mental health they had only good bedside manner to offer. Likewise, a Leprechaun blacksmith could explain the intricate details of the quenching and annealing of steel or describe the proper design of a furnace, but that did not make them a sanitation engineer or city planner. Just a few of the things that Sakuya was certain they would need in the near future once food was dealt with and the players began to settle in.

Many of the players were hopeful that a way could be found to send them home, in a world where magic was real, anything could be possible after all. Even Lady Sakuya harbored that fervent hope, but at the same time she could not afford to think so optimistically. She had to consider the safety and well being of the players in the long term, and had to ask what would happen if they couldn't go home again. That meant considering the long term viability of Arrun and the other settlements and the creation of some sort of home for the thousands of displaced players, someplace where they could be safe and build a community. That could only happen if Arrun and the other settlements could be turned into living breathing cities, not just collections of houses and shops.

It would be one of the many topics she would have to discuss with Mortimer and the other Leaders when they arrived. As far as could be determined, five of the faction leaders had been logged in at the time of the transition, in addition to Lady Sakuya, Alicia Rue, and Lord Mortimer, Lady Morgiana of the Spriggans, and Lord Rute of Leprechauns had also been logged in. Both were currently busy trying to keep order in their own territories, the Spriggan leader was especially hard pressed given the personality of much of her faction, though neither the Leprechauns nor the Spriggans were as bad off as the factions that had been left leaderless. The Ghomes and Imps had fallen back on the leadership of designated lieutenants who were keeping order well enough for the time being, though they had been paralyzed at first while waiting for instructions from Leaders that would never arrive. More urgent was the situation in the territories of the Puca and Undine. In the absence of strong leadership, rioting had broken out in the streets of Cadenza, the Puca Capitol, and Orlein, the Capitol of the Undines. Lady Sakuya and Alicia Rue had taken great care to ensure that the deaths that had occurred were not reported to the populace of Arrun, not until the situation was stabilized. Lord Mortimer had already sent forces to stabilize Orlein which left Cadenza to the Sylphs and Cait Syth. Forces were being prepared in both Freelia and Sylvain and would hopefully be able to secure safe passage to Cadenza by the end of the day. Lady Sakuya grimaced, they could not allow the former players to tear themselves apart in fear, this could not become like SAO.

"I think that's him." Alicia squinted into the distance. A formation of red winged Faeries was approaching from the east. Sakuya watched as the figures resolved into the distinctive forms of heavily armored Salamander knights. Their sullen red armor marked them as members of the Salamander Lord's personal guard, said to be among the most powerful players in the game. The minimum qualification to join their ranks was to slay a flying dragon single handedly. They escorted a smaller figure garbed in dark robes and light body armor.

The Salamander Lord and his escort set down on the perimeter of the Arrun tower, the knights taking up a parade stance as their leader stepped forward, removing his helm as he approached. Sakuya blinked, this was supposed to be Lord Mortimer, the Elder brother of General Eugene? She had seen screen caps before but still she was surprised. He looked younger than the General, of course that may have been deliberate on his part, after all, charisma was not a vanity that a Leader could afford to ignore.

Sakuya smiled as the Salamander Lord Approached. "I'm glad you could join us Lord Mortimer, you cold blooded lizard."

The Salamander Lord barely seemed to acknowledge the remark. "And I should be so lucky to have the company of the Bottle Fairy of the Sylphs and the Lackadaisical Black Cat of the Cait Syth."

Sakuya tilted her head to the side, "I must confess, I thought you would be taller in person."

The Salamander Lord's eye twitched very slightly.

"Now that we're done with introductions." Alicia Rue purred, arms stretched behind her head. "Shall we get down to business?"

Lord Mortimer nodded. "Yes, I suppose we have more important things to discuss than old grievances. They are petty things given the present situation."

"A talent for understatement." Lady Sakuya said dryly. "I understand that you traveled here with the Tristanian Princess."

"Yes." Mortimer said, "She has gone on to the Academy. She must prepare for the meeting, as should we."

"We've already arranged a list of topics." Sakuya gestured towards the tower entrance. "I'm sure you would like to add your own. If it pleases you we may review until it is time to leave for the meeting, I am sure that you would agree that a united front will be necessary in the coming negotiations."

The Salamander Lord gave a small bow of acquiescence, "But of course. I am sure there are a number of matters we have not had the chance to discuss given our . . . limited means of communication."

Sakuya gave the Salamander Lord credit, his face revealed nothing of what he was really thinking. She had to ask if even in this situation, if such a person could be trusted. Ultimately that question was pointless, the Faeries needed a united front to negotiate with Tristain, Sakuya knew enough about history to know how divide and conquer worked and was savvy enough to know that she was a novice at negotiations, which meant she couldn't afford to make any mistakes in the coming days. Acting in good faith with Mortimer might just be one of those mistakes, nobody who treated a game the way he did could possibly change when the stakes became so much greater, when she looked at this man she saw Siggurd, and for the very same reasons she had chosen her former Lieutenant to lead the Sylph forces. This too was her responsibility as a leader, she had to invite the viper close to her own chest rather than risk allowing him to hunt hidden in the grass.

But she couldn't say any of these things aloud. Instead she smiled and beckoned for the Salamander Leader to follow her. She wondered in her heart how many mistakes she would be forced to make in the coming days.


	14. Chapter 5 Part 2

Halkegenia Online Chapter 5 – Part 2

The water spread across Asuna's skin before making tracks down her cheek and falling to her bare shoulders with a soft -pat, pat, pat- It was the only noise as she sat quietly, allowing Caramella to work.

Though her hands had been washed clean, Asuna could still feel the pulsing hotness running down her fingers to her wrist. She had told Arguile that she was prepared to kill in order to protect others, and she had been, but the thought of taking a life, even the life of a person like that, would linger with her. And she was certain that she had killed him, really killed him, she had been certain from the moment the blade plunged into his chest. The sickening noise, the inconsistent pressure as the blade went through the layers of skin, and muscle, and vital tissue. And most of all, the trembling in the hilt of the knife as it lay imbedded in its former owner in his last moments. It was all too grizzly to be a game, nobody would play it, nobody sane anyway. Which made this impossible place reality.

Kimura had confirmed Asuna's impossible assessment after looking over the village and the bodies of the three slain men. The slug had dispassionately noted the incredible level of detail while probing clinically at the fatal wounds on each of the cadavers and looking over the wrecked village. Though he could offer no explanation for what had happened or how. It had become the focus of Asuna's thoughts over the past hours. It seemed likely that the server crash that Asuna and Kimura had experienced, and which had released the other three hundred odd SAO players from their forced state of unconsciousness, had in actuality been the event that had transported them to this world and made their virtual bodies real. In which case, there was hope that the World Tree was also now in this world along with the rest of ALfheim. 'And Kirito.' Asuna prayed. It was such a selfish thing to want, but even so, she fervently hoped it was true. No, she believed it to be true, she had to. That belief was the only thing she had.

As the night had gone on, they had moved the others into the town. Exposing themselves by making camp in the settlement had been a difficult decision. On one hand it would be shocking for the former SAO players who had been hoping for rescue, on the other, they couldn't hide something like this from them for long. In addition, Asuna had realized that the hunger and thirst they had been feeling were no longer simple immersion effects, but a reminder of something far more fundamental to their continued survival. Though there was little food to be had in the town, there was at least a well from which to draw water, and shelter from the surprisingly cold night air.

Asuna was brought back to the present by a soft pressure at the side of her head. "Thank you, Caramella-san." She said softly.

"It's nothing." The older woman said as she blotted out the blood that had dried in Asuna's hair with a damp rag. Fortunately, the bludgeoning Asuna had received did not seem to have done any permanent damage. Arguile, who had IRL first aid experience, had looked her over thoroughly and confirmed no serious trauma. The man had declared it a miracle given that, from evidence found at the scene, it appeared she had been struck with a blacksmith's hammer.

"Personally, I keep my hair short to avoid stuff like this." The tomboyish sword and shield user continued. "But yours is so pretty. It would be a shame to cut it." Caramella leaned back and gently brushed Asuna's hair back into place. "All done."

The two women had taken refuge in a small cell located in the church at the center of the village. The room had probably been a confessional of some sort. Spartanly furnished with only a narrow bench and a small desk. Sanctity had offered this place no protection. It had been looted like the rest of the village. But here at least, the apparent austerity of the Church had saved it to an extent.

"Look, Asuna-sama, are you alright?" Caramella asked awkwardly. "I know you have Guile-kun to talk to about all of this stuff. He was in your guild after all. But if you ever need to talk to a girl . . ." Caramella rubbed at the back of her head, "I guess what I'm saying is, I'm here too if you need me, okay?"

Asuna nodded absently. Like she was thinking of something else. "How is Kino doing?"

"Guile-kun is looking him over right now." Caramella replied and smiled kindly. "I swear, that kid's Luck must be a totally broken stat." Kino had still been conscious when they found him, though in obvious pain. His heavy winter grade jacket has seen better days, with a huge wad of its down stuffing blasted out by the handgun. Fortunately, the bullet had been partially deflected by one of Kino's knives before punching into a metal breastplate at an angle and grazing along his ribs. He would be sore for a while, but he had escaped serious injury.

Sore, Asuna thought, she was sore right now. Pain was an almost alien feeling after two long years in Aincrad. That wasn't to say it hadn't existed, usually tricks of the mind or glitches in the crime prevention code, such as hugging someone too tightly and the pressure being interpreted by the brain as painful. But it had been nothing like this. Asuna's head still throbbed from earlier. Arguile thought it might be a mild concussion, which was why he had suggested she find someplace quiet to rest. But Asuna was sick of sitting still. She made to stand, despite Caramella's concerned protests.

"Hey now, Guile-kun is going to yell at me if I just let you run around without being sure you're alright!" Caramella warned.

"It's fine. I can't just sit around." Asuna said softly, "Just walk with me in case I get dizzy."

Caramella relented and followed Asuna closely out of the small cell and down a narrow hallway that deposited them along the side of the church nave. There wasn't enough space inside of the building for all of the three hundred former SAO players to take refuge, but they had been able to bring the weaker members of their party inside while the front liners and some of the higher middle tier members had taken up shifts standing sentry among the ruined buildings of the town.

The pews were filled up with the gathered survivors, some were dosing, fatigue finally demanding that they sleep. Others milled about anxiously. At the front of the room, a stained glass window presided over an alter. It was very reminiscent of a Christian church, but the Asuna didn't recognize any of the symbols that adorned the walls. Nishida, Baku, Kino and Arguile were all gathered before the Altar, conversing in heated tones.

"Asuna-sama!" Arguile said, startled by her arrival. "You should still be resting, your injuries . . ."

"Aren't important right now." Asuna said. "If it become a problem I'll go lay down."

Arguile regarded her carefully and then nodded, "Very well, Asuna-sama."

"Kino, how are you holding up?" Asuna asked quickly. Beneath his damaged jacket and breast plate, the knife wielder wore a dark flannel shirt, Asuna could see the crudely applied dressing poking out through the hole left by the bullet.

The boy straightened up and then winced, "I've felt better." Kino admitted and then smiled bravely, "But this is nothing to worry about." He gently probed his left side with two fingers. "And what about you, Asuna-sama?"

Asuna glanced to her shoulder where Caramella had treated her own graze. The bullet had barely creased the skin, but it had still drawn blood. If Asuna had been even a little bit further away it would have punched clean into her shoulder. Working her arm up and down she felt the stinging intensify but it didn't seem like it would restrict her movement. "It's fine." She decided. Kino looked startled by the frankness of her comment but nodded quickly. "And the woman, how is she?" Asuna asked softly.

Nishida and Arguile exchanged glances. "We've made her comfortable." Nishida said with a note of concern, "She should pull through, though there are signs of a struggle all over her body. She must have tried to resist them."

"They didn't . . ." Asuna began, feeling sick.

"No," Arguile said quickly, "At least, we don't think so. She was saved that, at least. She hasn't regained consciousness yet, but hopefully she will soon."

"And the other one?" Asuna asked, her tone becoming entirely indifferent.

"Still out cold." Arguile said. "Caramella-san really did a number on him."

The shield and sword user shrugged, "Any reason we haven't already fed his ass to Escargot-san?" She asked.

"Information." Asuna said, "When I was creeping up on them, they talked like they were part of a larger force. We need to find out how much larger and which direction they went so we can avoid them. We also need to know where we are."

"Definitely not ALfheim." Baku muttered quietly from Nishida's side. They were all silent for a moment. The former SAO players were taking the news about as well as to be expected. Most couldn't quite believe that this could be reality, it was too horrible to contemplate. Others had already begun to recover, viewing their new circumstances as being no different than those they had faced in SAO. They were all demoralized, having entertained the hope of rescue.

"This probably isn't the time, but have you given any thought to what we will do with that man when we've finished with him?" Arguile asked.

Asuna shook her head, it was an unpleasant question, and one she had carefully avoided asking herself. "We'll have to wait and see what he tells us. He may be worth bringing along as a prisoner, like Kimura, otherwise . . ."

The former SAO players all nodded solemnly. "We'll at least make it quick, if it comes to that." Arguile assured.

"He doesn't exactly deserve quick." Caramella replied, voice dripping with disgust.

"It's not him I'd be doing it for." Arguile snapped, silencing his partner. Caramella cast her eyes down, looking chastised by the remark.

In either case, there was little more for them to do until the woman or her surviving attacker regained consciousness. The more adventurous former players had asked for permission to pick through the remains of the town and nearby manor. Asuna had felt a little shocked at the irreverence, but at the same time, the people who had lived here weren't coming back, or rather, weren't going to need their worldly possessions any longer.

The search proved a mixed success, turning up precious little of any use. Some tools, a few article of clothing, and the occasional untouched satchel or canvas bag. About the only thing that had been in higher demand than things to steal were things to cart it all away in. The effects of the four bandits had been the biggest windfall. Aside from their weapons, which were being carefully inspected, they had gathered a good deal of loot in a nearby cottage, including several trunks full of clothing, most likely raided from the manor, a smaller trunk filled with silverware and pieces of gold and silver jewelry, and a small chest that contained a coat of arms and accompanying silver ring inscribed with what might have been a family crest.

Asuna had looked over some of the clothing, her need for something other than the princess garb Sugou had designed for her overcoming her discomfort at searching through another person's belongings. Frustratingly, even if she had found something that would fit, her wings made wearing normal clothing almost impossible.

The solution came in the form of a demure little seamstress named Maki, one of the town players in their group, who had offered to take a shot at altering some of the clothes to fit Asuna's unique form. Asuna had been unsure at first, sewing, like cooking, was very different and much more complicated IRL than it had been in SAO. Maki confessed she had no real world experience, but even so, the girl had seemed strangely confident as she picked through what was available and held it up to the former KoB sub commander for comparison.

After cannibalizing a dress, and finding an appropriate blouse, the girl had worked through the night with salvaged sewing supplies found among the clothing, working with hardly any hesitation, as if guided by strange instincts. By early morning, her efforts had produced a functional knee length skirt and a blouse and vest combination that reminded Asuna a great deal of her SAO starting outfit. The most drastic alteration had been the slits cut into the back of the blouse and vest to accommodate her wings. For the time being, Maki had altered the blouse so that the slits would hang shut over the stems of her wings, but she promised to come up with a more permanent solution when there was time and she had better supplies.

Despite the girl's apologies, Asuna had been pleased with the results. It went a long way to making her feel less like Sugou's doll, even if she couldn't do anything about the most prominent alteration he had made to her body. She wondered idly if the wings could be cut off, they looked fragile and weren't really attached to her body so much as suspended flush with the skin. Though, they had proven surprisingly durable so far. Would it hurt? She could certainly feel them. No, Asuna shook her head, that was an option of last resort.

It was while she was regarding herself in a broken mirror, Maki making some final adjustments to her skirt, that Nishida had burst in.

"Asuna-san!" Nishida said urgently. "She's awake! Come quickly."

Asuna glanced down to Maki. "I'm not quite done yet, but it'll do for right now." The girl said.

Nishida led Asuna to the back of the church where a door opened into a small cooking space and attached bedroom. No doubt the residence of the Church priest. As soon as Asuna entered through the doorway, the voices from within became clear.

"We're not going to hurt you." She heard Caramella say, followed by a shout of surprise and the sound of something hard striking a wall. Asuna rushed into the small bedroom, a space barely bigger than the confessional, furnished with only a small cot, a chair, and a trunk, to find Caramella and Kino backed into one corner of the room and the woman from the night before, now alert, pressed into the corner of the cot, a salvaged blanket wrapped around herself.

"What's going on in here?" Asuna demanded.

"She just started screaming and throwing stuff at us!" Caramella said, waving at the wall where a wooden cup lay broken. Asuna glanced over to the woman who if anything, was trying even harder to press herself into the corner.

"We didn't do anything." Kino said. "She started waking up so Nishida went to find you. She seemed okay at first, but the second she got a good look at Caramella she completely freaked out."

Asuna sighed softly, Kino and Caramella had been here to avoid something like that, neither of them cut particularly intimidating figures, Kino least of all without his heavy jacket and scarf. She turned to the frightened woman and did her best to smile kindly.

"Excuse me. Do you understand me?" Asuna asked. Likely a stupid question given that the men from earlier had been easy enough to understand. Though Asuna couldn't fathom why such ruffians would be speaking Japanese.

The woman nodded slowly. She was younger than Asuna had first thought, with the blood and grime wiped away, she looked to be no older than her late twenties. Large brown eyes watched Asuna as she took a careful step forward and gestured to herself. "We don't want to hurt you. We just want to help."

The woman was looking past Asuna now, no, not quite, Asuna followed her gaze past her shoulder to the milky translucence of one of her wings. She shifted uncomfortably, tensing her shoulders in an effort to hide them from view.

"W-who are you?" The woman rasped softly.

"My name is Asuna, the boy over there is Kino-san, and that woman is Caramella-san." Asuna explained gently. "And this man is Nishida-san. Don't worry, your safe now."

"How can I be safe." The woman whispered softly. "You're Elves, aren't you?"

"Eh? I thought Escargot-san called us Faeries." Caramella said.

"No, those men also called me an Elf." Asuna observed. "We must resemble them, the ears I guess." Asuna put a hand to the tip of one long ear, lost briefly in thought.

"So this world has elves?" Nishida asked. "Stranger, and stranger." The elderly man shook his head.

The woman glanced from Caramella to Asuna. "Faeries?" She asked, "Is that why you have wings?"

"Well, Asuna-sama is the only one here with wings." Caramella said, trying to replicate Asuna's gentle tones. "But we're definitely not Elves, or at least, I don't think we are."

"We'll try to explain as best we can, but could you tell us your name?" Asuna asked.

The woman glanced between them nervously, she seemed afraid to take her eyes from any of them for more than a moment. "My name? I'm Millia Win . . . Millia Winfield."

"It's nice to meet you, Millia-san." Asuna said reassuringly. "Are you able to remember what happened, I know it's probably frightening." Asuna urged. "But we need to know who those men from last night were."

"Those men?" Millia said hollowly, "Th-They told me they were a patrol from the rebel army. They said they were supposed to help keep order." Millia shuddered, "I believed them, I . . . they . . ." The woman began to whimper softly.

Asuna sat down on the edge of the cot and reached out to stroke the woman's hair. "It's alright now, they won't ever hurt you again." Her voice darkened, "We made sure of that."

Millia for her part, simply sat trembling for a time. She accepted a cup of water, sipping it slowly while continuing to watch them all. Asuna thought it was tagic that she could go through something so terrible and then be unable trust the people who were trying to help her. Finally Millia spoke again. "You killed those men, didn't you?"

Kino and Asuna both stiffened while Caramella merely looked away uncomfortably. "We defended ourselves." Asuna said softly.

Millia nodded, "You saved me, didn't you?" She looked up at Caramella, "I remember your face now, you carried me here?"

Caramella looked sheepish, "Well, we weren't going to leave an injured person out in the cold like that."

"I see. Then . . . Thank you for your kindness." Millia said, bowing her head graciously. "I apologize for my poor acceptance of your hospitality."

"It's quite alright Millia-san. But if you don't mind us asking." Nishida suddenly spoke up, "What did you mean when you called us Elves?"

"Yeah," Caramella added, "You mean like tall, blonde, pointy eared guys with bows?"

Millia looked startled, "Bows? No, Elves fight with magic and weapons beyond the ken of man. You truly do not know?"

Asuna looked to her companions, "We're not from around her." She offered with a small smile. What was this place? Elves, and magic? Asuna was sure that this was real, and yet. "You mean real magic?" Asuna asked.

Millia blinked quickly, "Is there some other kind?" She said as if finding the question ridiculous.

"Like Asuna-san said, we're not from around here." Nishida said. "Ah, perhaps you could explain to us where here is."

"Here?" Millia asked, "Why, you are in Albion, the White Isle. How could you not know? No, a silly question, if you have never even heard of Elves. You are serious though?" Millia seemed unable to believe them. "Then perhaps you are Faeries as you say?" She didn't seem to believe it, but rather was giving them the benefit of the doubt.

"We didn't say it, Escargot did." Caramella huffed.

"Then what would you prefer I call you?" Millia asked.

"Faerie is as good a name as any." Asuna decided reluctantly, besides, it seemed to make Millia more comfortable, allowing her to slot them neatly into her world. "Now, Millia-san, could you tell us a little more about Albion?"

"A-alright." She said hesitantly. "I suppose I can do that much."

And so she did. Millia told them about the White Isle, a floating continent that hung in skies above the sea and drifted along the coastline of the landmass of Halkegenia on a world with two moons. She told them about Reconquista, the rebel faction that sought to take control of the White Isle as the first step towards their eventual goal of launching a crusade to retake the Holy Land, and the embattled Royalists who were pushed further back every day. At some point, Arguile arrived and began to listen to Millia's story. From time to time, one of the Faeries would interrupt and ask for clarification. Like a teacher speaking to a young child, she patiently explained what she meant when she used the terms Commoner and Noble, what a windstone was, and why Elves were to be feared.

When pressed about what had happened with the "rebel soldiers" the night before, Millia had looked away. "My family . . . We were Royalists serving the Windsor family. I was a tutor for the Count's youngest daughter. My duties were to school her in magic and etiquette. When Reconquista reached us, I was urged by the other staff to escape. I took what belongings I could carry and ran. By luck, I ended up behind the advancing army. I thought I'd be safe if I could make it to a city and disappear into the crowds.

I took shelter in this town last night and ran into those men. They claimed to be a patrol keeping order behind the front, they seemed so welcoming. I should have know better, but they offered me something to eat. It must have been drugged. I tried to fight back, but they overpowered me. That's the last thing I remember clearly before the shouting, then I remember being carried and waking here."

"It must have been quite an ordeal," Nishida said, empathizing with the young woman. While there circumstances were different, they could all related to the anxiety of the life or death situations that Millia had experienced over the past days.

"Thank you again for your kindness, but I must ask what you plan to do with me." The fear from before had returned, though carefully hidden, to Millia's voice.

Arguile gave the woman a concerned look. "We would like for you to come with us, at least for a time. This country is clearly too dangerous for a young woman to be wondering alone."

Millia's expression grew pained. "Do not misunderstand, I am grateful to you all for saving me. But Reconquista, with your appearance, even if you are not truly elves, it is what they'll think to call you, and use it to whip the people into a frenzy. If I was found with you, they would accuse me of consorting with Elves. The things they would do to me . . ." The woman shuddered softly. "Please, just let me go. The only thing I ask for is that if you have found a silver ring, it was an heirloom of the Windsor family. You can take the rest, I'm sure you can make use of it somehow. But let me go."

"I'm sorry Millia-san, but that isn't possible for now." Asuna spoke up suddenly. The others looked to her but no one raised a voice in dissent, they needed what Millia knew, and far better to get it from a source that was less inclined to lie. "We have to make sure our own people are safe first and that means we need your help for now. We'll protect you, and I promise that if anything happens, we'll get you away. Nobody will ever know that you were with us."

Millia looked at her with disbelief before shaking her head. "That's really no different than making me you prisoner, isn't it?"

"Maybe, but you'll be taken care of." Asuna said. "And I promise we'll release you someplace safe."

"There's no place that is safe for me, not anymore." Millia whispered.

There was a knock at the door and a head appeared in the doorway, it was Baku. "Asuna-sama, Arguile-san, I thought you two should know, the other one is awake."

Asuna's face became a mask once more. "Very well. Caramella, can you continue to watch after Millia for now?"

The former army knight gave a forced smile, "But I'd much rather go with you Asuna-sama and get reacquainted with Mister Scumbag-san."

"Don't you mean reacquaint him with your fists?" Kino said.

"That's exactly why you should stay here. We need him in one piece, for now." Asuna turned and departed, Arguile following her from the room.

"This is all, quite a lot to take in." Arguile observed.

"You're right." Asuna agreed. It was too strange to believe, but the facts could not be denied. They were in another world. And not just a virtual one, a real, tangible, living place. But what did that mean? And how had it happened? And most importantly, could they get back?

The man that Caramella had taken to calling Scumbag-san, the former Raspy Voice, had been detained in a horse shed near the Church. In a twist of irony, his fellow prisoner had become his warden. Kimura had stood watch on the man through the night. The former researcher transformed into a slug type monster was taking his new circumstances disturbingly well, waving a tentacle in welcome to Asuna and Arguile.

"Good morning, Asuna-sama, Arguile-san." Kimura said in his soft voice. "The Prisoner has woken up." Kimura gestured with one tentacle to the man laying tied up in the corner of the shed. Raspy Voice had seen better days, and very likely decades given the condition of his face. It was rather miraculous that Caramella hadn't killed him with her bare hands. The man's face was a black a blue mess, and what Asuna could see of his upper torso through the rips in his clothing was just as bad.

The man sat up as they approached, squinting through a black eye. "And who be you lot?" He said, his voice growing slurred.

"That would be our line." Arguile said coldly.

"Eh? A pair of Elves, or 'alf Elves I reckon. Seems we really stepped init." The man snickered darkly. "I 'magine you wanna piece o' me for last night?"

"You seem awfully brave for someone facing Elves." Asuna observed coldly.

"Aye, after last night, I'm dead anyway, caught by you lot. May as well admire my executioners." The man leered at Asuna and then started to laugh hysterically, the action causing him to hack and cough.

Asuna had to give the man credit, from what Millia had said about Elves, he was either brave, or an idiot. If there was to be any hope of getting information out of him, she would have to loosen his tongue. Raspy Voice found his fun cut short as a slender blade sliced bare centimeters from his left ear. The expression on Asuna's face had become one of cold disgust.

The man eyed the blade and then looked to Asuna. "Aye? So is that 'ow it's going to be?"

"In all honesty, you sicken me." Asuna said to the man. "This world would be a better place without you in it." Asuna shrugged, "But maybe we can make a deal."

"Asuna-sama?" Arguile asked.

"A deal eh?" The man suddenly had become very business like.

"That woman you were . . . with. She died before we could get any anything out of her." Asuna said dispassionately. Beside her, Arguile betrayed only a small widening of the eyes. Fortunately, Raspy Voice was too focused on Asuna to notice. "There's lots we need to know." Asuna continued. "Tell us everything you can and in exchange, we'll spare your life."

The man seemed to by weighing Asuna's words. Finally, he asked, "Just who are you lot?"

Silhouetted by the morning sun, his captor spoke. "We're the Knights of Blood."


	15. Halkegenia Offline Set 1

So yeah, these Omake will be appearing from time to time accompanying chapters. Enjoy.

Halkegenia Offline-Set-1

"I think that's him." Alicia squinted into the distance. A formation of red winged Faeries was approaching from the east. Sakuya watched as the figures resolved into the distinctive forms of heavily armored Salamander knights. Their sullen red armor marked them as members of the Salamander Lord's personal guard, said to be among the most powerful players in the game. The minimum qualification to join their ranks was to slay a flying dragon single handedly. They escorted a smaller figure garbed in dark robes and light body armor.

The Salamander Lord and his escort set down on the perimeter of the Arrun tower, the knights taking up a parade stance as their leader stepped forward, removing his helm as he approached. Sakuya blinked, this was supposed to be Lord Mortimer, the Elder brother of General Eugene? She had seen screen caps before but still she was surprised. He looked younger than the General, of course that may have been deliberate on his part, after all, charisma was not a vanity that a Leader could afford to ignore.

Sakuya smiled as the Salamander Lord Approached. "I'm glad you could join us Lord Mortimer, you cold blooded lizard."

The Salamander Lord barely seemed to acknowledge the remark. "And I should be so lucky to have the company of the Bottle Fairy of the Sylphs and the Lackadaisical Black Cat of the Cait Syth."

Sakuya tilted her head to the side, "I must confess, I thought you would be taller in person."

The stoic knights who stood to either side of their Lord, cringed fearfully. A vein erupted above Mortimers left eye.

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING A MIDGET WHOSE SHORTER THAN HIS KID BROTHER, HUH? HUH?! WHO? I'M NOT SHORT YOUR JUST FREAKISHLY TALL YOU BEANPOLL!" As one, the Salamander Knights piled onto their Leader restraining him from charging the other two Faerie Lords. "I'LL SHOW YOU TINY, WHEN I'M DONE WITH YOU THEY'LL NEED A MICROSCOPE TO FIND WHATS LEFT! THEN WHO'LL BE LAUGHING?!"

Lady Sakuya blinked owlishly. "Well . . . I didn't expect that."

Alicia for her part was bouncing excitedly on the balls of her feet. "Ooh, ooh, this is going to be so much fun!"

* * *

"Kirito-kun." Lady Sakuya said. "You're exactly the person I wanted to see." The Sylph Leader smiled warmly as the black swordsman entered her office. Alicia Rue and the hunter KoKo were already seated, and with Kirito's arrival, they were all in attendance.

"Mmm." Kirito nodded, "Novair said you had a job for me."

"That's right." Sakuya said, becoming all business. "Reports have been sent by the Palace of an incident that has occurred near the Grammond lands. Apparently a raid boss has been spotted making its way out of the forest and eating cattle at night. I shouldn't need to tell you how essential it is that we resolve this issue quickly."

The Spriggan boy gave the Faerie Lord a severe nod. "You want me to take out the raid boss?"

"Not just yet." Sakuya said, "For now, you'll head out with Alicia-chan and Koko-san to investigate."

"KoKo-chan here is one of our best hunters, so she'll definitely know all about the boss." Alicia said knowledgeably. "I'll be coming along to show the flag." As she finished speaking, the girlish Cait Syth's nose began to twitch faintly.

Sakuya nodded in agreement. "It is essential that the people of Tristain see us taking responsibility as a community for the issues our arrival has caused. You are to meet with Count Grammond who will offer his assistance in any way possible. I will leave it to you discretion on whether the boss can be safely neutralized with the available forces, don't hesitate to send for reinforcements."

Kirito nodded, "Understood, Lady Sakuya." He turned and smiled to Alicia and Koko. "We won't be together long, but I'm honored to be partied with such auspicious members of the Cait Syth, Alicia-sama, KoKo-chan."

The Sylph Leader gave a smile that faltered for just a second, her nose twitching, before redoubling. She raised the sleeve of her elegant green Yukata to conceal her amusement.

"Kirito-kun, are you wearing cologne?" She asked, struggling to conceal a hint of mirth.

"Eh?" Kirito looked startled and then smiled sheepishly. "Perfume actually. Yui found out that you can give gifts to someone when you haven't seen them in a long time, so she's been experimenting for . . ." He hesitated. "For when we get Asuna back."

"Still, she didn't need to make you wear it." Sakuya said, "I must confess, the sent is lovely, but it doesn't suit your image at all, Kirito-kun."

The Spriggan boy frowned, but his protest was cut off by a soft purring from behind him. Kirito nearly jumped out of his skin as slender arms enfolded him from behind and a small warm body pressed against his back.

"A-Alicia-sama!" Kirito stuttered. "What are you doing?!"

By way of answering, the Cait Syth leader rubbed her nose against the side of Kirito's neck and giggled. "I'm not sure. You just smell really nice!" And with that he felt the small leader snuggling her face down against his neck.

"Alicia!" Sakuya said, shocked by her fellow leaders forward behavior. Certainly they had played games with Kirito back in ALfheim, but nothing had been meant by it. Now, with real consequences, this sort of behavior was unacceptable in a faction leader!

Suddenly, KoKo was clinging against Kirito from the side, eyes faintly watery and nose twitching furiously. Her tail lashing about.

"KoKo! You too?!" Sakuya had risen from her desk and was on the verge of calling for guards, preferably Sylphs, because whatever had happened was effecting both Cait Syth.

"Well, he does smell nice." The woman said dreamily. "Like . . . Like I want to . . ." Suddenly the hunter's mouth opened wide, and needle like fangs closed slowly down on one of Kirito's ears.

In the garden of an inn with a fragrant olive tree, Kirigaya Suguha, Leafa, was enjoying her day off, and at the same time was getting to know the cute little girl who lovingly referred to her brother as 'Papa.'

Yui really was the sweetest little girl she had ever met, and despite her misgivings over the arrangement at first, Leafa was rapidly starting to view her fondly like the little sister she had never been blessed with.

"Yui-chan? You got permission to use those from Mari-san, right?" Leafa asked from her seat in the shade cast by the olive tree. With KoKo off on a mission, and her students attending to their own jobs until evening, Leafa had nothing to do for the time being but sit here in the shade and enjoy a warm cup of tea.

"Mmm." Yui nodded. "I asked, she said I could use whatever ones I like as long as I only take a few of each." The girl carefully collected the flowers she had picked and carried them back into the shade where she had laid out the grinding stone and other implements. A double handful of perfume bottles sat empty to one side, and about the same number of bottles lay filled beside Leafa.

As Yui went to work, Leafa examined some of Yui's ingredients, one of them, a lush green looking plant with many tiny flowers, stood out in particular to her.

"Yui-chan? What's this one?"

"Nepeta Cataria." Yui responded happily.

Leafa took an experimental sniff. It had a faint smell, but nothing really amazing. "Why did you pick this one?"

Yui frowned and seemed to give the question some thought. "Without access to an external database I can't be sure, but Mari-san said some ingredients enhance the effects of others, so I've been experimenting. I used it in the perfume I gave Papa today, and it smelled really nice. But I haven't isolated it as a key ingredient."

"Hmm." Leafa said. Well, this wasn't a chemistry class, Yui wasn't mixing household products. It wasn't like there was any harm, right?

* * *

"Mama, Papa, look at this one!" Yui shouted from ahead of her parents as she raced up to look through the shop windows. The Tristanian Capitol, even the Noble district, was a crowded and noisy place compared to the streets of Arrun. That just seemed to make it all the more exciting to Yui who was bursting with energy now that she had her Mama back.

"Don't run off Yui-chan!" Asuna called.

"I won't, Mama!" Yui said in a sing song voice.

"Kirito-kun, we need to catch up with her!" Asuna said, turning to her husband.

"It's probably okay." Kirito said, smiling, "As long as she stays in sight we can get above the crowds to get to her."

"Kirito-kun!" Asuna said indignantly.

"Let it be an adventure for her." Kirito said easily, besides, with his speed, combined with the two new swords on open display on his back, the former "Beater" of Aincrad was confident that he could intervene in any trouble his daughter got into on their little excursion.

"You spoil her you know." Asuna observed with a hint of irritation. The quirk of his wife's lips and the way she glanced out of the corner of her eye let him know she wasn't entirely serious.

"And you never let her have any fun." He jabbed back. Yui was just turning the corner when she recoiled, falling back in surprise.

"Yui-chan!" Asuna raced up to her daughter, Kirito close behind. Thankfully, Yui was unharmed, rubbing her head absently the former SAO mental health AI was thoroughly focused on something just out of sight around the corner.

"Yui-chan! Are you okay?" Asuna asked as she reached down and began to check all over her daughter for any signs of injury.

"Un." Yui nodded, "I'm fine." She said, still rubbing at her forehead with a smile.

"Are you okay?" Another voice called out. Kirito and Asuna looked up to see the cause of Yui's spill. A small, black haired boy, rubbing at his own forehead and an older woman with light brown hair leaning over him with concern. The woman was well dressed, Kirito thought, definitely a noble woman.

"I'm okay, Mother." The boy said with a smile, standing up quickly. "I'm sorry, shouldn't have run ahead like that!" The boy bowed slightly to Yui, "I hope you're alright too." Yui nodded to the boy as she brushed herself off. "That's a relief!" The boy said.

"And this is why we don't run in crowded streets, Son." A kindly sounding older man with black hair and mustache said from beside the boy's mother.

"I know. I'm sorry, Father." The boy said respectfully. "But the sights and sounds of the Capitol are always so exciting! I just couldn't help myself!"

The man nodded and turned to Kirito and Asuna. "I hope you'll forgive my son for his excitability." The man said, he carried himself with a relaxed military posture and an eye patch over his left eye spoke of time in battle. Both were very at odds with the smile on his face and relaxed tone of his voice.

"It's no problem." Kirito said, feeling mildly perplexed. "Nobody was hurt. It should just be a lesson to both of them to be more careful. Isn't that right, Yui?"

Yui nodded again, "I'm sorry, Papa." Kirito wasn't particularly angry, like he'd said, there was no harm down.

"You shouldn't make us worry in the first place." Asuna said as she straightened out Yui's hair.

"Sorry, Mama." The girl looked chastised. Few things really seemed to embarrass or fluster Yui, but being told off by either of her 'parents' was certainly one of them.

"Mama, Papa?" The boy's mother asked.

"Is there a problem?" Kirito asked, of course he should have known better than to ask. Both he and Asuna were much too young to have a child who looked as old as Yui.

The older woman smiled warmly. "No, not at all! It's wonderful that you've taken her in! It's the same with our own Son. A relative of my husband's you see."

"You don't need to being telling strangers our life story Dear!" The black haired man grouched.

"Don't be like that Dear! I asked the question in the first place." The woman leaned down towards Yui and smiled. "You're really lucky to have such a beautiful Mama and handsome young Papa."

Yui's expression brightened and she nodded in complete agreement.

"Come along Dear, we'll be late for our appointment if we don't hurry." The man said to his wife.

"Of course! How could I have forgotten?" The woman bowed apologetically. "Please excuse us."

"N-no, not at all." Asuna said, bowing back. "I hope we haven't kept you."

The boy and his mother continued past Kirito, the boy's father pausing briefly at Kirito's side. "Uhm, can I help you?"

The man eyed the swords on Kirito's back, for an instant, Kirito was certain he felt an overwhelming killing intent. And then the man smiled. "I like your style, boy." The man said and then set off, chuckling, after his family.

The whole incident left Kirito feeling very nonplussed as he watched them depart until Asuna called for him to start walking before she and Yui left him behind. The last thing he heard as he followed after his wife and daughter was the boy's excited question. "I hope we have time left over to go see the little Mage!"  
_


	16. Chapter 6 Part 1

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 5 - Part 1

Kirito's eyes opened slowly to a brilliant tapestry of emerald, white, and blue. He blinked once and his vision sharpened, the pools of color becoming more refined, more distinct, he blinked again and they became more so, resolving into branches, leaves, blue sky, clouds. He inhaled and smelled damp clean air, he heard the thundering of his heartbeat, and then the rush of the wind and the rustling of leaves. He looked around slowly, lost. Branches thicker than whole tree trunks spiraled about a vast corkscrewed trunk, its bark the color and texture of weathered granite. Above his head the branches disappeared into thick clouds, moisture collecting and running down them to form small streams that followed the branches for a time before falling off in waterfalls that turned into clouds of mist. In the distance birds called to one another like a vast aviary, yet he could not shake a feeling of deep isolation. This was a world unto itself. 'What is this?'

He looked ahead and was confronted by a row of brass bars. 'This is . . . ' Kirito trailed off. He heard his heart beat again. The bars were not a straight row, they curved away to each side and bent inward from above, forming an enclosure, a cage. Stepping back he was able to see it for what it really was. It was a bird cage of tremendous size and beauty. Its perimeter ringed in flowers, within its confines sat a solitary figure, garbed in white, leaning over a table facing away from him. Long chestnut hair spilling down. 'This is . . .' Kirito's eyes widened, he took one step, and then another, his body seemed to move on its own, as if he was being pulled along by the system auto assist. His pulse quickened, breathing grew labored. 'I know this.'

He was at the birdcage in an instant, hands wrapped around the bars, shaking them ineffectually despite his strength. He noticed for the first time how tarnished they had become and the untended state of the flowers in their planters, somehow this lent a sense of urgency. He looked about for a way, any way, into the cage. There, to his left. There was gate in the cage. A heavy padlock hung from the frame, barring his path. Instinctively Kirito reached for his sword, but his hand found only empty air at his back. He grabbed hold of the lock, pulling desperately with all of his strength, but the lock would not give, no more moved by his efforts than if it had been an .

He thought quickly, hands and eyes searching for anything he could use to break the lock, a branch to lever it or a stone to smash it. His hand brushed against his pocket and he froze. Reaching into the pocket he felt something small and cold. He retrieved a silver key, the likes of which would have closed a jewelry box. He looked to the lock, and suddenly his chest constricted, it became painfully to breath, to think, to feel. Anticipation mixed with anxiety, the epiphany of a condemned man.

'You shouldn't do that.' A voice said, familiar but distorted.

'I have to, for this to end.' He replied, slowly he slid the key into the lock.

'You won't like it.' The voice giggled mockingly. 'The ending I mean.'

Kirito paused for just an instant, he hesitated, why? He looked again to the still figure within the cage. Fear filled him, something deep and primal, he anticipated what was about to happen. It was like rereading a book with an unhappy ending, or watching a horror movie on tv, he already knew what was going to happen with a terrible certainty. And yet he could not allow himself to think of it until he reached the end. That grim finality hovered over all. The key turned slowly, the lock grinding from lack of use before falling free. The gate groaned as it swung open, Admitting Kirito to the cage.

He approached the figure at the center of the cage. Its build, dress, and hair were all feminine, and there was a yawning sense of familiarity that his mind refused to acknowledge. It was not yet time. The figure lay hunched over, she seemed to have fallen asleep at the table.

He stepped closer. The figure was completely still, dead still. Trembling, he reached out and his hand brushed aside the hair and came to rest on a shoulder, he recoiled as he felt skin like leather. He didn't want to look, didn't want to see, but his actions were no longer his own. An obscene full dive cut scene played out before his eyes, forcing him to watch, to move, to listen, to focus his eyes where he must. Circling the table his heart went cold. There really was no one else here. The figure was emaciated, bony arms held closely around its head as if it had died weeping. Skin that had hung loosely at the end, had dried to the consistency of leather, the face, skin pinched, lips cracked, eyes sunken, was half masked unrecognizable beneath the almost serene hair.

'She waited for you, you know.' The voice came again. 'Even when the end came she didn't curse you . . . Just like Sachi.'

Kirito starred, he saw, but his mind was unable to accept, to give meaning to what he was looking at beyond simply or and it invoked no more emotion in him then that. His eyes wandered to something clutched in one shriveled hand. Slowly he reached out, the fingers parted like dry sticks. Clutched in the hand was something small and silver, a simple ring, showing no inscription or embellishment, she'd said it didn't need any. She . . . she . . . "A-su-na." He whispered.

'Who will you run to next? Who's faith will you betray? Maybe Suguha?'

As the key had unlocked the cage, Kirito was suddenly free from the sensation of forced movement. Strength left him far behind, and the swordsman Kirito sank to his hands and knees, limply. His arms gave out and his head came to rest inches from the ground. His eyes looked past the floor before him, blind to the world. Flickering images of Asuna passed before his eyes, the time in that virtual world spent with her more real than the memories of his childhood or the time spent since being released back into reality. These images were superimposed atop the tragic form that lay at the table. Something broke within him. Kirito looked up desperately, this couldn't be, it wasn't really, it couldn't be real, it couldn't be like this. Staggering to his feet he reached out. "Asuna . . ." He wept softly arms enfolding the remains, tears burning tracks down his face. "Asuna . . . ASUNA!"

'I told you, you wouldn't like it." The distorted voice said darkly. "False hero, Swordsman Kirito.'

Kirito turned his head to face the voice and suddenly was blinded by light.

* * *

"Kirito-san? Oy Kirito-san, are you listening?"

Kirigaya Kazuto, Kirito, former "Beater" of SAO, and now a swordsman of the Spriggan race transported to the world of Halkegenia, opened his eyes and found himself face to face with the fiery haired Salamander named Carmond.

"Gyah!" He had half risen from a couch located in the room adjacent to Lady Sakuya's Office in Arrun tower. The space looked a lot like the waiting rooms in political dramas, complete with a big grandfather clock, pendulum slowly swinging with a steadily alternating tik-tok that sounded as improbably cliché now as it no doubt had when the clock and its sound effects were digital.

Much of the top floors of the tower had been converted over the last few days into an administrative hub, becoming a sort of headquarters in the effort to contact all of the Faerie settlements and organize negotiations with the locals. The top floor of the tower, which had once been mostly empty save for players departing from Arrun, now swarmed with people who had flocked to Lady Sakuya's calls for assistance, numbering perhaps two or three hundred in total, they were the middle managers and white collar players who had offered their skills to organize Arrun and the other settlements. Food and resources aside one of the most immediate things the Faeries would have to negotiate for was more stationary supplies for the bureaucrats. But thanks to their tireless efforts over the past days, Lady Sakuya and the other Faerie leaders had at least an idea of the what their most pressing concerns should be during the negotiations.

Kirito shook his head and took a moment to let his body come down the from the sudden surge of adrenaline. His heart was racing far more than it ought to, he'd fought some of the most terrifying monsters in the floating castle of Aincrad, being startled awake should not have left him feeling so on edge. He tried to recall, he had been having a dream, more of a nightmare, but when he tried to grasp for details they disappeared like a mist, only leaving him feeling more unsettled.

"Are you listening now, Kirito?" Carmond asked.

"Mmm." Kirito nodded, "Sorry, I must have fallen asleep."

"KoKo says you've been up at the world Tree every night. She had to remind you to come down last night when her watch ended." The big Salamander said with concern. "She didn't tell me why, but I'm guessing it's something important to you."

Kirito nodded again. "It's . . . something. Sorry, it's not really a secret, but it's a little personal." The sense of apprehension grew within him with mention of the World Tree. Mostly he went up to the Tree to keep himself sane, but also to assure himself that it was still there, that somewhere at the top of the World Tree was Asuna, and that he would reach her soon.

"Then I'll drop it." Carmond said, and placed a hand on the Spriggan's shoulder. "But don't let it affect your health. That girl, Leafa, she seems worried about you too."

"Its okay." Kirito dismissed. "Thank you." He added gratefully, "Now, what were you trying to tell me?"

"I was asking if you were ready for the meeting?" Carmond said.

Kirito frowned a little, "It's not like I'm an official. I probably won't get a chance to say anything."

Carmond grinned, "Lady Sakuya selected you personally as part of her entourage. An attitude like that is sure to leave you unprepared."

Kirito grimaced, there was that, but he doubted it was due to anything he could add to the proceedings. Rather, this was part and parcel of his payment to the Sylphs and Cait Syth for their assistance in reaching the top of the World Tree. Word had spread rapidly through Arrun that the black swordsman seen so often at Lady Sakuya's side was named Kirito and that he may in fact be the same Kirito who had become an urban legend amongst the online message boards after the SAO incident. The fact that the Salamanders did not deny that a black garbed swordsman of the same name and description had defeated General Eugene in personal combat had only added to his reputation. It had also made him into the Sylph and Cait Syths unofficial deterrent against power plays by Lord Mortimer in the internal negotiations to show a united front to the public and the people of Tristain. While it was nice to be receiving so much positive attention, nobody had so much as mentioned the word "Beater" in Kirito's presence, his old instincts were screaming to regain some level of anonymity. He was going to have to learn the Spriggan spell soon so that he could go about his business in peace.

"That's just politics." Kirito said.

Carmond shrugged, "I'm an unaligned player, or at least, I was until this all started, I imagine I'll be in someone's army by the end of the week, so it's none of my business. But I don't think she wants you just to counter General Eugene. I know you've been working with Novair to keep the people calm, that reputation of yours helps, but I think your history as an SAO survivor matters to them more than the fact that you're the Clearer."

"This isn't like SAO." Kirito said flatly, he balled his fists and felt the faint sting of fingernails digging into flesh. A wholly unfamiliar feeling to someone used to the pain absorber system.

"Maybe not, but most people don't know that." Carmond's face grew serious. "And it still proves you can handle yourself, that means a lot more than you might think."

"Maybe." Kirito said and looked down, "But, I can't afford that sort of responsibility right now."

"Can't afford it?" Carmond asked, "Is this, no, never mind it has to do with that private business of yours, doesn't it?"

Kirito simply nodded. For the time being his goal was still reaching the top of the World Tree, Lady Sakuya had asked him for two weeks time. Enough time to stabilize the situation with Tristain, at least in the short term, and arrange for additional forces from Freelia and Sylvain. With the transition, the size of the raid group would no longer be limited by game mechanics, at the same time the raid would be far more dangerous. While they did not deviate greatly from their in game behaviors, Many of the field mobs that had been hunted in the last few days had shown a disturbing level of animalistic intelligence. With the former players fearing for their lives, simply gathering a normal sized raid party would be difficult under the circumstances and there were other complications besides. For instance, only the Salamander Faction had experience with fighting as a cohesive unit on the scale of the proposed raid due to their lance tactics and ability to coordinate multiple Raid Parties in large scale battle, in fact where Lord Mortimer had gained his reputation was in part in the training and logistics of the Salamander forces. Lady Sakuya had seemed reluctant to broach the subject of the Raid with the Salamander Lord but had promised to speak with him within the next day.

The door to the waiting room opened and a mild looking green haired Sylph poked his head in. "Kirito-san, it's time to leave for the meeting."

"Right, right." Kirito said, standing up and stretching. "Back to work then."

"Don't go sounding like an old man so young." Carmond grunted. "You can start groaning about going back to work after you've put your back out once or twice."

"I'll keep that in mind." Kirito replied as he hefted his black iron great sword, he'd have to see about a better weapon before the raid too. He rather liked the weight of his ludicrously huge blade but it was ultimately a beginners weapon. He couldn't afford to be sentimental in a life or death situation. In SAO, if he'd found a single handed sword superior to either his beloved Elucidator or Dark Repulsor he would have switched in an instant, 'Sorry Liz.' Of course that would require money and at the moment he was flat broke, actually his employer was short on funds as well seeing as most of the Treasury of the Sylphs and Cait Syth had been spent preparing for the raid. Helping with a second raid attempt was nice, but there were things he might need money for between now and then.

While wondering about the exact details of compensation for his employment Kirito treaded out into the hall, he barely noticed when the door opposite the waiting room opened and nearly ran into a pale Salamander garbed in dark black and red robes. Both stopped at the same time and regarded each other. The Salamander looked older than Kirito, perhaps mid twenties with cold red eyes. Despite his neutral expression, something about the man set off every alarm in Kirito's head.

"Oh, Excuse me." Kirito said and took a polite step back, gesturing for the Salamander to go first.

"Hurry up Mort-kun, we're going to be late!" The voice of Alicia Rue carried from within the room. The Salamander's left eye twitched slightly.

'Mort-kun?' Kirito wondered and then suddenly understood, he swallowed very softly. This was the terrifying strategist of the Salamander Faction that he had been hearing so much about. He didn't look like the older brother of General Eugene, but that wasn't really strange in an MMO where a person's appearance was randomly set or customized for a small fee. What was strange was the completely different presence he projected.

The Salamander blinked once, "You are Kirito correct?"

Kirito nodded, "Mmm." He took up a more relaxed stance and offered his hand. "It's an honor to meet the Leader of the Salamanders."

Lord Mortimer glanced at the offered hand and then shook firmly. "I'm pleased to finally meet the man who managed to surpass my Brother, however, I fear he may want a rematch."

Kirito grinned nervously, recalling the terrifying power of General Eugene and that impossible sword of his, "Really? I didn't think he was the type to hold a grudge."

"He's not." Mortimer said, "He says it's the most fun he's had in quite some time. He is rather addicted to battle, even after his recent injury. However, I've forbidden it given the current situation."

"Well, that's good, I guess." Kirito said.

"Indeed." Mortimer said. "My forces have been given standing orders not to engage you without at least a fully equipped raid force." Mortimer released his grip and turned to walk down the hall, leaving a blanching Kirito to consider what he'd just been told. Lord Mortimer paused after a few steps and turned back. "One more thing."

"Y-yes?"

"You told my brother you represented an Undine - Spriggan Alliance. However, it appears that Morgiana has never heard of you." Lord Mortimer observed.

"Well, it was a bit of a fib." Kirito said in a small voice.

"I see." Mortimer nodded and then almost smiled, "The audacity is commendable, don't do it again." The Salamander Lord turned and continued down the hall with his arms folded behind his back.

Alicia Rue walked out a moment later and waved a concerned hand in front of the frozen Spriggan.

"Arrun to Kirito-kun." Alicia said, "What was that about?"

"I think the Salamander Lord just threatened me with a complement." Kirito said, looking down the hallway, he really needed to renegotiate his compensation for this job.

* * *

Princess Henrietta stepped out of the sunlight and into the shade of the meeting area followed closely by the Duchess Valliere and Viscount Wardes. The Vestri courtyard of the Tristain Academy of Magic had been transformed over the past day by the commoner staff. A large tent, reserved for special occasions, had been erected beside the Academy tower. The sides of the tent had been pulled up to let in light and fresh air and furnishings had been taken from with the academy to create an appropriate meeting place for this auspicious occasion. The other representatives of Tristain were already gathered around the meeting table when the Princess arrived.

At first, Cardinal Mazarin had voiced his apprehension at allowing Henrietta to take an active part in the coming negotiations, but after hearing first hand from Viscount Wardes of Henrietta's handling of the initial meetings with the Salamanders and learning of the attendance of the Duchess De La Valliere, the Cardinal had withdrawn his concerns. Henrietta had been somewhat surprised by the sudden change in Mazarin's attitude but was nonetheless thankful for it. Thought still making a slow recovery and unable to travel to this preliminary meeting, the Cardinal was there in Spirit in the form of Bishop Rubeis, Bishop of Mons, who represented the Church's interests in the proceedings.

If Henrietta were to be honest with herself, she found this whole affair to be a little overwhelming. When she had spoken with Lord Mortimer she had been thrust into the position, but now a sense of uncertainty had taken root within her chest. Even though her participation would largely be ceremonial, Henrietta was still acting as a representative of the Crown and the next lawful Monarch of Tristain in negotiations with elements of a foreign power. In other words, at this moment, she wielded disproportionate power over the her kingdom relative to her status as Princess.

"Are you well, Princess?" The Duchess Valliere asked at her side.

Henrietta smiled bravely, "I'm quite alright. I am simply anxious. Please, forgive your Princess' weak constitution."

The Duchess shook her head, "There is nothing to forgive. I would be more concerned if you did not worry."

Henrietta had written to her mother about her fears. Her mother's letter back had been full of kindness and reassurance and the advice that if she were ever in doubt, she could trust the Duchess Valliere to be a loyal ally and confidant. This had come as a small surprise, Henrietta had known that the Vallieres had long been close allies to the crown, but she had never realized that her mother, the Queen, had so much personal faith in the mother of her childhood playmate. The thought that such a person stood beside her now was comforting.

"Thank you for your support in these troubled times, Duchess De La Valliere." Henrietta smiled.

"No thanks are need, Princess, the Valliere family is always at the service of the House of Tristain." The older woman assured.

Something tugged at the back of Henrietta's mind. "I've been meaning to ask, but how is Louise? I sought after her when I arrived but I was told she was resting in the infirmary, has something happened?"

"Louise is unhurt." The Duchess said, "My youngest daughter merely overexerted herself recently."

"I see." Henrietta said, "That is a relief, I was hoping I could see her while I'm here."

The Duchess nodded. "Of course, I am grateful that you still think so fondly of my daughter."

"Of course I do!" Henrietta said, "How could I not given all the trouble she followed me into when we were children. I will always think fondly of Louise."

The Duchess quirked an eyebrow at the mentioned of leading her daughter into trouble but declined to comment. They had been harmless little adventures, the fancies of Children and were hardly worth speaking about here.

Of those gathered for the meeting, the first in attendance was Old Osmond. The headmaster had generously offered the Academy grounds for the meeting and his expertise both in magic and other matters had proven most insightful over the past several days. The selection of the academy as a meeting place had the benefits of proximity to Arrun as well as the extensive texts available within the Academy Library in matters not only of magic but also references on law, philosophy, and geography that would be essential when the time came to begin drafting an official treaty with the Fae. It was the difficulty of that task that left Henrietta with such an intense feeling of apprehension.

Next to old Osmond stood Professor Jean Colbert, a middle aged philosopher who had been among the first people at the academy to make contact with the Faeries of Arrun. He had struck up something of a working relationship with two of the Faerie Lords over the past days and had been requested by name to be in attendance at the meeting.

Next came Count Woestte, a short waspish man who represented the interests of the local Nobles. With his dark hair combed back and thin mustache, he effected an appearance of intense concentration. The Count's presence was some cause for concern as he represented a more aggressive faction among the Nobility, unfortunately, excluding him had not been an option given his influence which was in excess of his family's status due to many carefully arranged political alliances. Henrietta knew she would have to pay close attention to Woestte as his opinions and the positions he took would be reflected by up to a third of the Nobility.

Baron Le Marou stood at the far corner of the table reviewing a map covered in small set pieces representing the various forts and troop formations across Tristain. Baron Le Marou was the local garrison commander and held the rank of Captain in the Royal Army. The Baron was of medium build but his military barring gave him a presence that far exceeded his physical stature. Dressed in the uniform of a Noble Officer he cut an impressive figure. The Baron would be serving in a strictly advisory roll this day, informing the gathered Nobles and Fae on the conditions across the countryside where the packs of wild monsters that the Faeries referred to as "mobs" roamed freely.

There were two additional Officials sitting in an advisory capacity in the day's negotiations. The first was Sir Terrence Visbee, a Scholar of Law of the Tristain Academia, his services were retained in the event that legal matters were to be discussed in any great detail. The man sat quietly off by himself, apparently lost in his own thoughts.

The second was Bishop Rubeis, Cardinal Mazarin's representative. Rubeis was an elderly man who was overshadowed by the vestments of his holy office, however this was an illusion that only lasted until he moved. The Old Bishop possessed the spryness and vitality of a much younger man and despite his advanced years, still regularly traveled the country on religious matters.

The Bishop's purpose here was twofold, first he would report directly to Cardinal Mazarin on the outcome of the initial negotiations, secondly and perhaps more importantly, he served as a representative of the Church in this matter. Henrietta had been greatly relieved when she had received word the night before that the Bishop had come to the same conclusion as Headmaster Osmond. Although some Faeries, such as the Sylphs, bore a striking resemblance to elves, neither their magic nor the subtle differences in their anatomy bore significant resemblance to the great enemy. This was further supported by the testimony of several merchants who had dealings with the trade Caravans that traveled across the Elven lands between Halkegenia and Rub'al Khalid.

Although they would have to await a final ruling from the Seat of the Holy Father himself, it was an encouraging sign that would allow negotiations to move forward. The Brimiric Faith was absolute in dealings with Elves, but it was far more lenient in matters involving other Spirits and Firstborn races with which humanity had fought, parleyed, and bargained with since the times of the Founder. This gave Henrietta hope that a peaceful resolution and perhaps even coexistence was possible. She feared both sides needed each other now, the Faeries certainly, but also Tristain, more than any save perhaps the Duchess Valliere and the Cardinal would be willing to admit.

The simple fact of the matter was that Tristain had endured through alliances with the other Brimiric Kingdoms, most frequently Albion, but sometimes with Gallia and even as now with Germania. But always, external factors had driven the alliances, this was the greatest internal upheaval Tristain had known in centuries and if it was not dealt with soon, the other rulers would smell weakness and press for unfavorable terms. At the same time if the Faries were to be allied with quickly, Tristain would be forced to make concessions that would be unpalatable to many of the Nobility who believed they negotiated from a position of strength, trading diplomatic for domestic strife. What a perilous balancing act!

The gathered Nobles and Officials greeted Henrietta and her escorts. The Duchess De La Valliere exchanging a polite nod with Count Woestte and a warmer greeting with Baron Le Marou while Viscount Wardes remained at Henrietta's side.

"Lord Mortimer and the other Fae are supposed to arrive soon, aren't they?" The Duchess asked Baron Le Marou.

"This is near the scheduled time." The Baron agreed. "Though I'd imagine having wings lends one to leaving late and arriving right on time. Ah, that must be them now." The Baron pointed out over the wall of the Academy where a dozen figures could be seen approaching in the distance.

The sight of Faeries had become common in the last few days as they patrolled the environs of Arrun or traveled as scouts and advisors with contingents of the royal army in the ongoing task of purging the dangerous monsters from the roadways. Several groups had even traveled to and returned from the other Faerie cities under the watchful escort of mounted knights.

The Faeries set down a distance from the meeting place, a long carpet had been rolled out to welcome them on arrival and gathered Nobles stood ready to meet the Faerie lords. Students and faculty watched from the surrounding towers and the far sides of the courtyard from behind a perimeter of Royal Guards.

The small procession was led by Lord Mortimer. The Salamander Lord still wore his red and black robes, but had exchanged the light body armor beneath for my formal attire, still he carried his cane clutched in one hand, effecting the style of an aristocratic gentleman. In his fashion he was flanked by two escorts, one clad in the imposing armor of a Salamander Knight, the other was dressed in more formal attire and walked with a small satchel at his side, an assistant of some sort.

After the Salamander Lord came a small, almost childish figure. The girl was shorter than Henrietta with deeply tanned skin and hair like wheat just before harvest. Two large, fan like ears protruded from the sides of her head and her features seemed very slightly feline in nature. She wore a heavy robe of black and gold in a style similar to those worn by dessert dwellers and was flanked by two warriors in light body armor. Henrietta was certain that must be the Cait Syth leader, Lady Alicia Rue.

The last of the Faery Lords was Lady Sakuya. The woman was as beautiful as she had heard. Slender, with pale skin and green hair so dark it was almost black. She possessed the face of a woman who had been a girl not too long ago, smooth brow, thin lips, and bright, clear green eyes. She moved gracefully, hands folded before her. Her strange robes gathered delicately around her as she walked. Lady Sakuya's expression was calm and thoughtful, she projected a serenity that was at odds with Lord Mortimer's enforced non expression. As with the Salamander Lord, only one of Sakuya's escorts was a guard, the other was a mild looking Sylph with light green hair cropped short.

Henrietta noticed a third figure sticking close to lady Sakuya in the procession and turned to Professor Colbert. "Who is that with Lady Sakuya?" She asked, gesturing to the black garbed figure.

"Ah, that would be Kirito."

"Kirito?" The Princess asked. "As in the young man you met when the Faeries first arrived?"

The Professor nodded. "Yes, as I understand he's something of a sword for hire, though he apparently has some affection for the Sylphs and Cait Syth."

"He's a Spriggan, correct?" Henrietta said, noting the young man's ash like skin and dark hair.

"Yes, Princess." Colbert agreed.

"He truly resembles a rogue." The Princess observed.

The Professor smiled, "Ah, I don't know if I would call young Kirito a rogue, Princess. I've had the opportunity to speak with him on several occasions, and while he is no noble, he comes across as quite diplomatic. I'm sure Lady Sakuya values his advice."

Henrietta nodded thoughtfully. Behind Kirito followed two more Faries, a dark haired woman with ashen skin, another Spriggan, and a short man with a page cut of metallic blue hair, a Leprechaun.

The Faeries came to a halt at the threshold of the tent. "Princess Henrietta." Lord Mortimer bowed. "It is my honor to introduce Lady Sakuya of the Sylphs and Lady Alicia Rue of the Cait Syth." The two Faerie Ladies bowed as one.

"On the behalf of the people of Arrun and all of the peoples of ALfheim I thank you for your attention, Princess." Lady Sakuya said.

"Likewise, Princess." Lady Alicia Rue said as the two Leaders straightened back up.

"It is also my pleasure to introduce Dame Shirishi, the representative of Lady Morgiana of the Spriggans, and Sir Torin, the representative of Lord Rute of the Leprechauns. They will be serving as observers today for their respective leaders. Lady Sakuya and Lady Alicia have also been empowered the other factions to negotiate on their behalf during these proceedings."

"It is my honor to meet you all." Henrietta said warmly. "As Crown Princess of Tristain I extend the hospitality of the Crown in these difficult times. Please, let us finish with introductions and begin the meeting."

Professor Colbert quickly introduced the gathered Nobles and concisely explained their reasons for attending before moving on to the first topic of the meeting as both parties were seated.

"The first subject on the agenda is the matter of the mobs that are currently infesting the roadways and wilds of our fair Kingdom." Colbert said. "I believe Baron Le Marou can speak better on the subject."

"Thank you, Professor." The Baron nodded. "At this time Royal Army forces have sallied from the major border forts and watch posts along the main roadways to deal with the monsters. From reports it appears that the common species vary with location but weaker varieties dominate around the roadways and open fields. Much more powerful creatures have been reported deeper in the forests or around ruins both human and Fae in origin."

"The spell even transported ruins?" The Duchess Valliere asked.

"They're quite atmospheric for hunts and quests." Lord Mortimer shrugged, "As we've said, ALfheim was a form of entertainment for our people."

"Something that still seems too fantastic to be believed." The Duchess commented.

"Believable or not, it is the truth." Lady Sakuya said. "It isn't unusual for the mobs to be weaker around main thoroughfares. As a rule they'll shy away from areas of heavy habitation, but they'll only be stronger where they do gather."

"That appears to be the case." The Baron agreed. "A force of Commoner foot soldiers attempting to corral a group of wolf like monsters found themselves surrounded and were attacked by something the Imp with them called a Dire Wolf Matriarch."

"A low level field boss." Lady Sakuya grimaced. "You must have been near her den."

"There were no casualties thankfully, a pair of Mage officers were able to reach them and drove the wolves off by torching the surrounding forest." Le Marou said. "The Faeries assigned to my contingents have proven themselves invaluable, they're excellent scouts and their knowledge of the mobs has minimized casualties, though they are inexperienced. If this practice can be expanded around the other Faerie settlements for the time being, then I believe we will have no problem with ensuring the safety of the main highways."

"I'm afraid Arrun has offered all of the volunteers we can spare. I would prefer not to order others into the field, not without training to prepare them for real battle. Our people only have experience as duelists and huntsmen, if that." Lady Sakuya said. "But I will speak with the other settlements about offering their aid."

"That's good news, isn't it?" Princess Henrietta asked.

"Yes and no." Baron Le Marou continued. "Clearing the main roadways is going smoothly, the monsters around them are weak and we can patrol regularly, but the back roads are proving more difficult. The monsters get stronger and we simply don't have the manpower to patrol everywhere at once. It will be some time before we can clear all of them."

"We should concentrate our efforts on the main roads for now." Lord Mortimer suggested, "I would ignore the deep forests as the mobs will be highly territorial so there is little need to worry about them for now."

"I agree." Le Marou said. "If we can mobilize more of the Army for the hunts, would the Fae be able to offer more organized assistance in patrolling the roadways?"

"Oh, that should be easy." Lady Alicia said, a playful little smile crossing her face, "We've been having a problems of our own and the mobs along the side roads sound like they're just about right, we'll even clean up the carcasses."

At Baron Le Marou's confused look, Lady Sakuya explained. "She's referring to the Dragoons, the Cait Syth's aerial cavalry."

"Yes. They are rather fierce creatures." Colbert commented.

"They're pretty powerful to have around." Lady Alicia said cheerfully, "But they'll eat us out of house and home if we don't let them out to hunt soon. They should be safe against the roadway mobs as long as they travel in pairs."

"They're help would be appreciated." Baron Le Marou said.

"On the matter of eating." Lady Sakuya said. There was a faint urgency to the woman's voice.

"Ah yes, the next item. Supplies for the Faerie settlements." Colbert said.

"Yes." Lady Sakuya said. "Arrun and the other cities have been cut off from any form of supply. The springs and rivers that feed Arrun are intact, but the same cannot be said for foodstuffs. As I've told Headmaster Osmond, we're rationing what we have for the time being, but given the chaos in Orlein and Cadenza I don't doubt they will need supplies very soon."

"Food is not a major concern. Tristain is not so poor a Kingdom that we cannot feed the extra mouths." The Duchess Valliere said, "Though it will mean a tightening of belts this winter. Have you any idea about the total number of your people?"

"At the last census we have confirmed around fifty two thousand." Lady Sakuya said, "That does not include Orlein and Cadenza which could bring the number above sixty two thousand."

"That's the population of several good sized cities." Le Marou commented.

"Feeding them won't be the issue, arranging for food to arrive before supplies run out is another matter." Lord Mortimer observed.

"There's also the matter of payment." All eyes turned to count Woestte. The small man was eyeing the Faerie Lords as he continued. "The crown can order the Nobility to sell to you and we will dutifully obey, but unless the Princess and the Cardinal Decide to levy it as a tax, we will expect prompt payment for the food and materials you require."

Henrietta listened carefully, what the Count said was unpalatable but true. Lawfully all of the lands of Tristain belonged to the crown with the Nobility merely acting as stewards, in practice a King or Queen that exercised this privilege to excess would rapidly find themselves faced by an irate Nobility seeking a new Monarch.

"I'm certain some form of compensation can be arranged." Lady Sakuya said.

"Oh, I have no doubt." Count Woestte agreed. "But how will that be handled? You've offered soldiers to help clear the roadways but I hardly think the Crown should repay you for fixing your own mess."

"We are not at fault for the mobs." Lady Sakuya objected.

"Your sport is hunting on our roads, in our lands, and attacking our families." Count Woestte said. "So you must take responsibility for it before negotiations can move forward."

"We wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for that weird transition." Lady Alicia Rue said. "If anything, I'd say that started on your side, it definitely wasn't from our world."

"Nothing but speculation!" Woestte dismissed. "In either case, what do you have to offer but a few soldiers?"

The answer came in a glint as something small and heavy was tossed onto the table by Lord Mortimer. Count Woestte leaned in to examine it, the other Nobles doing the same. It was a gold coin, little bit larger than those issued by the crown. A stylized inscription of the World Tree marked the face and was wreathed in Fae lettering.

"Coinage?" Woestte asked.

"A ten thousand Yurudo gold coin." Came the answer from Lord Mortimer. "I have it on good authority that the coins purity is around twenty two karat, that would be around nine hundred thousandth parts pure gold."

There was murmuring around the table and rightly so. A sufficiently skilled earth mage could of course conjure gold, but only in small quantities and it was a difficult process even then. This made gold a fairly stable commodity to trade in with all but the lowest denominational coins containing some percentage gold as insurance on their face value. If the Fae had a quantity of these gold coins then they could offer something in the short term to the Nobility that would have to deal with them.

"I was under the impression that much of your Currency was lost in the transition." Professor Colbert said.

"It was." Lady Sakuya said. "That coin comes from the treasury of the Salamanders, it wasn't in any players inventory when the transition happened. Forgive me, I'm not familiar with your exchange rates, but I assume it would be worth something if only for its bullion value."

"How many of these coins do you have." The Count asked as he hefted the coin and examined it closely.

"We haven't completed a tally of all of the treasuries, but from what we've learned of your currency, we're confident we have enough to serve as a down payment for the foodstuffs we will need in the short term." Lady Sakuya said. "There are other denominations, thousand Yurodo silver, and hundred thousand Yurodo Mithril, but we were uncertain of the value of silver and you don't seem to have an equivalent to mithril."

"Mithril, you say?" Old Osmond asked.

Lady Sakuya nodded, "It's a rare element found in Northern ALfheim, more often it must be created by alchemy, but the reagents required make it even more expensive. If it works as it did in ALfheim, it serves as a magic conductor and amplifier among other properties."

"Ah, a focus." Old Osmond said, "In that case, I would be intrigued about getting my hands on a sample, for testing of course."

"This may be acceptable as payment." Count Woestte decided, placing the coin back on the table. "But that still leaves matters of you squatting on the estates of the Nobility and the Lands of the Crown. "

"I was under the impression that this meeting was to address short term matters." Lord Mortimer said.

"The Count is correct, this is a short term problem as well as a long term one." The Duchess Valliere said. "The Crown can offer you immunity for the time being, but while this matter remains unresolved, your presence disrupts the livelihood of the people, Noble and Commoner alike, who live on these lands. Your territories have appeared within the borders of Tristain and therefore are the natural property of the Crown and by extension part of the holdings of the Noble estates that they have intersected."

"Then you intend to disregard our own claims to the lands around our settlements?" Lady Sakuya asked.

The Duchess Valliere shook her head, "This is a matter that falls under the law of Tristain, if the situation was reversed wouldn't you insist that your own laws apply? As it is now, the Count is right to consider you squatters, you have no legal claim to the property your settlements sit on."

"I would hardly call us squatters given that we were transported here against our will." Lady Sakuya defended. "If nothing else the Capitol cities belong to their factions and the people living in them."

"As Tristain recognizes no treaty with ALfheim, your titles and authority are also meaningless in the eyes of the law." The Duchess frowned, "The Crown chooses to treat you as it would a foreign delegation but that does not resolve the matter of internal disputes. Count Woestte and the other Nobility are well within their rights to demand your eviction from Arrun and the other settlements."

"I will not allow our people to be scattered to the wind." Lady Sakuya said politely but with an edge of steel biting through.

"I assure you that would not be necessary." Count Woestte said with a wave of his hand. "I'm certain many among the Nobility would be willing to accept the Fae as tenants, the Church and Crown willing." He nodded to Bishop Rubeis and Henrietta.

"To no doubt be governed by the Nobility." Lord Mortimer said. Henrietta noted an almost imperceptible narrowing of the Salamander's eyes.

"Naturally." Count Woestte replied. "You would of course be accorded the same status as any of the common people and untitled Mages."

"Unacceptable!" Lady Sakuya stood from her chair, the change in her demeanor was striking. "Don't think we're so naive that we don't know what you are suggesting, Count Woestte. We have a responsibility to see to the safety of the people displaced from ALfheim, many of them still children, I cannot allow them to fall under an authority that will treat them like second class citizens. "

Henrietta was caught off guard by the anger that seemed to radiate from the woman sitting across from her, and judging by the subtle shift in the Duchess Valliere's posture, she wasn't the only one.

Lord Mortimer had told her a little of the lands that the Faeries came from. He had claimed that barring the creations of their "natural philosophy", their world was devoid of true magic. How the illusion of magic created within the estates of ALfheim had become real was a mystery to which even the knowledgeable Salamander Lord could give no answer. Henrietta still didn't know if she could believe everything that Mortimer had said, but the lack of a magically imbued class to stand above the common people and lead them would certainly create a society alien to anything in Halkegenia.

"Count Woestte is suggesting very reasonable terms, and more importantly, ones that the Crown could enforce with little difficulty. The law of Tristain accords the common peoples the protection of the Crown from abuse and unlawful punishment. Your people would be allowed to continue living in their settlements and retain rights to their homes and personal property."

"From our perspective they are very unreasonable." Lady Sakuya said. "You wish for us to entrust ourselves to the laws of a land that are unfamiliar to us."

"There is also the matter that we serve as elected officials." Lord Mortimer added.

"Yes, you're people select you by a vote of confidence." Count Woestte observed, "How quaint."

Mortimer's eyes narrowed, "Do not misunderstand what that means Count Woestte. For the time being the people are inclined to trust us and obey our mandates, but I assure you there is a limit to what they will accept in these negotiations."

"How you maintain any control with such a system is a mystery to me." The Duchess Valliere said.

"I imagine we manage much as you do." Lady Sakuya said. "Lord Mortimer is correct, we represent our people and lead at their pleasure. Many would not look favorably upon rule by an outsider forced upon them."

When Henrietta looked at the Sylph's expression she saw a woman who was, if not desperate, determined to protect the people who supported her. It was something that resonated deeply with Henrietta's own ideals. Her own duty to her Kingdom was reflected in the Faerie Lords who sought only to protect their people. More practically, the Princess realized that they did not have the time to argue these matters, with events coming to a head in Albion, among other things, the Faeries held more sway than they realized, if only for the damage they could do if negotiations broke down. Driving them from the negotiating table now might give them time to assess the situation and learn more about their surroundings, making future negotiations much more difficult. At the same time the weakening of Tristain would not benefit the Faeries in the long term given the location of their settlements.

Resolve crept into Henrietta's thoughts. She was only the Princess, but if she could garner support from Cardinal Mazarin, it might be possible to arrange a deal that would satisfy everyone, or at least offer terms that could be stomached by the Faeries and leave Nobles like Woestte with an acceptable victory.

"Then . . . What sort of arrangement would your people find acceptable." Henrietta asked.

"Princess?" The Duchess Valliere said.

"There's no point in offering our own conditions if we don't know what the Faeries want in return." Henrietta said to the Duchess before looking to Lady Sakuya. "Please, I don't know what can be offered, but if I had some idea of what would acceptable I can bring them before Cadinal Mazarin and my advisors."

The tensions on the Faeries side of the table drained and Lady Sakuya gave a grateful nod. "That too is a matter of the short term and long term." Lady Sakuya said. "We hope that it may be possible to discover what has transported us here and to return to our own world. For now, we need the freedom to investigate and do so without worrying about outside interference."

"And if you cannot return?" Henrietta asked.

The Faeries shifted uncomfortably, it was no doubt an unpalatable thought. "Then, with the blessing of the Crown, we would like to build a home for ourselves here." Lady Sakuya said softly and bowed her head. "I believe there is much we can offer with time. Right now we have our services to offer as healers, soldiers, and artisans. In the long term we can begin to apply some of the knowledge from our homeland, both to better our own condition and that of Tristain. Please understand Princess, while you're people are no doubt troubled and even endangered by these events, the same is true for us, and our people have so little left now, anything that can be done to keep a sense of normality is important to us."

"The settlements and the friends and family that came with us are all we have in this world." Lady Alicia said, voice pleading. "It's important that we keep our people together."

"You would have to become subjects of the Kingdom like Count Woestte is insisting." Henrietta warned, "That is one condition that cannot be negotiated."

"If that is unavoidable then would it be possible to arrange for some degree of self governance?" Lady Sakuya asked. "If terms to that effect can be arranged, then we may be able to come to an agreement. We would of course be willing to find a way to compensate the landholders for the land we occupy, either by purchase or lease of the rights."

"Sir Visbee?" Henrietta turned to the Professor of law sitting at the far end of the table. "Would that be possible?"

"Hmm. It's an unusual request, but there is precedent for it in the Land Holdings of many of the older Noble Families. It's usually a right conferred by seniority however, and the land would have to be transferred to the Faeries or the current landholder could appeal any legal ruling. Obviously this applies only to the laws of Tristain, Church law would still apply, but as the Faeries are not humans I cannot say much on that matter."

"It is a difficult subject." Bishop Rubeis admitted, "The most numerous and structured of the First Born societies are of course the Elves, and dealings with them are always tenuous at best. The Fae may be the largest single group of First Borns or Spirits to interact with humans since the time of the Founder. Certainly the largest seeking peaceful coexistence. Scripture on the matter suggests that a vow to acknowledge the supremacy of the Word of the Founder in all dealings with mankind to be sufficient." Bishop Rubeis said.

"What would that entail?" Lord Mortimer asked.

"Essentially you would be left in peace." Rubeis said, "So long as in your dealings with Tristain do not constitute blasphemy or heresy in the eyes of the Church. For instance, a Faery cannot be accused of Heresy as Brimir's Word is only applicable to mankind, but you could be accused of inciting heresy and made to stand trial on those charges."

"I'm not seeing much of a difference between the two." Lady Alicia said dubiously.

"It is a fine distinction." The Bishop admitted, "I dare say the Founders Wisdom is often imperfectly interpreted by his servants, but it is what I can offer."

The Faerie Lords seemed concerned at this. "If we could have time to confer on this matter, it would be appreciated." Lady Sakuya said.

"That is fair." Henrietta said. "We can return to this matter later, we should not let it interfere when there is still so much else to do. Perhaps we could return to the matter of feeding Arrun and the other cities?"

"Aye, I've been giving that some thought." Baron Le Marou said, "And what if we got the Navy to be of use for once . . ."

_


	17. Chapter 6 Part 2

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 5 - Part 2

Lady Sakuya, Leader of the Sylphs and Lady of Sylvain in the game of ALfheim online, and now one of the Leaders of a fast forming pan Faerie alliance transported to the world of Halkegenia, sank into the bath with a small sigh of relief. The one good thing about the transition in Sakuya's mind, water felt like water now.

When Novair, with the help of Yui, had completed compiling of the census, it had become clear that many of the homes in Arrun were unoccupied. ALfheim's capitol city had been modeled as the fantasy version of a dense metropolitan hub, the citiy's environs could easily house twenty thousand residents without any trouble, so at the moment it was almost empty housing a mere four thousand. The homes and buildings around the city's heart had likewise been modeled along the lines of apartments and townhouses. The Sylph Leader had quietly taken the opportunity to commandeer a small mansion near Arrun tower for the use of herself and her retainers.

The mansion, which was built along the lines of a compact manor house, possessed enough rooms and floor space to serve as a working residents for Sakuya, not far from her offices in Arrun tower. But the real reason she had wanted the place was the small outbuilding that served as a private bath.

As the water lapped up around her neck, she closed her eyes and took a moment to just think, to be, to arrange her thoughts into something resembling order. It was fun playing 'Lady Sakuya', but the more she had to be her, the more the shine wore off. It had been late evening when the Faerie delegation had returned to Arrun for the day, and though some progress had been made in securing food and supplies, averting the immediate crisis of starvation, the two sides were very much deadlocked in terms of future relations between humans and Fae.

Humans and Fae, it was funny to think of it that way. 'I'm human too . . . aren't I?' Sakuya wondered as she examined the palm of her hand through the glass smooth surface of the water. At least, she still felt human, mostly. She wasn't able to dwell for long on it, however.

"Ah, that's hot!" Alicia Rue squeaked as she lowered herself into the bath opposite the Sylph Leader.

"Give it a minute." Sakuya said, closing her eyes once more, "It's because you washed off with cold water."

The Cait Syth leader made a face. "Bleh, all sweaty. I hate wearing formal robes." Alicia grumbled before sinking down to her neck. The tub could easily hold three or four people so there was plenty of room for the two women. Alicia cupped her hands and watched the water drain through her fingers. Steam rose gently from the surface of the water which was heated by a wood fired boiler located behind the building.

"You still look tense Sakuya-chan." Alicia observed.

"They want too much." Sakuya said suddenly, eyes still closed. "And there's no way they'll back off until we give it to them."

"So, what are we gonna do?" Alicia asked, "The Princess probably can't give us better terms then what she's offering right now, right?"

"Maybe." Sakuya said sitting up fast enough to make waves in the bath. Alicia Rue bobbed up and down like a cork in time with the ripples. "My impression is that we're dealing with an early renaissance era society, Tristain definitely has the beginnings of a central government, but I don't think they've started to really limit the power of the Monarchy or the Nobility yet. That's almost definitely because of magic." Sakuya thought aloud. "So the Monarch's authority is really whatever they can get away with. But that may not be much if men like Count Woestte are common. The country is governed in a Tug of War between the monarch and the nobility and everyone else doesn't matter. We need some sort of assurance of representation or regardless of the terms, we're going to get exploited by the Nobility."

"Well, we're sitting on their land so I can't blame them for not giving us a warm welcome." Alicia observed. "I'd be pretty mad if a bunch of people built a city on my front porch."

"I wonder . . ." Sakuya trailed off.

"Hmm?"

"I wonder if Kirito was right about what he said after the meeting. He thought Henrietta was being too lenient." Sakuya said.

Kirito had made the observation as they had been traveling back from the meeting, waiting until the delegation was safely out of earshot before noting Henrietta's willingness to make concessions. It could mean a lot of things of course, Sakuya would have missed it entirely if Kirito hadn't brought it up, or even if she had noticed it, she would have chalked it up to naiveté and thought nothing more of it. But Kirito was different in that regard, he had lived and fought in a world that was much more vicious than the one either Sakuya or Alicia had known. The parts of the SAO incident that had leaked out, the things that had happened 'on the inside', had been as fascinating as they were terrifying. People turning on each other, mistrusting one another, that was much more like the world Henrietta lived in, a world where any dealing could have a double meaning. She suspected Kirito had a better feel for the Princess than either she or Alicia.

"Shouldn't we be grateful for that?" Alicia asked, "She's a kid after all. She probably just doesn't know how vicious this is all supposed to be."

"I don't know about that." Sakuya said, leaning back, "I've been thinking about Louis XIV."

Alicia scrunched up her face. "Help me out here Sakuya chan, the name sounds familiar, I know he was French."

"He was the King of France before Louis XV, his great grandson succeeded him. "

"That's the one that got beheaded in the French revolution, right?"

"No, that was Louis XVI, Louis XV's grandson." Sakuya said. " Though many believe that the policies that Louis XV enacted as King of France set the country on the path to the French Revolution. Louis XIV was an effective ruler who managed to use his influence to curtail the power of the nobility, but many of his policies set the stage for the later revolts that destroyed much of the old aristocracy in France."

"Mmm." Alicia nodded, "Louis the XIV, he reigned . . . pretty much forever didn't he?"

"Only a few European monarchs outlasted him." Sakuya agreed. "He took control of his Kingdom when he was still very young and saw to the centralization of government in France, after the death of his Regent, Cardinal Mazarin."

Alicia Rue spluttered in surprise, "What? That's a coincidence right? That's definitely a coincidence! Don't start making connections that aren't there Sakuya chan!"

"I don't know if its coincidence or not. Let me see, you know about the many world theory right?"

"Like in American comic books?" Alicia asked.

"You read those?" Sakuya shook her head, her fellow Leader's peculiar reading habits IRL were none of her business, "I wouldn't know."

Alicia shrugged, "I can have hobbies. You mean like alternate universes and stuff? The Germans got the A-bomb, Oda Nobunaga was a girl, stuff like that?"

Sakuya nodded, "This may be similar. There are definitely superficial resemblances between this world and the early modern era in Europe." The Sylph leader shook her head slowly, "But it isn't right, Halkegenia is missing most of the countries and the new world hasn't been discovered if the Headmaster's maps are anything to go by. Maybe it is some sort of freak coincidence."

"This sounds like its getting off topic." Alicia said.

"Right." Sakuya said, shelving her thoughts on the similarities between Europe and Halkegenia, "What I was trying to say was that King Louis XIV took his throne when he was only fifteen, although the Cardinal Continued to serve as he regent until his death, at which point Louis took direct control of the country which he did remarkably well at over the course of his life. Monarchs were raised from a young age to rule a country, so maybe we shouldn't be surprised if Henrietta turns out to be a little underhanded."

"I guess we can't trust anyone too much, can we?" Alicia said with a sigh. The childish Cait Syth took a deep breath and ducked her head under the water, a cloud of bubbled rose to the surface. Alicia rocketed back up after a few seconds and took a deep breath before wiping at her eyes. "So let's say Kirito's right, Sakuya-chan, what then?"

"Assuming its true, I'm not sure what we can do with the information." Sakuya admitted, feeling helpless, it was one thing to recognize patterns in history, it was another thing entirely to work against them. "We just don't know enough, we don't have all the facts, much less the people to put all the pieces together. And then there's Mortimer to consider. His offering the Salamander's treasury to our new alliance, there weren't enough strings."

"Geeze, you're still worried about that? He could just be a nice guy deep down. Deep, deep, deep, down." Alicia said. When Sakuya's worried expression didn't disappear, Alicia grew concerned, her ears drooping down until they almost touched the surface of the water. "It still has you worried, huh?"

"Mortimer . . . frightens me." Sakuya admitted. "He could be sincere, I'll admit he probably is. But he could be something much worse, I just don't know. We can't afford to have an unknown holding a dagger to our backs. I know we need him, we need the organization he brings to the table, and we definitely need the Salamander forces if we're going to reach the top of the World Tree."

It was a conversation Sakuya was not looking forward to having with the Salamander Lord, on the one hand, only she, Alicia Rue, Yui, Leafa, and Kirito knew of the existence of the GM card, on the other, if it turned out the admin terminal really was at the top of the World Tree and had been converted into an artifact of similar power to its potential in ALfheim, well, something worth dying for was often worth killing for.

Alicia turned around and draped her hands over the lip of the bath. "Well I might be able to do something to strengthen our negotiating position. When we settled in here, I sent for a person that might be helpful, she just arrived today with the staff I requested from Freelia."

"Oh?" Sakuya asked.

"Yeah." Alicia said. "She's a bit of an odd one, but she's really good at finding all the pieces of a puzzle. She's only been playing for about a month but she's already turned up lots of useful info on the raid bosses and other factions. She even uncovered a couple of Spriggans working for Lord Rute trying to make off with a batch of dragon eggs." The Cait Syth leader waved her hands quickly, "But that was before the transition! I don't think Rute will try anything like that now!" Alicia frowned a little as she dropped her arms. "The Problem is, I don't have her completely dialed in yet, and she's really mercenary. Kirito-kun jokes about money, but I get the impression this girl would sell her own grandmother for a one Yurudo coin. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but if Mortimer is planning something . . ."

"I thought you didn't worry about those sort of things." Sakuya said.

"I don't, that's what you're here for!" Alicia said chidingly, the expression on her girlish face grew uncharacteristically serious. "Sakuya chan, if you're worried about Lord Mortimer we can snoop around a little. I have a few people who are good at that stuff."

"Thank you, Alicia-chan." Sakuya said, "But honestly, it's just my own fears talking. I don't think we have to worry much about the Salamanders right away. If Mortimer has something planned, it probably can't happen until after we've formalized our treaty with Tristain, right now he needs the appearance of unity as much as us. Maybe you should have your people gather information about that first. We need a better idea of the international situation."

"Well, it will at least give them something to do." Alicia said. "Hopefully they'll turn up some good news."

"Optimistic as ever." Sakuya said. She stretched her arms along the rim of the bath and a smile finally came to her lips. "I wonder. Is this the Wisdom that comes with maturity?"

Alicia scowled, "Don't put it like that, you'll make me feel old!"

Kirigaya Suguha, Leafa, a swordswoman of the Sylph race in the game of ALfheim online, and now a Faerie transported to the world of Halkegenia, spun nimbly to the side, narrowly avoiding an inexperienced Leprechaun as he went tumbling through the air. The young man quickly folded up his wings and allowed himself to fall into the lake not too far below. The Cait Syth hunter, KoKo, was at his side in an instant, gliding over the surface of the lake as a mop of metallic blue hair breached the surface with a splash and began swimming to shore.

When the water logged Leprechaun arrived at the beach, Leafa was there to greet him, hands on hips. "You didn't listen!" She said sternly.

The Leprechaun, who went by the name of Emroi scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Ah, I tried, I tried!" He said defensively before looking over his shoulder. "It's just that . . . It's a little hard to think of them as my wings, and I keep reaching for the flight controller."

"No excuses!" Leafa barked. Emroi and the other students lined up along the beach stood straight while Leafa spoke loudly. While they had each had varying degrees of success with the days lesson, the gathered faeries varied from slightly damp to sopping wet, none of them had yet to satisfy Leafa's strict standards. Now that evening was fast approaching it was time to end lessons for the day.

"Listen up! You have to start thinking of your wings as an extension of yourself. All of you were spoiled using the flight controller so you know how your wings should feel but you don't know how to move them properly. That's probably what's tripping you all up. You should do your best to completely forget how you're used to flying. Learning to do it without the system assist is absolutely essential!"

Leafa turned on her heel, "However, I can't say I'm not satisfied with the progress today. At least you all put forward a good effort. We'll head back to Arrun for now and meet back here tomorrow at the same time." There was a chorus of affirmatives from the class and they began to trickle off in small groups back towards the road to Arrun. It was about half a miles walk back to the city, but the terrain around Arrun was wide open and the handful of mobs in the area were weak and non aggressive.

KoKo touched down beside her as the last of the students departed and gave Leafa a pat on the back. "You're a pretty scary teacher Leafa-chan." The Cait Syth observed.

Leafa let out a breath, "You think? My grandpa was way scarier than me." Leafa said. "I just want them all to learn properly as soon as they can. I hope I didn't scare any of them off."

"Nye-he-he!" KoKo laughed, "You think those guys aren't coming back with two beauties like us teaching them?" The hunter stretched her arms behind her back, accentuating the athletic figure that was common among her race.

Leafa smiled and then looked away. She wasn't quite sure how she had ended up working with KoKo. Teaching the other players turned Faeries how to fly properly. With each day the rapidly organizing Faeries had found more and more tasks to occupy everyone. The general tasks of organization and communication had been handed off to the people with actual administrative experience while others had been encouraged to step forward and make use of their talents, in game or IRL, in any way they could.

The shops and restaurants along the main boulevards were still closed, but Faeries with culinary inclinations had been permitted to make use of the kitchens in the local inns and rationed supplies so that people could now look forward to a hot meal at the end of the day. The simple comfort of warm food and the company of others had gone a long way in the past couple of days to buoy peoples' spirits. At the same time, Blacksmiths and Tailors had set up a makeshift bazaar in the central plaza where they were offering their services, free of charge for the time being, to mend equipment and clothing.

Everyone was doing what they could to help out, which had left Leafa at a loss. Suguha was just a student, she didn't really have any useful skills. She could cook well enough, but she wasn't as good as most of the people doing that job. She was probably one of the best swordswomen among the Sylphs, which should have made her a natural to assist the Tristanian Army in hunting down mobs, but the concern in her brother's eyes had made her decline. And she didn't feel comfortable as part of Lady Sakuya's delegation, everyone else, even her brother, especially her brother, seemed far more qualified and confident.

That only left her talent for flying. Lady Sakuya had made it a priority that every Faerie learn to properly use their wings as soon as possible. In ALfheim, while it wasn't rare to be able to fly without using the flight controller, it wasn't something everyone could do either. The people who had a talent for flying could usually pick up free flight in less than a day, for everyone else the learning involved often felt too much like work and they chose to get by with the flight controller. Now that it was no longer an option, many had flocked to the opportunity to show off their skills to the other players as teachers. In ALfheim, a Faerie's wings were a mark of pride and those who could use them well were regarded with envy and admiration. This disregarded the more practical uses of flight both in battle and to travel quickly and safely.

Leafa had at first been hesitant when KoKo had asked her to join as her co-instructor, her past attempts to teach Recon having ended largely in failure, but to her surprise, she had found that she actually had a knack for explaining the wings to other people. The relentless perfectionism and discipline she had learned while practicing Kendo had served as the basis for her teaching style, drilling her new students until they could manipulate their wings without thinking. Leafa knew she was probably being a little unfair, it seemed that like with other skills, those who had already been comfortable free flying without the assist controller could do so much more naturally than those who were accustomed to relying on the system. But that was no excuse for them not to learn a skill that might save their lives, at least, that's what she thought. And it felt nice, she had something that she could point to and be proud of now.

"Of course." KoKo continued, "You're attitude might scare off the girls. You made that one little Puca cry after all."

"W-what?" Leafa straightened up, "That's just because she belly flopped! It was your idea to use the lake, right? And beside your way too mothering!" Leafa trailed off, "Too mothering." Caught up in her own thoughts, she didn't notice the way that KoKo's expression froze for an instant.

"Is something wrong?" KoKo asked gently.

"Nnn." Leafa shook her head. "It's nothing. It's not proper etiquette to trouble people about the other world. Forget I said anything."

The older woman smiled. "Leafa-chan, those rules only apply to MMOs. I don't know much about you, so this is probably presumptuous, but I'm pretty sure I'm your senior, so don't hesitate to ask if you need advice."

Leafa nodded thoughtfully and was silent for a moment, she turned to look out over the lake. "I'm really glad you asked me to help out." She said. "I know I'm not good for much other than fighting. If you hadn't asked I'd probably still be moping around feeling sorry for myself. But I can't stop worrying about everyone we left behind. I'm worried about my dad and my mom. You know my brother is an SAO survivor, right?"

"Yeah, Kirito told Lady Sakuya and Alicia Rue, and they told me and Carmond with his permission, don't worry, none of us are spreading it around." KoKo said.

"Mmm. Mom was really brave about it, she had to be, I think. But she cried at night when she thought I was asleep. And now it's probably even worse because we're both gone, and dad is far away." Leafa clenched her fists and felt a familiar stinging at the corner of her eyes.

KoKo wrapped an arm around Leafa's shoulder and squeezed gently, slowly Leafa's hands loosened. "It's good that you worry about your mom and dad. But worry about yourself more." Leafa looked up to see KoKo smiling. "I don't know anything about your family, but if you care about your mom that much, I'm sure that she's the kind of person who would want you to worry about yourself and that crazy brother of yours first."

Leafa wiped the dampness from her cheeks. "That sounds really selfish."

"It's not." KoKo insisted. "She'll get by, believe me, moms are tough. So you focus on you and your brother, and being a cool senpai in front of all of our students, okay?"

Leafa nodded and smiled bravely. "Thanks KoKo-chan, or since you're my senior, would you prefer KoKo-senpai? "

"How about KoKo-sama? That has a nice ring to it." The Cait Syth teased. Both Faeries laughed.

"I'm going to go meet my brother for dinner, the people at the inn we're staying at make really good stew if you want to come along." Leafa offered.

KoKo shook her head. "It's fine, while the students were getting their swimming lessons I caught myself some fish. Carmond offered to help me fry them up so I'm all set. I'm going to head back now, you going to be alright on your own?"

"Arrun's not far." Leafa said, "And there are still people around from the other training groups. I'm just going to stay until the sun starts to set, then I'll fly back."

KoKo gave her a worried smile, "Well then, see you tomorrow, Leafa-chan." With that farewell, KoKo extended her wings and kicked off, riding up into the sky in the direction of Arrun.

Leafa turned back to the lake, as the sun sank, the light reflected off of the surface of the water like rippling fire. The moons would be rising soon, a reminder that this place was neither Earth nor ALfheim. Stretching her arms, Leafa extended her wings, feeling the muscles in her back tensing up. Like most skilled flyers, she didn't have to think about it, her wings had become second nature to her. With a gentle kick she pushed off from the ground and rose straight upward, a slight twitch of her wings put her into a slow turn. She could see for miles around, the planes around Arrun giving way to low hills to the north and forests to the south. In the far distance she could just make out one of the thin relay towers that lead off in the direction of Gaddan, where Faeries on long flights would rest their wings.

Leafa started off at a leisurely pace in the direction of Arrun until she reached the winding roadway that led into the city. She hung back a little, keeping a watchful eye on her returning students from the air. It was safe around Arrun, but after two days teaching, she already felt responsible for them.

It was while she was scanning the roadway that she caught sight of a troop of salamanders making their way on foot towards Arrun. That wasn't too unusual, the wing mechanics from ALfheim had remained more or less intact, though most of the skilled flyers had found they could easily exceed the ten minute flight limit if they flew steady and level, so it was likely that they had simply exhausted their wings on patrol and were walking back. What drew her attention was the sight of a small red robed figure being carried on the back of one of the Salamanders, had someone been injured? Leafa decided to investigate, gliding down towards the roadway.

The lead Salamander waved to her as she came in for a landing. This close, she could see that they were dressed mostly in medium grade armor, so they weren't a lancer squad, but the standard equipment suggested one of the Salamander faction's units. Three of the squad wielded swords while the last two carried the crossbows favored by all but the most skilled Salamander marksmen. The one carrying the robed figure only had a low level Katana and was dressed in good quality light body armor.

"Good evening." The lead Salamander shouted.

"Good evening." Leafa called back. "I'm Leafa of the Sylphs, one of Lady Sakuya's attendants. Is something wrong? Your comrade looks injured."

The man shook his head. "She's fine, Enya-chan is just tired out from the flight from Gadan."

"Yeah, thanks to her, we fell behind the rest of the unit." One of the swordsmen complained.

"I'm not as strong as you meat headed close combat types." The robed figure defended. Now that she was closer, Leafa could make out the unusual features of a female Salamander player, well, it wasn't fair to call them unusual, the Salamanders had a fair number of girls in their ranks, but the ratio was much closer to traditional MMOs, unlike the Sylphs, Undines, Leprechauns, and Spriggans who were all more balanced. The Cait Syth, Imps, and Puca tended to lean the other direction with more female than male players.

The girl had rust colored hair and delicate eyebrows that were crinkled up in annoyance as she argued with her companions. Her robes and staff made it clear that she was a mage, judging by the gear Leafa was fairly sure she was a cut above the ones that had ambushed her and Kirito on their way to the world tree. The others laughed heartily save for the man carrying her who simply gave an amused but apologetic look.

Leafa thought it was a little unfair for the Salamanders to give Enya such a hard time. Partly she was sympathizing with a fellow girl, but also, being the only magic specialist in a party was hard work. Even if you had the MP for all of the necessary buffs and healing spells you also had to have a good feel for the flow of battle and be able to multitask to apply spells where needed. A little more appreciation should have been in order.

"You can put me down, Deputy Squad Leader." Enya said curtly.

"Ah, are you sure?" The man carrying her asked. "And you don't have to call me that you know."

"Yes, I'm sure." The girl said and slid down from his back. "We're almost to Arrun, and I wouldn't want you to get tired out carrying me."

"Now, now, Enya-chan, we're just giving you a hard time." The First Salamander said before looking back to Leafa and bowing his head politely. "Excuse me Leafa-san, my name is Kindjal, we're with the forces that arrived earlier today. You wouldn't happen to know where the Salamander Garrison is, would you?"

"They're using some of the inns on the edge of town." Leafa said. "But everything is being organized from Arrun tower. You said you came from Gadan?" The Salamander Capitol was around seventy or eight kilometers from Arrun.

The man nodded, "We just arrived as part of the additional forces requested by Lord Mortimer. We're supposed to meet up with our other squads here to assist the Tristanian army." He looked over his shoulder to the rest of his squad. "Alright everyone, you've all heard, the garrison is located in the city outskirts, go check in while I report to Arrun tower."

"Understood, Squad Leader!" Five of the six other Salamanders chorused. The Katana wielder who had been carrying Enya gave a much more half hearted affirmative.

"Squad Leader." The Katana wielding man addressed.

"Yes, Deputy Squad Leader?"

"If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to see to that thing I mentioned earlier." The man rubbed at the back of his neck. "You see, Gadan didn't have the full census written out when we left, so . . ."

The Squad Leader nodded his head, "Of course. That goes for all of you, if you have any friends or family who might be in Arrun, don't hesitate to try and contact them. I'll let the rest of the unit know that we've arrived. Just be sure to check in at the Garrison. We'll be starting our work early tomorrow morning with the Royal Army patrols. Squad, dismissed." The leader extended his wings and with a small nod of thanks to Leafa, set out towards Arrun tower.

The Salamander squad broke up with a mixed sigh of joy and exhaustion and began walking once more towards the city gate. Despite the chiding they had given Enya, the rest of her party chose to walk with her rather than fly off on their own. Leafa watched the group go before noticing that the Katana wielder was still standing at her side.

"Do you need something ?" Leafa asked cautiously. The man looked like a bit of a ruffian with the scraggly beginnings of a beard, spiked red hair, and the bandana tied around his head. Then again, he'd been the only one not to chide Enya, and he'd been carrying her without complaint, so he probably wasn't a bad person.

The man grinned sheepishly, "It sounds like you know your way around Arrun. You see, I'm sort of looking for some people. We were all logged in at the same time, but after all that's happened . . . Well, I hope some of them have made it here ahead of me. In Gadan they had a place where they posted the town census so you could see who was living there and I'm hoping that there's something similar here."

"There is." Leafa confirmed, "Actually, there are copies in all the major town squares, I guess I can show you, but I'm in a little bit of a hurry so I'd like to fly if possible."

"Ah, that's not a problem." The man said, "I was a newbie to ALfheim, but I got that much down before everything went completely crazy." As if to confirm this a set of translucent red wings began to form from the man's back. They extended smoothly into a ready position with hardly any effort.

Leafa regarded the man, he was a newbie? He definitely had talent alright. "Well, if that's the case, we won't be together for long, but my name's Leafa."

"Why are you introducing yourself again? You already told Kindjal your name." The man laughed.

"And now I'm telling it to you." She said, growing annoyed, nonetheless she extended her hand.

The strange Katana wielder accepted and smiled warmly, "Thanks for your help, Leafa-san, you can call me Klein."

_

The dining room of the Inn was lit by the warm glow of orelights and filled with the noises of eating, conversation, and laughter. Kirito was seated at a corner table near a window that looked out on the inn garden, the navigation pixie Yui, his adopted daughter for lack of a better term, sat on the table before him, nibbling on a cracker while they waited for Suguha. All around them the room was crowded, people arriving back from a day's work, craving comfort in each other's presence and a sense of normalcy that couldn't exist outside of this fragile little bubble. A group of Faeries off in one corner were in the midst of heated game of cards while a group of Puca musicians were setting up near the front of the room. A large crowd was gathered around the long table that ran down the center of the dining area, arguing and laughing with one another. The warm atmosphere seemed to do wonders for Yui who had been anxious over the past few days. The trauma of the SAO incident had deeply scarred the compassionate little AI. That was another thing he needed to look into, what had the transition done to Yui?

"Here you go Kirito-san, Yui-chan." A cute little Imp girl placed a bottle of dew milk on the table beside him and a tiny thimble of the same for Yui who accepted eagerly. Apparently the recipe was fairly straightforward and the fruit and flowers used in producing the beverage were readily available in the fields outside Arrun, so it had become something of a house special at the inn. "I thought you might like it while you wait."

Kirito looked up, "Thank you, Mari-san." Kirito said. The Imp girl was one of the inns proprietors now that the NPCs were missing. She could be seen about the inn at all times of the day, cleaning and tending to the garden outside, but unlike an NPC, she was considerably more cheerful and telling her about your problems actually meant something.

"Worried about Leafa-chan?" She asked and then shook her head. "I know it's none of my business, sorry."

"It's alright. It's just not like her to be late is all." Kirito said.

Mari smiled. "Don't worry, she probably just stayed late with her class. It sounds like she's taking to it well. I hear she really has a powerful personality."

"Really?" Kirito asked, Suguha wasn't one to tell him much about her personal life, he hadn't even guessed at some of the aspects of her personality until recently. In his mind, his impression of Suguha was still very much tied up with the image of the little girl struggling to become good at Kendo, who hid her shyness behind a big smile, and was really an even bigger crybaby. When had she stopped needing her big brother to protect her? He'd come back from SAO wanting to make up for all of that lost time, to really be the big brother he'd selfishly deprived her of, but he was learning that there were a lot of things he simply couldn't get back. Kirito smiled. "You're probably right."

Mari nodded once and then hurried off to see the other customers, leaving Kirito with his thoughts from the day.

Negotiations were dragging down right now, and it was only the first day. His first priority was still to get to Asuna, but arranging the raid force was going to be difficult or impossible if the negotiations started to break down. Kirito's didn't have much experience with Royalty, much less court intrigue, but he'd sat in on more than enough raid meetings to see what a battle of personalities looked like. Thankfully, Sakuya hadn't forced him to take the spotlight during the meeting, he'd noticed that someone else shared his sentiments.

Even though she had sat at the side of the Princess throughout the negotiations and spoken frequently, Kirito was certain that the Duchess Valliere was much more than she let on. Both the way that she spoke, and her care in remaining neutral, or at least justifying every concession, smacked of someone with experience in carefully not exercising power. She was apparently a supporter of the Princess or maybe it was the other way around, maybe the Valliere family were Henrietta's puppet masters. In either case, Kirito thought, if they could find some way to get the Duchess to openly commit, they might be able to swing some of the concessions that Sakuya and the other Fae leaders wanted.

Maybe he should try bringing Yui along in his pocket. Since Yui was originally a mental health AI she was good at modeling people and their responses. She might pick up on something that Kirito was missing. But at the same time, he didn't want to expose her to danger, in a lot of way he really did think of her as his daughter.

Kirito was so occupied that he barely noticed the hooded figure that sat down quietly beside him with a steaming bowl of stew and a fresh roll of bread.

"I hear the stew here is really good." The hooded figure said as one slender hand plucked up the roll and began buttering it.

Kirito frowned a little, wasn't it rude to just walk up to someone and start a conversation like this? Not that he hadn't done so on occasion. "Oh? Yeah, they say it's the herbs that grow in the garden." Kirito said still distracted by his thoughts.

"Is that so?" The first spoonful disappeared into the shadows of the hood. "Wow, it is good! I bet if I had the recipe, I could sell it for at least ten thousand col."

It took several second for what had been said to worm its way through the back of Kirito's mind, when it did, all of his other thought processes came crashing to a halt. Col, not Yurudo. He slowly turned to face the hooded figure who now looked over to him. The face was familiar, or at least he thought it should be familiar, it was a good approximation anyway, the eyes were right and so was the golden brown hair which hung raggedly down the forehead, it probably would have been a near perfect likeness if not for the subtle Cait Syth racial traits that made themselves known in the curve of the lips and shape of the nose and cheeks. Of course, all of the care put into crafting that face was unnecessary with the dark whiskers that graced her cheeks like war paint.

Kirito was at a loss for what to say, he must have finally cracked and started hallucinating, finally he whispered weakly, "How?"

"How do you think?" The girl said cheekily and took a bite of her roll. "How have you been, Kii-bou? "  
_


	18. Chapter 6 Part 3

Well This concludes chapter 6. From this point onward the Story Will switch back to Asuna for a few a entries. As always standard disclaimer, please review (I already know my spelling is awful) Sincerely-The Author

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 5 - Part 3

"How do you think?" The girl said cheekily and took a bite of her roll. "How have you been, Kii-bou?"

Before she could take another bite, Kirito's hand closed vice like around her forearm. The girl seemed surprised at his touch. "No games, Argo." Kirito said, eyes serious. He was angry at that moment, though at what he couldn't quite say. "What are you doing here?"

"Papa?" Yui looked nervously between the two. Their exchange so far hadn't drawn any attention from the other diners but there was a palpable tension between the two.

Argo the Rat, the number one information broker of Aincrad, slowly set down her roll. "The same thing as you, Kii-bou."

Kirito tried to decipher the meaning of the girl's words. In the death game of SAO, he and Argo had crossed paths on many occasions, sometimes by accident but often by arrangement. The Rat had been an information broker, one of the few, and the best at her chosen profession. It was said that she would sell any information for the right price, but the truth was very different, there were lots of things that Argo would not sell and many other things she would not charge for. Her amazing knack for accumulating information had earned her an impressive reputation. In fact, Argo had been one of the original beta testers, like Kirito himself, using her knowledge from the SAO limited release to begin the creation of her famous survival guides, and spending the profits from her job as an information broker to disseminate the guide booklets to the trapped players. Her tagline, "Don't worry, it's Argo's strategy guide", had become a mark of the quality of the information found within.

Argo had done this out of a sense of responsibility to the other players, despite the fact that her life would have been in danger if her true identity as a beta tester had ever been revealed. In that regard, Kirito looked up to the information broker, she had tried from the very beginning to help others, while Kirito had still been thinking only of himself.

"Sorry but I'm obviously not as smart as you think I am." Kirito said with a closed eyed look of annoyance. Now that the shock was starting to wear off he was regaining his composure. "Be more specific. And keep in mind I don't have any money right now."

Argo frowned, "Money's not the problem, Kii-bou, this information has already been paid for in full."

What did that mean? The Rat glanced around furtively. Kirito understood well enough, she wasn't comfortable explaining here, there were too many prying ears. The old instincts of Aincrad didn't fade quickly, especially in their new circumstances.

"I have a room up on the second floor." He said.

Argo nodded and followed him from the dining room, on the way out, Kirito stopped and told Mari where he was going so that Suguha wouldn't worry.

They took the stairs up a flight and traveled down an L-shape hallway. The room Kirito shared with his sister was located along the long section and was directly over the dining room. Unlike VR, where only shouts and the noises of battle could be heard through a closed door, the muted sounds from the dining room below could still be heard through the floorboards and open window.

Argo looked around the room curiously as Kirito closed the door. Thankfully, Suguha had insisted they keep things tidy. Their nightclothes and spare blankets had been folded away in the dresser, and the pile of books that Kirito had borrowed from Arrun's central library were stacked neatly at the desk, using a small clock and the desk lamp as bookends.

Argo seated herself beside the fireplace and waited for Kirito to do the same. She'd removed the hood of her cloak revealing two puffball ears that protruded from the top of her head.

"Sorry that it's not quite as private as the rooms in Aincrad." Kirito said and then smiled slyly, "So the rat really has become a cat?"

"Tis' not a problem." Argo replied. "Though," she added chidingly, "Tis' a shame there isn't a private bathroom."

"V-very funny." Kirito said and reddened at the recollection of a certain 'incident' that had occurred shortly before he had ever left Aincrad's first floor. After the Rat was satisfied with her fun, she settled down in her seat.

"Now then, what are you doing here?" Kirito asked, his patience nearly ready to give in.

"Like I said, the same as you I suppose. I'm working for the Faerie Lords." Argo replied.

"That's not what I meant." Kirito said, it wasn't like Argo to be this evasive without a reason. "Why were you in ALfheim?"

Argo didn't say anything for a long time. When she spoke again, it was not in her normally hateful tones, it sounded around two hundred percent kinder and a thousand percent more demure. Basically, Argo's cuteness modifier, for an instant, shot through the roof. "I'm here for the same reason as you." She sighed, "I'm looking for Aa-chan and the others." Kirito's eyes widened, the look on the Rat's face had changed, she averted her eyes, was she embarrassed?

"How did you know about Asuna?" Kirito asked quickly. Even Kirito's status as Asuna's husband in game had meant nothing to the SAO Incident Taskforce, so a simple acquaintance shouldn't have been able to learn anything about her condition. It had taken Kirito's status as a lead player and the revelation that he was the last person to speak to Kayaba Akihiko, to pry Asuna's whereabouts and the contact information of his friends from the hands of the government.

The Rat gave him a hurt look. "You know my reputation as Aincrad's top info broker wasn't just because of my game stats Kii-bou, I'm good at picking out details IRL too. You know about the forums right, right?"

Kirito frowned, Argo of course referred to the SAO survivors forum, a special website set up by the former SAO players with the help of the government so that they could get in touch IRL with the people they had met in the death game. Kirito hadn't frequented the forum much since he already had the contact information of everyone he knew and much preferred to email them then use the forum or its PM system.

Argo on the other hand probably didn't have that option. As Argo wasn't strictly a member of the lead group, she would not have been singled out by the SAO Incident Taskforce for questioning and by the time they got to her they would already learned most of what she knew. That meant she probably wouldn't have been able to arrange a deal the way Kirito had, which meant the best way for her to get info on the last hours of the SAO incident was to trawl the forums in hopes of meeting up with her old contacts. For a person such as Argo, who found peace through accumulating information in order to make sense of the world, it must have been tremendously frustrating.

"It didn't take me long to find out that Aa-chan was missing." Argo continued, "None of our shared contacts had heard from her, and then when the news started to circulate, you don't have to be Argo-sama to figure out that she was probably one of the three hundred players who were unable to log out. My doctors were useless, and the people in the Incident Taskforce wouldn't tell me anything, so I had to put my skills to the test. It sure is a good thing that SAO exercised my brain, because that was the only muscle I could use for the first few weeks."

Kirito understood now. Argo still felt responsible for Asuna and the other SAO players. Just as it was for him, SAO couldn't really end for her until every surviving player was safe. Of course, Argo would never come out and say as much, she was too private a person for that. That was probably why she was so embarrassed.

"So that's why were you playing ALO?" Kirito asked. "Wait, did you see the images from the World Tree?"

Argo's face perked up and a hint of her usual mean spirited smile crossed her lips, "Who do you think gave those pictures to Agil-san in the first place? I found them a month ago, while I was searching the VR forums for info on the Nerve Gear and Amusphere."

"What? A month ago?" Kirito rose from his seat. "Then, why didn't you send them to me?"

The information broker looked annoyed. "I never got your IRL contact info, you never logged into the Forums, and there was a bigger problem besides." She growled. "I told the SAO Taskforce about the photos as soon as I could, but I think they just threw them out."

Kirito frowned at this revelation. "What, why? Shouldn't they want to know the whereabouts of the trapped SAO players?" He had, of course, forwarded the attachment that Agil had sent him to his contact in the taskforce, a man named Kikuoka, but he hadn't waited around to see if anything would come of it. He knew it was slim evidence, but he'd wanted to try everything. Now it sounded like Argo had already been a step ahead of him.

"That's where it gets scary, Kii-bou. Really scary." Argo's face grew serious, her eyes shining beneath that mop of golden brown hair. "I downloaded the pictures as soon as I found them, which is lucky because when I went back to the forum they'd been changed, the girl in the cage didn't look like Aa-chan anymore. Then rumors started to spread around that they were fakes to begin with and the original posters didn't disagree. I found the original pics on image hosting sites a few times but those were almost all deleted within a week."

"Someone was sanitizing the forums." Kirito grimaced. "But, is that even possible?"

Argo shrugged slightly, "A human definitely couldn't do it." She agreed. "But I don't think it was being done by a human or even just an average search algorithm. It wasn't just deleting the photos, it was altering them and generating new content on the fly. Of course, that would sound crazy, wouldn't it?"

Kirito's felt his mouth go dry. No, it wasn't crazy at all. Not when it was backed by the masterwork of the Genius Kayaba Akihiko. What had he read about Argus? After incurring the cost of developing the Nerve Gear and SAO, the company had gone out of business due to the legal fees and costs of maintaining SAO for two years and paying for the medical care of the trapped SAO players. When the company was sold off, all of the IP relating to VR technology and SAO had been acquired by RECTO, that would have included the source code for Cardinal. How many proprietary algorithms existed within the GM AI that could be repurposed for other tasks?

"Before I went back to the Taskforce, I needed more high value info, so I decided to log into ALO and see what I could find." Argo explained. "I joined up with the Cait Syth and settled in to keep an ear to the ground, but I didn't learn much useful for the first month. That's when I first heard from Agil-san, he was dropping feelers on the SAO Survivor Forums, looking for any info on Aa-chan. So I contacted him and we met up IRL, that was about a week before the transition."

Kirito thought back, that would have been only a day or two before he heard from Agil, time enough for the SAO merchant and real life shop owner to do some research on SAO. "Agil didn't mention you." Kirito observed.

Beneath her whiskers, Argo's cheeks darkened, "Ah, that was supposed to be my payment for the information." Argo said quickly. "I didn't want you or Aa-chan to know."

"Why?" Kirito asked, "I would have been in your debt." Argo was quiet for a moment before looking up.

"Sorry, you haven't paid for that information, Kii-bou."

"What's the price? No, on second thought, don't tell me." Kirito let out a low sigh. He really didn't know what to say. "I guess I should be grateful to see a familiar face, but given the situation that feels sort of selfish." Kirito admitted.

"Papa?" Yui suddenly spoke up from his shoulder. "How do you know this person?"

"Papa?" Argo asked and then smiled mischievously, "Hoho, I didn't know Kii-bou was in to that sort of thing!"

"Sorry to disappoint you, but it's nothing like what you're thinking. So if you sell this information, you'll just be damaging your reputation." Kirito said before turning to Yui with a smile. "This is Argo-san." Kirito said. "She's an acquaintance from SAO. We helped each other out on lots of occasions. The information that Argo-san gathered helped to keep everyone safe. She's also an acquaintance of your Mama."

Yui looked from her father to the girl sitting across the table before flitting from Kirito's shoulder and coming to stand on the table before Argo. She bowed deeply to Argo, wings folded behind her back. "Thank you for helping to keep Papa and Mama safe in SAO, Argo-san."

"Y-you're welcome . . . Twas nothing." Argo said as Yui smiled up at her. "Hey Kii-bou, how did you switch this navi pixie's personality? Is their some sort of secret code? I'll pay you a good price if you tell me."

Kirito smiled sheepishly, "Sorry, but she isn't exactly like other navigation pixies. You can think of her as another SAO survivor." Kirito gently patted Yui's head with a finger. "I guess you can say, she's the one new life that came out of that death game. Isn't that right, Yui?"

Yui nodded. "Mmm. I'm Papa and Mama's daughter."

"Mama?" Argo asked, "That wouldn't be Aa-chan she's talking about?"

Kirito nodded.

"Wait, are you saying this little girl's an NPC from SAO?"

"I'm not an NPC, I'm a person." Yui scowled. "And my name is Yui!"

"Right, sorry, twas a slip of the tongue." Argo said. "That seems a little farfetched, Kii-bou."

"You know I've always been honest, mostly. I don't have anything to gain by lying." Kirito said. "Yui-chan was one of Cardinal's subroutines in SAO. Asuna and I met her on the 22nd floor, not long before clearing the game, and well, we sort of adopted her."

"Then how is she here with us now?" Argo asked, leaning down to get a closer look at Yui. The AI become navigation pixie obliged, turning around so Argo could see her from all sides.

"Papa was able to save my data to his Nerve Gear when he was logged out of SAO and when he logged into ALO I was able to unpack onto the servers." Yui explained. "I'm really happy he did, before that, I thought I'd never see Mama or Papa again."

"Seems like Yui-chan is really something special." Argo observed with a look to Kirito.

"You can say that." Kirito agreed, "But I just think of her as Yui." And he did, as strange as it was. "I hope you don't mind, but can I ask that you don't tell people that you have this information, Lady Sakuya and Alicia know, and so do some others. But if Yui is something so unique, I need to keep her safe."

"Tis not a problem." Argo agreed and added jokingly, "The asking price on your private life would bankrupt Tristain."

"Thank you." Kirito said with relief. "You said you're working for the Faerie Lords now?"

Argo nodded. "The Lady Alicia Rue called for me by name, so the great Argo-sama answered. I picked up some interesting news on the way from Freelia."

"Oh?" Kirito asked, "How much are you going to sell it for?"

Argo shook her head, "It's really common knowledge, so I won't charge for it." Argo said. "Tristain is close to war with one of its neighbors."

Kirito blinked in surprise, so that was why the Princess wanted to offer such favorable terms. Kirito had heard rumors to that effect back at Arrun tower, but they were disjointed and it was hard to gauge from them what was actually happening. "Which Country?" Kirito asked.

"Its Albion, the floating continent." Argo said. "This is bad."

"Shouldn't it be good?" Kirito asked. "I thought Albion was the smallest Kingdom, so Tristain should be able to defend itself, right?"

"I don't think it's going to be that simple." Argo answered, "Albion's basically an Island nation, so it sounds like they have a really big navy, and since everyone uses airships . . ." The Cait Syth trailed off.

"Ah, I see your point." Kirito said. "So they want to close these negotiations quickly so they don't have to worry about a problem at their backs. That's pretty useful to know."

"Don't get too excited Kii-bou." Argo said, "This country might be allying with one of its neighbors before too long." Argo tugged at her cloak hood. "Suiseki, wake up."

Suiseki? Kirito wondered. As if to answer his question something small poked its head out of Argo's cloak. That something small turned out to be a tiny girl with golden brown hair wearing a bright yellow sundress and adorned with a tiny pair of wings. If Yui resembled Kirito's own daughter, then this pixie looked very much like she could be Argo's little sister.

"Yes young Mistress?" The pixie asked softly.

Argo took the girl from her place on her shoulder and placed her gently on the table next to Yui. Yui quickly began to examine the other navigation pixie who sat with her legs folded beneath her, eyes downcast, this was more in line with the default personality of a navigation pixie which explained why Yui always got such odd looks.

"Can you recall my notes from yesterday. The ones about Germania."

"One moment Mistress." The Pixie said politely, closing her eyes before suddenly beginning to speak in Argo's own voice. "Germania is the largest country in terms of both land and population. The Sailors I talked to seemed pretty confident that it's the leading military power in Halkegenia except for in the air. Aerial combat is dominated by Albion which has the largest Navy thanks to its wind stone deposits and the wind dragons that live there. I have to find out if those Windstones occur anyplace else since it's probably a good gauge of the potential size of each countries navy, also, Wind dragons, that implies that there are other types, right, right? How do they stack up to Cait Syth Flying Dragons? Alicia Rue would pay a lot for that info . . ."

"Okay, now skip to the part about Germania and Tristain."

"One moment Mistress." Suiseki said again. "Germania's relationship with Tristain is hot and cold, none of the people at the Tavern today thought too kindly of them. Apparently they're considered barbarians. I need to hear what the nobles think before I make any conclusions. A lot of rumors are suggesting the Princess might be married off to Germania soon to secure a defense treaty against Albion, who knows what that will mean for negotiations, maybe once Tristain and Germania are wed they'll gang up on us and wipe us out. Can't exclude that possibility just yet."

"Now, skip ahead to the part about Reconquista." Argo said.

"Yes Mistress." Suiseki said. "These guys sound like bad business, bad, bad, business. Before they showed up, Tristain and Albion were on very good terms, but now they're about to go to war. All because Reconquista has managed to overthrow the ruling monarch. And of course it gets worse, they're doing this for the sake of the poor oppressed commoners, okay, the nobles are jerks so that's fine, and because the nobility aren't good enough at killing elves, which isn't so good for us. The locals have been mistaking all of the Sylphs and Salamanders for Elves. I don't know how it's going to work out for us Cait Syth, but that can't be good news for our pointy eared brethren in Sylvain and the other cities. About the only good news, this Pope guy hasn't said much one way or the other, so maybe this will only be a fight between Albion and Tristain, though that could be bad for us too. Lots to research . . ."

"You can stop now." Argo instructed.

Suiseki fell silent.

"So it's not going to be as simple as just stalling until they get desperate. There's also the personalities at the meetings to consider." Argo said. "It's like a raid meeting but a hundred times worse. At least there everyone respected Aa-chan and He-kun enough to hear them out."

"I see." Kirito stood up and stroke his chin. "This is really bad . . . But I bet this is what Lady Sakuya and Alicia want you for. They've been consulting me on things because I'm an SAO survivor, but there's just not enough information to give good advice."

"You gave'm a disclaimer that this isn't like SAO, right, right?" Argo asked. On the table in front of her, Yui was waving a hand before Suiseki's face curiously, the other pixie seemed confused by Yui's antics, tilting her head to the side.

Kirito nodded, "Apparently they still want my opinion on things. This is the kind of information we're going to need, but I don't think Lady Sakuya is going to like it."

"Well, I'm not supposed to just tell them what they'd like to hear." The Rat said. "If they want sweet words they can pay some other information broker to walk them off a cliff."

Kirito shook his head, this certainly complicated things. "If that's everything. Sorry I took you away from your dinner right. Let me make it up to you."

"The food here's free, Kii-bou." Argo pointed out.

"At least let me beg a bottle of dew milk off of Mari-san for dessert." Kirito offered.

There was a knock at the door. "Kirito-kun?" A female voice called, it was Suguha. "Kirito-kun, I'm coming in."

Suguha opened the door part way and leaned in, "Onii-chan, Mari-san told me about your guest, uhm, there's someone else here to see you."

"Oh?" Kirito said, "We're just about done here, we were about to go down to eat, but I guess we have time." Kirito said.

Argo glanced to the door mischievously, "A girl coming to your room?" The Cait Syth asked, "Kii-bou sure has good luck with women." She snickered.

"It's not like that." Kirito breathed as the door knob turned. "Her names Suguha, she's my sister, I'll introduce you to . . . her."

As Suguha stepped through the doorway, she was followed by a Salamander in bright red lightweight body armor carrying a Katana on his back. Recognition was almost instant, as with Argo, the man had done a good job of recreating his real world looks, but he hadn't quite managed as perfectly as the information broker, that said, he was instantly recognizable from the Bandana he habitually wore and the sheepish smile that spread across his face.

"How's it been Kirito?" The man asked.

"Klein . . ." Kirito whispered. If he had thought that Argo was a hallucination, Klein was a sign of his complete descent into madness. Even so, his brain sent images of Klein stepping around Leafa and he felt his whole forearm being taken up in a firm arm shake, he didn't even realize that he was returning it until he looked down. Kirito shook his head and pulled away from his friend, "What is this, Klein, you too?"

"Oh boy." Argo muttered, "You really have perfect timing, don't you?" The information broker said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"You knew?" Kirito snapped around.

"I hadn't heard anything one way or the other." Argo said standing up, "Twas not something I wanted to worry you with until I knew for sure." The Cait Syth shrugged, her ears making an odd twitching motion as if to add emphasis.

"What are you doing here Klein?" Kirito asked softly. "Wait . . . don't tell me, Asuna."

The man smiled, "You know, you could have asked us. You didn't need to turn it into your own personal quest."

"Us?" Kirito asked, looking away from his friend, his hands balled into fists, "Who else . . ." He finally realized who the anger from earlier was directed at, stupid as it was. "Who else was logged in, Klein?"

The Salamander shifted uncomfortably, "I logged in a couple of hours before things went south. I heard Agil was already onboard, and so were Silica and Liz. Two of the guys from my Guild also logged in with me, but they're back in Gadan helping that General Eugene. But I know there are few more people that Agil and the others knew."

A hiss of air escaped through Kirito's teeth.

"So everyone was logged in?" Argo asked to Klein.

"I think so, everyone on the list you emailed us. You must be Argo-san, pleasure to finally meet you." Klein gave a small nod to the Cait Syth.

"Argo, how many?" Kirito asked.

"Onii-chan?" Suguha whispered.

"Papa, you're heartbeat and breathing are abnormal!" Yui said with alarm.

"You may not like it Kii-bou, but I'll tell you." Argo said carefully.

"Some other info broker can walk me off a cliff, right?" Kirito said with a weak smile.

Argo nodded. "After I talked with Agil-san, I got an email back a few days later telling me he talked to you. I didn't tell him to send me anything, but he thought I'd like to know that you were going to log into ALO to try and make it to the top of the World Tree. Then he asked me how to complete the Grand Quest. I told him that the Quest is pretty much unbeatable, but the lead theory is that you need a raid party made up of as many of the different races as possible. The next thing I hear he's asking me about the best way for each race to grind skills and if I knew anyone who was retiring from the game who would sell their account."

"Agil talked to Lizbeth and me, and Liz got in touch with Silica on the forums when they found out they both knew you." Klein explained.

"And since Agil asked, I roped in some of my contacts from the Army and Holy Dragon Alliance." Argo continued, "A guy named Schmitt said he and his friends owed you for helping them with a friend's death. And the old Army Leader offered to log in and help out since he had some insider info through his MMO today contacts, I think his second in command came along with him."

"After it leaked about what happened with Asuna, we all wanted to help out." Klein said. "There's no telling how many people you saved by ending the game when you did. We weren't about to let you down."

"Stop it, Klein." Kirito said softly.

"Eh?" The Salamander looked surprised.

Kirito was trembling. "Why? This was my fight . . . I made sure you all got to go home . . ." Kirito's eyes began to burn. "And now because you followed me . . ." Kirito gritted his teeth.

"Onii-chan!" Leafa stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder.

Klein crossed his arms, frowning. "I guess Kayaba must have managed to zap your brain after all." Klein said. "Because the Kirito I know isn't this stupid." Klein smiled easily, "You couldn't have known any of this would happen, nobody could, its completely crazy. I mean, if someone had told me that I was going to be a Faery by the end of the day, I would have asked them where I could get whatever they were drinking. This isn't your fault Kirito-kun. And I bet half of us would have had to think long and hard about not jumping in, even if we knew this would happen." Klein stepped forward and put one hand solidly on Kirito's free shoulder. "So don't sweat it so much."

Kirito wrenched away from his friend and sister and walked over to the window. Arrun tower was shinning like a beacon in the distance. "Argo-san . . . There's some information I want to buy as soon as possible. I want to know the locations of everyone and how I can get in contact with them."

"Sure thing." The information broker said. "But I'm not going to charge you for such open information."

"Thank you, Argo. And thank you, Klein."

"Onii-chan, I can go ask Mari to save some stew if you don't feel like eating right now." Suguha said gently.

Kirito shook his head slowly and looked over. He managed a smile though it looked tired, "No, that's okay, I still have to make it up to Argo-san for pulling her away from her dinner, and it's better to eat with company, right?"

"Right, right." Argo nodded her head.

"Klein." Kirito said. "I know you say it's not my fault, but you're all here because of me and Asuna, so I'm not going to be satisfied until I've apologized to everyone in person. Maybe this is too much to ask so soon, but before the transition, Yui and I confirmed that Asuna really was logged into ALfheim, which means that she's probably here with us now."

Klein's eyes widened, "That's good news isn't it?"

"Mmm." Kirito nodded, "But it seems like she's at the top of the World Tree right now, along with what might be a way home, and the only way we know to get to her is right through the Grand Quest. It's a lot to ask Klein, but I'd like your support. I know your stats probably aren't high enough to join in the quest directly, but I would appreciate your help preparing."

Klein nodded, "I'm with you Kirito-kun."

Kirito smiled a little more. "Then, I guess we should go eat, there's a lot to talk about, isn't there?"

* * *

That night, the Faeries gathered around a table inn the corner of that small unnamed in with a fragrant olive tree in its garden. Black laughed as red recounted the adventures of the last few days while yellow snarked ruthlessly at reds expense. Green watched from the corner and smiled sadly.

Red had Black in a choke hold and was scrubbing at his hair. He'd said something about a place Green had never heard of in a castle she had never seen and Black recalled it fondly. Yellow's jokes embarrassed Black but she didn't know why the were funny. Yet he seemed so happy with these people. More alive, more well.

Green took a sip from the bottle she had been given by Violet. 'He doesn't need me, the way that I need him.'


	19. Interlude 1

It's a short snip but it sets the tone for things that will start to unfold in the near future and reach their head much later on.

Halkegenia Online- Chapter 6 – Part 4

And so it came to be that that Ve, the Son of Air, the third and youngest son of the Founder Brimir, found himself traveling along the coast of the lands of his elder brothers in great admiration of their conquests. With much love and gratitude for his part in their success, both of the Elder brothers did offer to share their fortunes with their youngest sibling, offering five times, gold, silver, and and vast lands, only to be declined five times with great apology by Ve.

The youngest son, not yet settled in his heart, set outward along the sea side, journeying many days on foot with only the company of a hunting dog and his bow, as was his way since his earliest years. On the first day he journeyed well with fare weather, but with each passing day his fortunes grew bitter, on the seventh day the weather turned dark and stormy and on the tenth his faithful hound was slain by wolves. Without friend or comfort he drove on, each crest of the hill and curve of the coast offering only bitter misfortune.

By the fifteenth day, Ve had fallen sick from the sleepless nights and cold rain, surviving only by strength of heart and will. Finally, on the seventeenth day he was besot by wild beasts, and though he slew many of the creatures by arrow and by magic, the blessed focus, his bow, a gift from his father and mother, was shattered and the son Ve was forced to flee, weeping bitterly at his loss.

Now truly alone, having left behind his brothers, and lost his trusted companions, the Son Ve continued along the seaside, taking each of his misfortunes as a sign from his father to press onward. For though he should have died, still he lived.

Finally, on the twenty first day, he came upon a small village, the first he had met in these wild lands, and on the shores of the sea he was confronted by a number of savage men in the midst of stoning a hag.

Ve, the good son of his father and mother, was fast to anger on seeing the treatment of the woman. "Halt, for what man would strike a woman of such years without cause! Are you so fallen as to forget the affection of your own mothers?" He cried, and though his bow was broken, the Son of Brimir had with much care carved the longest piece of his shattered companion into a wand of great power, though paling before his mother's work, with which to defend himself.

The men, who were of Savage stock had regarded Ve and cried out. "Five days has this hag begged alms from us, and five days we have declined. There is not but fish to be had in these lands and with bitter storms not much of that. The Spirit of the Sea has hounded us for years. You see us as cruel men, but would you ask us to leave her starve? We must feed our own mothers and children!"

Seeing the sorrow in the eyes of the men the Son Ve's heart was softened by their plight. Offering his aid, he received news of the Sea Spirit, a dervish thing of winds and icy salt spray that haunted the coasts and drove up great storms whenever the men of the lands did set out to fish. Like all the Savage peoples, the men knew not of magic, be it of earth, fire, air, or water, and had suffered the Spirits abuses with no reprieve.

The Son Ve, Son of Brimir, did vow to see an end to this cruelty on the part of the Spirit at which the Hag had supplicated herself before him, pleading for his aid. She told the story that the Sea Spirit had one day spied her daughter as he ravaged the coasts and had spirited the girl away as a bride. Since that day, the hag had journeyed far and wide, seeking amongst the men of the land, one who would confront the Spirit and rescue her daughter. The woman pleaded that she had little to offer but her labor with which to pay for her daughter's rescue.

Moved by the woman's words, Ve accepted her as his companion on his journey, and with the blessings of the men of the village set forth onto the sea. Taking a sturdy fisherman's boat, they set out from the coast and for the first day the wind did favor them as the hag took to rigging the sail and Ve kept watch for the Spirit.

It was not long before the ocean sprays grew bitter and the clouds leaden, the winds ceased to favor Ve and his companion and the storm did rise forth from the depths. The Sea Spirit arose, its arms two great waves, its chest a great vortex of mist, and its tail tortured ice, it roared down upon the small boat, pressing against it to drive it beneath the waves.

The Son of Air fought back valiantly with all the might and wisdom inherited from the Founder himself. He did battle for three days and nights, the hag struggling at his side to hold their them steady lest they be dashed against rocks or swallowed by the Spirit's sweeping arms. On the third day, Ve drove the Spirit towards land, where its powers of water would wane and the battle would be one of Air alone.

The Spirit was weakened but even so this was not enough, exhausted by battle, Ve was cast overboard and pulled into the sea, but by the blessings of Air bequeathed upon him by his Father, the founder Brimir, did Ve cast a spell to save himself from drowning.

Pulled by the icy currents of the Spirit's great body, Ve was confronted by the Spirit's heart, four icy chambers that throbbed with cold brine, and hung before it like a jewel, still but alive, drifted a girl of immeasurable beauty, pale and dark haired as if of savage blood, but of noble countenance. Knowing her to be the hag's daughter, the sun Ve swam against the currents. The Spirit, knowing of mortal heroes, guarded its heart, but the heart was not the Son Ve's goal. Snatching up the girl he pulled her from the Spirit's grasp and struggled for the surface.

No sooner did his head burst from the sea than the Hag, struggling to hold their boat steady, threw out a pole and called for Ve to grab hold. Exhausted at last, the Son of Brimir spent the last of his strength to throw the girl aboard the boat and called for the hag to depart.

The Spirit rose above him, enraged by the loss of its prize, its wrath was redoubled, its screams like the cries of a great storm. At the last instant, as the Spirit drove him beneath the waves once more, the Son Ve did hear a great shout and craning his head did he see the Hag casting away her cloak. Her posture straight, her weathered skin turned to ivory and her eyes flecked gold, dark hair billowing about her and great wings of gossamer spreading from her back.

The woman called out in a voice like a bell and her wings like great fans summoned forth the winds to her aid, driving the spirit against the shore and breaking its body against the cliffs of the coast. Not one moment passed before she leaped into the sea after Ve and took him to her breast, pulling him back aboard the boat and breathing life back into his body.

The hag, now revealed as a striking woman humbly bowed before the Son of Brimir, introducing herself as so. "Son of Man and Woman and child under God, thanks be to you for your part in preserving the life of my youngest daughter, I am Medb, the Faerie Queen, and in so much as I have promised my labor, I shall grant you three boons for your part in saving my daughter from the transgressions of the Sea Spirit who surely would have slain her if he had known that I had come for her myself or sent a hero to rescue her."

The Faerie Queen, in her fashion, did present Ve with three gifts. The first great boon presented to Ve were the riches swallowed by the Sea Spirit in its long rampage, much gold from sunken ships and small mountains of pearls and beautiful sea stones. The next boon was the hand in marriage of the Queen's youngest daughter, the Faerie Princess Lorelei, who was sworn to stay at his side until the end of his days. Finally, Queen Medb did as a final boon offer forth the lowest domain of her realm, Albion, the White Isle to be held henceforth by the blood of Ve from that day forth to the end of all things.

The Son Ve was about to humbly decline the Queen's gifts, still wishing to journey further when the Princess Lorelei's eyes first fluttered open and settled upon him. At that time, the restless heart of Brimir's youngest son was settled by the pure gaze of the girl, and immediately charmed, Ve accepted Medb's offer in all humbleness, swearing an oath before his Father and God and accepting the sacred compact of marriage between himself and Lorelei.

Upon surveying his new lands for the first time, the youngest son of Brimir was stricken by wonder. The floating isle, shrouded in mist was truly what he had sought. Returning to his brothers with news of his fortunes and proudly presenting his bride, the elder brothers rejoiced, and in the name of their Father, the eldest brother, Odin, lord of the Southern Kingdom, crowned Ve as King of Albion with Lorelei as his queen.

So forth from that day did Ve rule wisely over the Kingdom of Albion, offering his lands as home to the people scattered by the rampage of the Sea Spirit and siring his bloodline to establish the House of Air. The Princess Lorelei, now Ve's Queen, true to her mother's word, was faithful to Ve to the end of his life, bearing his eldest son and fine twin daughters who would carry forth his line and forever bind the line of the Faerie Queen with much affection to the rightful masters of the White Isle


	20. Chapter 7 Part 1

Halkegenia Online-Chapter 7- Part 1

The Reconquista convoy made its way slowly down the back roads, a dozen wagons carrying food and supplies to the garrisons and front line forces. The guards, around fifty commoner foot soldiers reinforced by a trio of wind mages, were only half alert. The mages had gathered near the center of the convoy, conversing and joking with one another from atop their horses while the commoner soldiers road on the wagons. It was poor form that left their flanks exposed, but the Royalists had been pushed from this region weeks ago in Reconquista's continuing drive towards Newcastle. Their would be only disorganized peasants and perhaps a few isolated stragglers.

"Aye, Tobias, did you hear the Royalists at Blum were routed in three days? That's ten crown you owe me!" One of the noblemen, a portly man with the misfortune of burdening the smallest horse, said to his fellows.

"Crown, Hughes? With the Royalists gone you want me to pay in crown? Surely you mean marks!" One of the other noblemen replied.

"I mean crown!" Hughes insisted. "The Good Cromwell's word and some silver aren't nearly as satisfying as a tenth part gold."

"Bah, and where would I get ten crown?" Tobias replied.

"The same place you got the last ten." The third noblemen laughed. "And the next."

"Martin! You two are bleeding me dry!" Tobias said in shock.

"Now, now, we're just trying to cure your addiction, see what good friends we are?" The third mage, Martin, laughed heartily.

The three men were old friends who had grown up close to one another. Their families all owned interests in Londinium and they had spent much of their youth in the same boarding schools, and much of their young adult lives in the same whorehouses and gambling parlors. When the tides had turned against the Royal Family of Albion, the families of all three men had decided to throw their lot in with Reconquista, and their sons had only too happily joined the growing Reconquista army, a career choice that promised quick advancement as the army was expanded in preparation for further campaigns. It all felt like a jolly game to them, three friends off on an adventure, to return home with stories of their service.

The laughter was cut short a moment later with a call to halt from the front of the convoy. Curious, the three mages spurred their horsed forward past the wagons to see what was happening. The first wagon had come to a halt and the commoner soldiers had leaped down and taken up guard positions. The cause of the sudden stop appeared to be a felled tree in the roadway. The sheer audacity at first left the noblemen at a loss, finally taking cues from the caution displayed by their subordinates, the mages readied themselves.

"Weapons at the ready!" Tobias shouted, hearing the call repeated down the line. The air was filled with the sounds of boots striking soft earth and clatter of weapons. The commoners were second line troops. They were there more to keep watch and guard against thieves then to protect the convoy from a serious attack. That would be the duty of the mages.

The air grew still as the last of the guards took position, only the distant sounds of birds and the soft rustling of the trees impinged upon their hearing. Then, something else could be heard, a low cracking and the sound of air rushing past leaves and then a loud 'crash'. Followed by shouts and the sudden noises of battle. It had come from the rear of the convoy!

"Martin, Hughes, with me!" Tobias spurred his horse and rushed for the back of the column. He was halfway to the rear, a plume of dirt and leaves erupted, tracing a straight line across the roadway before rising up, a thin line of rope strung between two tree. Tobias had barely any time to reign in his horse before the rope caught him dead in the middle of the chest. He felt the breath being driven from his lungs, and then a sense of vertigo as his horse raced out from beneath him. Tobias struck the ground with a heavy thud and an explosion of pain.

A moment later he was struggling to his feet, Hughes and Martin, having seen him fall, had been able to save themselves from the same fate and were now turning their horses to and fro as shouts erupted from across the convoy. They were under attack!

Tobias raised his wand shakily, head swiveling about. He saw something, someone, moving among the trees and then more shouts. The twang of a crossbow bolt being released and then sudden cries of pain and surprise. This was battle, real battle, like his brothers had talked about!

"Where's it coming from!" Hughes shouted.

"It's everywhere!" Tobias shouted. "They're using the trees for cover!" There was another thunderous -Crack!- and part of the forest started to fall towards the gathered mages. "Scatter!" Tobias cried, the tree crashing down, separating Tobias from Martin and Hughes and sending the mounts of his fellows into a panic. A cloaked figure plummeted from above, falling onto Hughes and dragging the portly mage from his horse.

"Hughes!" Martin shouted bringing his wand up and at the ready. Suddenly the ground beside him erupted as a second figure burst from a hole dug along the roadside. That was the last Tobias saw of Martin as he was suddenly confronted be his own attacker. Sprinting from the forest at impossible speed, a third cloaked form rushed at him wielding a sword and shield. Such equipment, a mere commoner! Anger boiled in Martin, so that was the reason behind this cowardly attack.

Commoners, no doubt retainers of the Royalists, bereft of their masters, had reverted to feral dogs! Their assailants had guts trying to attack mages on their own. They would try to get in close and force him into a sword fight where a trained commoner could hope to compete, albeit on unequal footing, with a mage.

Tobias whipped his wand around and began to incant, a simple dot air spell, an air hammer. Not particularly powerful, its uses were more to stun or disorient, but effective all the same as it was difficult to detect before crashing into it, but it would buy time for a more powerful spell. The wind mage let fly, the air before him grew thick before driving outward.

His opponent couldn't have sensed the attack coming, but no doubt had read his movements and realized what was about to happen. The shield came up in a guard just as the air hammer crashed into figure, buffeting the shield and tearing at the cloak which masked his assailant's identity. The force of the blow should have knocked them from their feet, but somehow, they remained standing, merely driven back.

"Tcht." Tobias spat, regardless it had bought him the breathing room for another spell. His training was kicking in now, dispatch this commoner fool quickly and move on to the next. Don't become overwhelmed. He thrust forward with another incantation, a more lethal air needle, deadly at close range but difficult to aim. He caught the cloaked figure off guard, his attack punching a hole into the shield and grazing the side of his assailant with a short hiss of tortured air. A similar hiss of pain issued from his opponent as they rolled to the side.

The wind mage grinned savagely, he had stolen the initiative, now it was time to turn this around, he rushed forward. Something large and metallic hurtled towards him, Tobias whipped his wand up to launch a gust of wind in defense. The air blast batted the shield aside just in time to reveal the charging cloaked figure who had thrown it.

There was no time for another spell, Tobias jumped to the side, barely missing a strike to his flank and then jumped back again as his attacker brought their sword down in an overhead strike. The mage stumbled, falling to the earth, the point of his opponent's blade pressed beneath his chin. "Yield!" A strangely feminine voice demanded.

Tobias cursed himself, how could this be happening? Nevertheless, he tossed his wand aside and raised his hands in surrender. "Good boy." The voice said, this close he could see the cloaked figure's lower face and was almost certain his assailant was a woman. Beaten not only by a commoner, but a woman at that!

"Kino! You still alive?" The figure shouted over her shoulder. Having craned her neck around, she no doubt thought she had time to react if Tobias went for his fallen wand, foolish mistake. Dropping his hands, a second wand slid from cuff of his shirt. He was already performing an incantation as he leveled the focus on his target. Woman or not, she must have been incredibly strong to withstand an air hammer. But no amount of strength would help her once she was driven into the air. Gust was a simple dot spell but Tobias was a strong line, the power he could put behind it was enough to throw a grown man several mails straight up.

His attacker had no chance to resist, being swept away before she could even issue a shout of surprise. The woman was slammed against a nearby tree with a solid thud and a clatter of armor before collapsing limply to the ground. Judging from experience, the impact should have gravely injured her, if not killed outright.  
Tobias was just about to turn in the direction the woman had shouted when he saw her beginning to stir.

"Damn!" The woman coughed and then rolled aside as he launched another air needle. The spell punched a thumb sized hole cleanly through the tree trunk. Tobias pressed forward casting another gust to bludgeon the woman against a tree stump. The attacks weren't as effective as he had expected, but it was keeping her disoriented. A few more and he'd try another air needle, once she was too battered to dodge.

The woman managed to get her feet beneath her, legs coiling up just as Tobias let loose. With a defiant shout she jumped, for a moment he thought he had been mistaken and was in fact facing a wind mage, no mere commoner could have managed such a leap without the aid of magic. The woman described an arc through the air that carried her fully above his attack and deposited her behind him.

Landing heavily, the woman rolled and spun around, boots digging into the soft earth and pushing off, bringing her blade up with a shout just as Tobias did the same with his wand. The blade's arc intersected with the arc of Tobias' wand and the wand tip, as well as the tips of his index and middle fingers, parted company with the rest of him. Tobias screamed, clutching at his mauled hand. He didn't even see the fist that drove into his temple and sent him spiraling into blackness.

_

Yuuki Asuna, Asuna the Flash, former sub commander of the Aincrad front line guild the Knights of Blood, and now a Faerie transported to the world of Halkegenia, surveyed the captured map with an intense look in her eyes. The landmass that the map described possessed a rather peculiar elongated sideways S shape that was thickest at its center before tapering down near the ends. This was Albion, the White Isle. The major roads and cities lay spread before her, coins and other pieces of pocket detritus were scattered across the maps surface to represent the locations of the Royalist and Rebel forces. Most of the map was covered in silver marks taken from the purses of the captured Noble Officers, denoting Rebel holdings. The Royalists strongholds were marked by gold crown pieces. The crown pieces had been relatively few and found in the possession of only one of the Nobles, that was okay, there were a lot more Rebels than there were Royalists.

"We're right here." Millia pointed to the north eastern end of the map where the bulk of the island began to curve towards its northern tip. "That puts us a bit south of the port of York." The young tutor then gestured further north. "At last I'd heard, the Rebel army has managed to push past York and are making preparations to besiege Newcastle."

"It doesn't sound like things are going well for the Royalists." Arguile commented, the knight was standing arms crossed beside Asuna, stroking his chin absently. Three days in the real world, as Asuna was starting to think of it, had resulted in the man developing a fine stubble along his jawline. The three of them were standing at the front of the stopped Rebel convoy, using the back end of one of the wagons as a makeshift table. Millia and both of the faeries were garbed in mottled cloaks sewn from random bits of scavenged cloth to conceal themselves from their captives. As far as the captured guards and mages were concerned, the former players were just bandits who had tried their hand at attacking a military convoy and gotten lucky. An isolated bandit raid or two would probably go unnoticed in the chaos that was gripping the country, but if they were identified as 'Elves', the Reconquista forces would doubtlessly attempt to annihilate them, or else capture them for public execution. Asuna's stomach churned at either prospect.

All around them, hooded figures, the other former SAO players, were fast at work digging through the contents of the wagons, retrieving food, blankets, and other essential supplies to be carried back off into safety of the forest. They worked quickly despite their inexperience. Asuna didn't want to remain on the road for too long. She had brought only a small force of front line players and a larger group of volunteers to carry back the supplies to where the rest of their troop was waiting.

Asuna tried not to draw parallels between what they were doing now and the actions of the thieves guilds that had infested Aincrad. The former KoB sub commander had organized and partaken in many subjugation operations during the first year of the Death Game in order to discourage thievery and the resulting PK incidents that had occurred, so it felt strange, wrong, to suddenly find herself on the other side of the equation. There was of course an important difference, where the thieves guilds had stolen merely to maximize their own profits at the expense of other players, Asuna and the others were now resorting to banditry in order to survive.

The civil war that had raged across Albion, the fight between the Rebels, Reconquista, and the Royalist forces, had stripped the countryside bare as both armies supplemented their supply lines by confiscation, foraging, and hunting. Their was precious little to be had by the three hundred former SAO players save by theft. And as the situation stood, it was better to steal from the hands of Reconquista, who would already be inclined to kill them on sight for the high crime of being 'Elves', then to also anger the Royalists who has no reason to care one way or the other. Such a difficult situation, she thought.

"It is true, the Royalists are losing ground every day." Millia admitted, her eyes were downcast with worry. "And if what those Rebel officers were saying is true, then the fighting has now moved well past York, which means the Rebels probably now hold the majority of Albion's fleet."

"Then we'll need to move quickly." Asuna decided aloud. "For the time being, our objective needs to be to get off of Albion before the Royalists are defeated. If we can't accomplish that, then the Rebels will no doubt find us when they start to consolidate their position." Asuna had no idea of what they would do after that, but Albion was simply too small a country for them to remain hidden for long, at very least, they would have more options if they could get down onto the continent.

"Agreed." Arguile said. "You said the nearest port city is York?"

Millia nodded, "Yes, this is it here." She placed her middle and index fingers beneath a line of Albionese script. "Do you plan to steal a ship?"

"If necessary." Asuna replied. "The distance to Halkegenia isn't too great. Once we've made it into the countryside on the continent, we can start to plan our next move."

Arguile nodded seriously, "Finding the rest of ALfheim." He said aloud. The longer Asuna had thought about it, about the strange event that had released her from her prison and awoken the other test subjects, the more she had come to believe, had to believe, that the World Tree, that city at its base, and most importantly Kirito and Yui, may also have been transported to this world. She had to find them.

Millia shook her head, "It won't be that simple if the Rebels control York. You'll never be able to sneak three hundred people through the city. And even if you manage to hijack a ship, you would be swarmed by mages before you could even leave port."

Asuna glanced to the young tutor, silencing her. "Then what would you suggest? The Royalists have no reason to help us, even if they can be convinced we aren't Elves. Reconquista is winning this war which means we can't stay on Albion. We simply don't have that many options. Arguile-san."

"Asuna-sama?" The man said.

"Go see how the supply team is doing, anything that isn't packed soon is going to have to be left behind."

"Roger." Arguile replied, giving his superior a worried expression before departing.

Asuna gave the map one more look. York was about two days travel on foot, make it four if they traveled at night and stayed off the major roads. She was rolling the map up, brushing the coins and other markers into a small pile when Millia spoke again. "You should at least try to speak with the Royalists."

"You already said they would probably mistake us for Elves." Asuna replied, face composed, even now Millia didn't seem to fully believe them when they said that they were Faeries, and even less when they claimed that they were originally human. "Besides, there isn't much point asking for help from those who can't help themselves. It's not a risk we can take. At least, not until we've scouted out York. Once we've done that, then maybe." Asuna tucked the map into a small satchel and slung it over her shoulder, another inconvenience of the real world, no inventory screen. "And in any case, wouldn't we have to travel past York to meet up with the Royalists?"

"T-that's true." Millia admitted, following Asuna as she made her way from the lead wagon down the column. The defeated Reconquista troops sat lined up along the side of the road, their arms and legs bound and under the watchful guard of the former SAO front line players. "But so long as the Prince Valiant still draws breath, there is hope. And with your fighting power, the Royalists might be willing to make a deal. They may still have a way to get a few people off of Albion."

"Not all of us are strong fighters." Asuna replied, glancing to the defeated guards. They didn't look like the men that Asuna had faced that first night in this world. They were too young, too innocent looking. Most of them were uninjured, only a handful had been killed in the fighting, mostly in the initial confusion, the rest had surrendered with the defeat of their officers. They were too cowed to fight the mysterious strangers who could challenge three mages of air to battle. They now watched curiously as the hooded figures crawled over the convoy they had been ordered to protect, murmuring softly among themselves but otherwise remaining docile. When she asked Millia about them, the woman simply shrugged.

"They're probably peasants who were conscripted when the Rebels overran their villages. The sons of farmers."

Asuna frowned, "I thought you said that the Rebels did terrible things to the retainers of the Royalists." That had in fact been the reason Millia had given for her own flight. Though Asuna suspected the truth was something else, she'd said nothing so far, because frankly, it seemed too contrived to be true.

"They do." Millia said. "The guards and personal servants, stripped of the protection of their Lords, are either put to death immediately, or tortured for information, or confessions. The time of the Rebels granting a pardon to those who turn sides has long since ended. But these men are simply the commoners that come with the land, there is no more point to punishing them than to punish a chicken or an ox."

Asuna's expression soured as she listened to Millia's comment. It was clear that Millia thought no more of the peasants than Asuna had of the NPCs in Aincrad. They were there, a component of the world, meant to be neither abused nor cherished. There was a world of difference between treating another living breathing human being as a thing, and doing the same to an NPC. Even so, Asuna could understand thought processes that went into it well enough.

"You're wrong." Asuna said, eyes fixed forward. "These men are definitely fighting for something."

Millia looked away from the prisoners bitterly, "You say that, but the Windsor family always treated their tenants with respect and kindness. Count Windsor himself punished any member of his family who abused their status over the common people. And now, they repay that kindness by dutifully serving new masters."

"And what about their own families?" Asuna said hotly. "If they obey Reconquista, their families will be safe, isn't that it?"

Millia didn't say anything, only balled her fists and continued walking beside Asuna. They soon reached the far end of the line of prisoners where Kino and Caramella stood guard. The last three men were the Noble Officers, mages assigned to support the commoner troops. Everything from their clothing to their attitudes set them apart from the men that they had commanded. Two of the nobles sat rigidly upright, despite scrapes and bruises, they seemed determined to maintain their dignity, exuding an aura of self worth that was quite at odds with the conditioned subservience of their subordinates.

The third nobleman had abandoned all pretense and simply glared up at Asuna while clutching at his disfigured right hand. The severed stumps of the man's index and middle fingers, which now ended above the first knuckle, had been crudely healed and dressed by Millia.

"You could have been a little less brutal." Kino said to Caramella.

"And he could have yielded!" Caramella snapped back. Even with half of her face concealed by her cloak, the sworswoman looked irritated. "One of those wind blasts smacked me right in the tits, so excuse me if I'm not feeling much sympathy right now."

"My hand!" The nobleman on the ground shouted.

"My tits!" Caramella shouted back before noticing the arrival of Asuna and Millia. The woman suddenly flushed at having used such language. "Ah, Asuna-sama! Millia-chan! Sorry about that, the prisoner was making noise."

Asuna regarded the three Noble officers carefully. They were mages, magic users like Millia. The young tutor had demonstrated some of her talents after Asuna had permitted her to take one of the wands they had liberated off of the officers. Asuna still didn't have a good feeling for their abilities in battle, which was why she had made it a priority to neutralize the mages first while the shock of the ambush had left them unprepared. This had the added advantage of shocking the commoner guards into submission and ending the fight quickly.

Still the mages had proven dangerous opponents when not neutralized quickly as was the case with the one fought by Caramella. Only the beyond human strength and toughness enjoyed by the swordswoman had saved her from serious injury, and these men were just rear guards, probably no better than what Millia referred to as 'dot' and 'line' class mages. Reconquista's elite troops, the equivalent of the front line forces, would have many skilled 'line' and 'triangle' level mages with the most powerful entering into the rank of 'square'. From what little Asuna had seen so far, a front line player's physical abilities probably would put them on par with a line level mage in a direct confrontation. From Millia's comments, anything above line class could probably overwhelm them if care wasn't taken.

"Caramella-san, Kino-san, we're almost done here. Make sure you collect all of their weapons and magical foci, then we'll blindfold them. We'll loosen the bonds on one of the commoner soldiers so he can work his way free once we're gone." So far the operation had been a complete success. They had revealed nothing that would lead the Reconquista forces to believe that they were 'Elves'. Hopefully the claims of superhuman fighters would simply be disregarded as the rear line forces seeking to cover themselves and their quick retreat from this area would discourage any investigations.

"Roger." Kino nodded and went to work cutting a strip from the shirt of each man and using it to fashion a blind. Caramella huffed dismissively but made no further comment. Millia for her own part, also seemed displeased by this turn of events.

"You'll all be free to go as soon as we're gone." Asuna said to the mages.

The men looked amongst themselves before turning back to Asuna. "This isn't some sort of trick, is it?" The portly one asked cautiously.

Asuna shook her head, "We have what we've come for, and we won't be back. This isn't our fight one way or the other, so detaining you or killing you is pointless." The nobles all sank down in relief as Kino covered their eyes, tying each blind tightly so that they wouldn't fall off.

"Everyone make ready to depart!" Asuna shouted over the clattering noises of cartons and bags being unloaded. "If everyone has a full pack, there's no more reason for us to stay."

Cries of 'Roger' and 'Affirmative' came from all down the line of wagons a the former SAO players broke back into the forest. Asuna was turning to leave when the portly Noble man asked a final question. "The way you ambushed us, not just commoner dogs, you must be former retainers. Just who are you people?"

Kino looked to Asuna who gave a small nod. The boy grinned, "We're the Knights of Blood."

_

"Heave Ho!" Caramella grunted as she tossed down her monstrously overloaded pack and stretched with relief. Being super humanly strong was a pretty sweet deal, right up until the fighting ended and you were relegated to pack mule. Well, not quite pack mule . . .

"I am not a . . . hgnn . . . beast of burden!" Kimura said indignantly, or at least as indignant as his perpetually soft monotone could be. The former researcher turned slug type monster slithered past Caramella on his immense foot pad. She actually expected him to leave more slime in his wake, yet other than the path he plowed through the foliage there was little sign of his passage. The rough terrain didn't seem to slow him down any, no doubt Kimura had inherited his slug type avatars abilities including their high physical resilience and ability to travel almost anywhere. The slugs back was covered in lashed down supplies taken from the convoy ambush. Assuming their bodies didn't use much more energy than a normal person, barring feats of superhuman strength, they had secured enough food to keep themselves fed for at least a week. Sure it would all be salted meet, cheese, and course bread, but after going two whole days without food, Caramella wasn't going to complain.

"Suck it up, Escargot-san." Caramella said as Kimura came to a stop beside her. The troop of former SAO players, which had jokingly begun refer to themselves as the Knights of Blood in honor of their leader, had made camp some distance into the forest under the cover of a narrow ravine that concealed them from casual observation and gave ready access to fresh water from the mountain runoff.

"Its not that bad, is it?" Kino asked, setting down his own pack which was at least as overloaded as Caramella's.

"What the hell?" Caramella's eye twitched, "What the heck are you, Momotaro? Since when is a middle tier player that stupidly strong!"

Kino scratched his head in embarrassment. "Well, I was pretty useless in combat because I could never settle on my build. But it meant I ended up with a lot of useful support skills and stats. So I kind of became our guilds odd job person."

"Odd jobs?" Caramella asked.

"Oh, you know, scouting out good hunting grounds, whittling down enemies for the weaker party members so they could get the last attack bonus, carrying loot. That sort of thing."

"What your trying to say is that they used you as a gopher." Caramella said flatly. Kino's perpetually chipper smile cracked like porcelain.

"You don't need to be so harsh." Arguile said, placing a hand on the woman's shoulder.

"Arguile-san, Caramella-san, Kino-san, you're back!" The old fisherman, Nishida, came walking down to greet them. "So the ambush was a success?"

"It was spot on." Caramella said and gave a V for victory, "It looks like that scumbag was right about them using the road to transport supplies. Looks like we got a good haul out of it too."

Nishida nodded before looking about, "Ah, where is Asuna-san and Millia-san?"

Caramella glanced over her shoulder curiously, "They were right behind us." But now all that Caramella could see was the line of returning volunteers and front liners.

"They're back towards the rear." Arguile assured, "Millia-san insisted on helping."

"Eh? She didn't have to." Caramella said confused, "It's not like she's built to haul stuff around." An image of the slender young tutor trying to carry one of the overloaded packs came unbidden to her mind and she winced.

"Just wait and see." Arguile said, waving down the path. In the distance, the last few figures in their mottled cloaks came into view. The last two were definitely Asuna and Millia, Asuna denoted by her longer cloak, specifically cut to conceal her wings, and Millia by the fact that she wore hers with the hood down, unlike the former players who were attempting to conceal their ears.

As expected, Asuna was carrying a pair of heavy satchels, but Millia didn't seem to be carrying anything. Instead the young tutor held one of the wands that they had retrieved from the defeated mages and seemed to be locked in concentration. Caramella squinted and felt her perception skill focusing in on the two. Behind Millia, as if of their own volition, marched four large rucksacks.

"What the hell?" Caramella said after recovering from her surprise, looking again she could see stubby metallic limbs protruding from beneath the packs. Each pack was being carried by a small, comically dis proportioned knight. The first knight carried a lance in one hand, the second wielded a sword and shield, the third carried a bow, and the forth a spear. Caramella was left pointing stupidly at the bizarre sight as Asuna and Millia approached.

"Apparently Millia-san is an earth mage. One of their specialties is building and controlling golems." Arguile commented mildly.

"And she couldn't just magic up an army of those little guys to carry all of this?" Caramella asked with a hint of irritation.

"I'm afraid four is my limit." Millia said apologetically, having grown close enough to hear the conversation. "I'm merely a dot mage, so even this is fairly good for me." The young tutor waved her captured wand and the miniature knights collapsed onto their posteriors, their massive packs looming over them. With another flick of the wand and a short incantation the knights began to flake and crumble to dust.

By this point the others who had stayed behind were running out of entrance to the ravine with words of congratulations and thanks. Caramella soon found herself helping to distribute the food among the other players alongside Kino and Millia.

"Catch." Caramella shouted as she tossed an apple to Millia. The young woman fumbled but managed to save her prize from falling to the ground. Shinning the fruit on the sleeve of her blouse, she took a greedy bite, and then another, quickly reducing the apple to a thin core.

Caramella suddenly felt the gnawing of her own belly, not just the aching sensation of emptiness that she had grown accustomed to thinking of us hunger in SAO, but a real visceral emptiness as her insides squeezed against her empty stomach. She'd just muscled through it for the past few days, but now, with the smell of food in the air, it wasn't something she could ignore any longer. Sitting down beside Kino and Millia, she took out a loaf of hard bread and a strip of jerky.

"Kino, lend me one of your knives." Caramella felt the hilt of one of the knife users blades being placed into her waiting hand. Kino actually carried a couple of different types of knives. The small knives he carried on his chest were weighted for throwing while he carried a heftier combat knife in a sheath at his waist, and another smaller, general purpose blade in a forearm sheath that was usually hidden by the boy's jacket. It was this last one, with its serrated blade, that the boy had given to Caramella. Combined with his odd collection of poorly optimized but useful skills, Caramella was rapidly beginning to view the boy as a living Swiss Army Knife.

"Here." Caramella handed half of the loaf to Millia who accepted graciously.

"Thank you Miss Caramella." Millia said sincerely, she smiled gratefully as she took the peace in both hands.

"It's nothing." Caramella replied with a faint reddening of her cheeks before quickly tearing into her own half loaf. The bread was coarse and bland, army food, but hunger was its own spice and she was able to tear through most of it in just a few short bites. It was just as she had finished that Asuna and Arguile came to join them. Arguile taking a seat beside Kino, while Asuna sat down wearily on a fallen log, regarding her own loaf of bread with a dissatisfied look.

Inevitably, Caramella's eyes wondered to Asuna's back. Covered by her cloak as she leaned forward, only the translucent tips of the girl's wings poked out to barely brush the ground. Even Caramella knew that the wings were a delicate subject. It didn't take long to realize that Asuna viewed them as a disfigurement, and Caramella couldn't say she was wrong. They were useless, less than useless, dangerous in fact, as they would catch the air and made it more difficult for the famous rapier wielder to maneuver in a fight. Still, they nagged at Caramella.

"Hey, Escargot-san?" She called out to Kimura who had settled in nearby. Initially there had been concerns about how to feed the slug type mob who's body would no doubt demand a tremendous amount of nutrients. Fortunately the huge slug seemed to be capable of drawing nourishment from just about anything and was disturbingly content to graze off the local plant life. Whole bushes disappeared into his gullet with only the sound of snapping branches and rustling leaved to mark their passage. The sword and shield user didn't know if she'd ever be able to look at a salad the same way again.

"Yes, Caramel-chan?" Kimura said in that infuriatingly neutral tone.

"Ca-ra-me-la." She ground out, but that wasn't the point. "I was just wondering, Faeries are supposed to be able to fly, right?"

"Caramella!" Arguile began to reprimand.

"No." Asuna said, raising a hand. "It's okay, go ahead Caramella-san."

"I was just thinking, Asuna-sama has . . . Well . . . If faeries are supposed to be able to fly, why don't the rest of us have wings? You said we're some sort of default race and flying wasn't some sort of special ability in ALfheim, was it?"

Kimura's eye stocks bobbed up and down thoughtfully like the timeout cursor on an old computer. Despite his form, the slug was proving pretty easy to read once someone spent time around him, and unfortunately, Caramella had been forced to spend lots of time around him.

"That is correct." Kimura said. "The default state for most of the races is for the wings to remain stored until deliberately summoned. However, this requires the use of a flight controller function which does not seem to have been carried over to this world." Before Caramella could reply, Kimura continued. "Asuna-sama is probably a special case due to her avatar, which is why her wings are constantly materialized." From her seat, Asuna looked away from the conversation with a bitter expression.

"Kimura-san." Kino spoke up. "Isn't there some other way to access the wings? I was just thinking, we can use lots of our other skills, so we should be able to use those too, right?"

"I've tried." Asuna said suddenly. The others looked up. "Kimura-san showed me some mental exercises that can be used to manipulate the wings without the flight controller. I can move them, but I haven't been able to get off the ground."

"I've also put some effort into it." Arguile said, "But I haven't been able to so much as form the wings. The same goes for some of the other front line players."

"It may be that the flight mechanics did not transfer over to this world." Kimura noted, "Though given that your physical abilities are grossly beyond those of humans and appear to be related to your former game stats, as well as the skills and knowledge that has been demonstrated so far, there is strong evidence that a partial transfer took place. Also the existence of magic in this world would seem to strongly indicate that human flight is possible."

"It is." Millia confirmed after swallowing another small mouthful of bread. "Levitation is a common dot spell, almost any mage can use it. More powerful mages can use flight and related spells for greater speed and maneuverability, but they're generally not considered worth the drain in willpower."

"Perhaps there is some sort of mental block." Kimura said, thinking aloud.

"That mind over matter stuff went out of vogue back at the turn of the millennium." Caramella grumbled as she tore at a piece of jerky.

"Not at all." Kimura replied, eye stocks pivoting to observe Caramella slyly. "Athletes suffer a broad range of physical symptoms and a real loss of performance due to anxiety. People who use neural linked prosthesis frequently choose not to use them when not necessary due to conflicting phantom limb sensations. Those that suffer from gender identity disorder may feel out of place in their own bodies, to the point that it causes debilitating stress and damage to their self image, most frequently this is relieved by gender reassignment or role playing as the opposite sex. For instance, Caramel-chan's fervent desire to be a man leading to her role and mannerisms in SAO."

Caramella nearly choked on her jerky before coughing it back up. "What!"

"That isn't the reason for your appearance and mannerisms?" Kimura asked calmly, "I was certain that you must have been one of the female players who originally logged into SAO with a male avatar."

"I. Will. Hurt. You!" Caramella threatened as she reached for her sword. She'd only done that to stop weird guys from hitting on her!

Kino quickly placed a restraining hand on Caramella's forearm, smiling nervously. "Okay, so maybe we just have to get around that block, right?"

"It's something we've been considering." Arguile said, "We really don't have the time to stop and train right now. We'll have to continue working on it while we travel."

Caramella glanced over her back, "If we really can get our wings to work, wouldn't that make getting out of Albion way easier."

"There's a flight time limit on the wings." Kimura replied. "Seeing as other limitations still exist on your abilities, some equivalent would likely hold true here. In addition, even with the system assist, I believe that only around ten to twenty percent of ALfheim's players were ever able to successfully use the free flight function. If that success transfers to this world, then it would merely be a means for a small group to abandon the rest of us."

"Worried you'll get left behind?" Caramella jabbed. "Hey, if all this body image stuff is so important, why are you so calm? You're trapped in a giant bag of slime. At least we all look like our awesome selves."

"Hmm?" Kimura mulled the question over. "I suppose I've never really been bothered by this form. Many of the senses are sharper than a human's, and these tentacles are quite dexterous." Kimura curled two of his facial tentacles to emphasize. "Perhaps I am simply not that attached to the human form."

"Or you're insane." Caramella added as she took another bite of jerky.

Kimura's humped back rose and fell in a small shrug. "This body can feel pain and pleasure, and has quite a few advantages in this situation, I don't see the problem."

"Didn't you say Mister Kimura is under the same enchantment that turned you all into Faeries?" Millia asked curiously. The young tutor had been suitably startled when she first met Kimura, though more by his ability to speak than his form as a gigantic slug. Wait, that probably meant there were some really weird creatures that lived on Albion. Wonderful!

Caramella nodded, "Yeah, but in his case, I'd say this form suits his personality better."

It was still only mid afternoon, but the ravine was already growing dark as the sun began to set behind the tops of the trees. Most of their troop had rested here through the day, they would set out again at nightfall and hopefully make camp again before daybreak. Asuna suddenly stood up and turned to leave.

"Asuna-sama, where are you going?" Arguile reached out with one hand.

"There's still some unfinished business." Asuna said softly. Only Kimura and Millia looked unbothered. The others all averted their eyes with discomfort. The capture mercenary from two nights ago had proven honest enough with his information, even so, they couldn't just let him go. Furthermore, his crimes were too heinous to be forgiven. In Aincrad such a person would have been sent to the Black Iron Fortress on the 1st floor to be imprisoned by the army. But that wasn't an option here. For the time being the had decided to bring him along as a prisoner, but it was tacity accepted that this was only a temporary solution that could last only as long as the man had useful information.

Eventually, a more permanent solution would have to be entertained. But there was a difference between killing someone in self defense, or even killing someone on equal footing. Three Reconquista soldiers had been slain, one crushed by a felled tree, the other two killed while fighting, but they had at least been armed and able to defend themselves. Even so, Caramella had seen the looks on the faces of the front line players who had been responsible, overwhelming guilt at the needless loss of life. Kino had likewise been shocked by the life he had taken, but he had the buffer of having done so at a distance and having been unable to linger on the consequences of his actions. The time was soon approaching when someone would have to gather up the courage to execute a defenseless man. Arguile and Caramella had both agreed that no matter what, neither of them would allow Asuna to do it.

Caramella swallowed the last of the jerky. Only two days in this place and they were contemplating murder. Just what were they becoming? Above them, the sky was growing gradually darker. Caramella sensed that it would be a long night.


	21. Chapter 7 Part 2

Halkegenia Online – Chapter 6 – Part 5

The City of York sprawled along the "coast" of Albion, clinging to the edge bluffs and following the curve of the White Isle as it bent sharply northward. A port city built upon the cliffs, York was defended from the North East by the open abyss and from the south by a shear drop that plummeted down to the banks of the river Fosse as it spilled off the edge of the floating continent, contributing to the ever present mists that gave Albion it's title.

With the Rebellion nearly victorious and much of Albion in disarray, York, with its position as an essential port, was a rare pool of relative prosperity. Treasure was lavished on the city which was now a key supply point in the Rebel army's push towards Newcastle. Ships arrived daily from the continent, bringing with them news and the supplies purchased by the Rebels and mercenaries seeking their fortunes in the service of Reconquista. Save for the soldiers standing sentry and the shouts of town criers repeating propaganda, it could be believed that York existed in a happier time.

As midday approached, Yukimura Hayato, Kino, a former mid level knife wielder in the Death Game of SAO, and now a faerie transported to the World of Halkegenia, clung closely to Caramella and Millia as they walked the streets, trying not to become overwhelmed. Kino was no stranger to big cities, and compared to Tokyo, York was barely a small town. But over the past two years the boy had also grown accustomed to the scale of things in Aincrad, where a huge town might have a population of a few hundred. Now, in this town of a mere twenty thousand, the city boy Kino was struggling not to feel like a country bumpkin.

Caramella noticed his skittishness and drew Kino close, squeezing his shoulder like a big sister. With their ears hidden respectively by a broad hat and a scarf, and dressed in appropriate attire, faces smeared with dirt to hide their complexions. The three looked like nothing more than unwashed commoners. Provided they didn't loiter or draw attention to themselves, Millia had been confident that they would be able to slip in and out of the city without much effort.

It felt like they were taking a big risk walking right into an enemy stronghold like this, but Kino understood the reason. The former SAO players needed to get off of Albion, and quickly. Over the past days, they had crept carefully from hiding place to hiding place under the cover of darkness, working their way ever northward. There had been little rest for them. Twice the sentries had stumbled across wandering patrols and they had been forced to break camp and travel through the night lest they be discovered.

Millia had been Insistent that they try to cross the rebel lines and make it to Newcastle, but Asuna was reluctant to chance it. Not only would it be difficult to slip three hundred people past Reconquista's tightening noose, there was no guarantee that they would be welcomed by the Royalists who could well see giving succor to three hundred 'half elves' as further damning themselves.

As they had neared York, Millia had been sent out with Kino and Caramella as escorts, to learn what she could in the passing towns and villages. The news had not been encouraging. The Royalists had been pushed still further back, and with the arrival of additional mercenaries from the continent, it looked like the Rebels were set to lay siege to the fortress city of Newcastle in final preparations to wipe them out. Two weeks, three at most, that was the life expectancy that was being given for the surviving Royalists.

This had prompted Asuna and Arguile to agree to a simple timetable. They were going to get everyone off of Albion within the week. And in order to do that, they were going to need a ship. Well, those weren't in any short supply at least, York was a port city after all. As soon as Asuna and Arguile had settled on their goal, they had brought together the former clearers and begun planning as if they were about to conduct a military operation.

Asuna had taken front and center, Arguile at her side as they poured over a crude map of York, drawn from memory by Millia. With so little to go off of they had only been able to form the rudiments of their plan and speculate on various complications. It was obvious enough that they couldn't simply march into the city and steal a ship. They would have to hijack one, preferably by slipping in with a strike team and stowing away until the vessel had left port. It would then be simple enough to redirect the ship to a pickup point along the "coast" to retrieve the other survivors.

Kino and the others had listened attentively as Asuna systematically outlined the challenges they would need to overcome in order to make the plan a success. They would need to plan how the strike team would infiltrate, decide on the ship to capture and how they would stow away, arrange a pickup location and a backup location to retrieve the rest of their troop, and also plan for an escape route if something went wrong. Looking around, it had been obvious that half of the things Asuna was considering hadn't even crossed the minds of most of the others, even the front liners.

It had left Kino feeling out of his depth, right up until Asuna had looked him in the eye and asked him to accompany Millia and Caramella on an important mission. To conduct the operation, they would need detailed information about the layout of York and its port facilities. They would also need to find a ship that suited their needs. It couldn't be a military vessel, it needed to be a merchant ship so that they wouldn't have any trouble from the crew. All of this information would be relatively easy to acquire once they were within the walls of York. Though the Rebels were secretive about ship arrivals, they were less so about departures, and some amount of traffic was still flowing from the White Isle to the continent of Halkegenia.

Kino had at first blanched at the request. It felt like the legendary Flash was asking the impossible of a mere mid level player. But when he had looked to the others, the clearers had all nodded in agreement with their leader and given him encouraging looks. In Aincrad he had earned something of a reputation for his poor build, a result of his inability to settle on any one roll. He was good with his knives, but that was mostly because it was the only thing he had stuck with. But now, in Albion, his ability to do a little bit of everything had proven invaluable. He had felt their confidence in him bolstering his own and with only a moments hesitation he had accepted.

In this way, Kino had found himself setting out early down the main road towards York in the company of Millia, Asuna, Arguile and Caramella. While Asuna and Arguile waited some distance from the city, the others would infiltrate. Arriving as the sun rose and the markets began to open for the day, they had slipped in with the masses and been spared hardly a second glance by the city watchmen and soldiers that passed as they went about covertly studying the city.

"This place smells like a pig sty." Caramella muttered as she walked along beside Millia. The air did indeed carry a distinct fetid odor, the product of a hundred open air sewers, all gradually making their way cliffwards to form a less inspiring spray than those generated by Albion's countless waterfalls.

"I rather prefer the country air as well," Millia said, and then emphasized with a smile, "Sister."

Caramella's face soured a little. The sword and shield user had been selected for this operation mostly because her features, heavily inherited from her American father, were much more likely to hold up under mild suspicion. That said, she and Millia really looked nothing at all alike.

Millia was in startlingly good spirits for someone who was knowingly placing herself in so much danger. As she had once said, the crimes for consorting with elves would have her tortured and hanged as a heretic. But over the past week of journeying and living together, be it speaking with Asuna and the Knights of Blood, helping Nishida and the others with cooking, or listening to their stories over the breakfast campfires, a new determination seemed to have blossomed within the woman. Millia had become more than just their guide, she'd become their comrade, and was fast growing invested in their survival.

Kino wondered if it had anything to do with the stories she had told as they traveled. The ones about the Fairy Queen and the Son of Brimir. She kept insisting it was just a fairy tale that had been told across Albion for centuries. But their had been a gleam in her eyes. It had taken Kino a while to place it. Hope. He tried not to think to hard about it after that. Millia was a nice person, he didn't want to see her disappointed.

"The docks are over that way, right?" Kino asked, pointing down a narrow side alley that ended in white light, like a poorly disguised loading area in an old flat display game.

"That's right, some of them. Actually they run all the way around the city." Millia said, her head seemed to suddenly be on a swivel, worry finally starting to etch its way across her face. "There are more Rebels here than I expected, and there will be even more around the docks."

Kino had to agree, there were guards at every street corner, and not like the mercenaries from the first night, or the third line peasant militia they had ambushed a few days ago. These men were fully equipped, clad in proper armor and armed with halberds, crossbows, and more than a few guns. Kino felt his heart tremble every time he saw a guard rest his hand on the grip of a pistol, and he was reminded of his still aching ribs. More than his near death experience from a few days before, the way these men moved frightened him. He'd seen that wariness before, in the clearing guilds, these soldiers were seasoned fighters.

"Well, its a good thing they don't have any business with us now, isn't it sister?" Caramella replied cheekily, giving the smaller woman a slight jab in the ribs before preceding on ahead with Kino in tow.

The dingy back alley slowly lightened and parted as it fed out onto the docks that lined the cliffs of York, and once again, Kino struggled not to look slack jawed. There were sights, there were sounds, smells, the voices of hundreds of people, riotously dressed, conversing and calling back and forth, not just NPC background noise, but real living people. More of them than he had seen in one place since that first day in the Town of Beginnings. But more than just that, there were the ships.

Over a dozen airships were in sight, arriving, departing, or moored at wide slips as men and beasts offloaded cargo just arrived from the continent. To Kino, the ships looked like the ones in the oil paintings scattered around Aincrad. Tall masted sailing ships with their sails rearranged into wide wings that cantilevered out from the sides of sleek wooden hulls. As he watched, a group of dockworkers labored at a winch, guiding the ponderous bulk of the latest arrival in for a landing as the crew rolled up sails and pulled in the masts.

Kino felt a hand on his shoulder and glanced over to see Caramella leaning down. The usually cocky woman had become all business. "I know its like something out of Final Fantasy," Caramella whispered at his side, "But pay attention Kino, we have a job to do, just like the gates."

"Roger." The boy replied reluctantly and took a breath.

From beneath a wide brimmed peasant hat, he began to focus on his surroundings. In Aincrad, that magnificent floating castle, where every level was possessed of its own dangers and wonders, even the mid level players had quickly learned to observe everything and admire nothing. So as much as Kino wanted to find a secluded spot and just watch this scene, he pulled his eyes away and went to work.

Kino started to take everything in, counting off the streets and alleyways and matching them to the map of the city he was slowly beginning to build in his mind. There was a guard tower in the far corner of the docks and it looked like the docks would be lit by lamps at night, though not so many that there wouldn't be some good shadows.

They winded their way past the ships. Sleek "Clippers" with immense sails folded flush with their teardrop hulls, like Falcons nesting. Fat cargo ships with smaller sails arranged in complicated rigging. And most intimidating, warships, hulls like fat cigars, covered in gun ports, mostly along their middle but with lots of smaller guns mounted on swivels that could be pointed up or down. Kino swallowed, the very worst thing that could happen would be for the alarm to be raised after they had left port. There was no way they would survive if something like that was sent after them.

"That ship looks like it can kick a lot of ass." Caramella said, clearly impressed.

"She's a ship of the line, so I imagine you're right." Millia agreed as she frowned. "Though, the donkeys she spurred were at the direction of the Royal family not too long ago."

"That's not what that mea . . ." Caramella shook her head, "Never mind, you got the idea. So its a Royalist ship? Did it get captured?"

Millia shook her had sadly. "More likely, it defected when the Rebels captured its home port." The young tutor looked down, hands folded at her waist. "I suppose I can't blame them. The crews have their own families to consider." The last words were spoken like an echo.

Caramella gave a worried look and then glanced to Kino who was as clueless as her. "Anyways." Caramella continued. "We need to find out about the merchant ships. You said we could do that once we got to the docks."

Millia gave a small nod. "Yes, the harbor master's office will have a listing of ship departure schedules and destinations." She smiled weakly, "Though, I don't think we'll be able to book passage without papers."

Seeing some humor returning to the woman's face, Caramella stuck out her tongue and followed behind her as they made their way though the crowds towards a large tile roofed building that hung partway off the edge of the cliffs. There was a sign above the doorway, the Albionese script preceded and followed by a stylized dove.

The inside of the building was constructed of darkly stained wood and was well lit by wide windows and skylights. A small reception area was fronted by a wide desk at which clerks were receiving clients. Most of them considerably better dressed than the three spies. Behind the front desk, Kino could see rows of tables and shelves covered in books and ledgers. More clerks were working furiously in the background, no doubt keeping a list of the days shipped and received goods.

Rather than going to the front desk, Millia turned sharply and walked over to a podium beside the window where a thick book lay open with people jammed closely around it.

When Caramella gave her a questioning look, Millia explained. "Its a schedule of mail ships, most Captains keep aside some space for small parcels. This should give us the destinations and departure times, then its just as simple as going to the dock and asking around." Squeezing closer to get a look over the shoulder of the others, it was several minutes before Millia returned, during which time the two Faeries did their best to look inconspicuous.

Millia returned a moment later and gestured for them to follow. Once they were back out on the street she spoke. "There are six ships departing for Gallia and four for Germania the day after tomorrow. The Gallian boats are all cargo vessels, but there was a clipper marked for Germania called the _Sabrina_. She was listed as the last to depart. Is something wrong?"

"For such a big port, ten ships leaving in a day doesn't seem like very many." Kino said.

"There were others, but about half were simple charters across the White Isle. On top of that, there are lots of Reconquista flagged vessels in port right now." Millia explained. "This will probably become a staging area soon for the siege of Newcastle."

Instead of returning to the first set of docks, Millia lead them back onto the main street, heading south to where the slips were built over the river Fosse that flowed along the edge of the town. Kino noticed immediately that the ships along this portion of the harbor were decidedly less military, though the activity buzzing around them was no more sedate.

"Oy, careful with that powder!" A voice cried from the deck of one of the ships.

"Shut your gob, its packed tight and shut!" A huge man with bronzed skin shouted back from the dock. Muscles bulged as he carried a barrel big enough to hold Kino on one shoulder

"Just get it into the magazines below decks." The first man shouted in disgust before turning his attention back to the deck above. The bronze skinned man planted the barrel on the ground and turned to retrieve another from a wagon.

"Kino, pay attention." Caramella snapped.

"Oh, right. Sorry!" Kino said, embarassed, he had already let himself be distracted one too many times. For someone who's eyes had been trusted to keep others safe, his former guild leader would have a fit.

The clipper _Sabrina_ turned out to be the last ship along the docks. A sleek looking vessel with a knife thin hull. Her wing/sails were folded smoothly along her sides, giving the impression of a cloth draped zeppelin.

As they neared they could hear a wiry looking bearded man arguing with a rotund customer. Judging by his clothes, and the fact that he could be fat in the middle of a war, Kino thought he was probably nobility. But not the ones with lands and titles, his clothes weren't that fancy, he was probably like Millia, a petty noble. Those who could practice magic and had status above commoners but were not necessarily of a powerful bloodline.

"And I'll have Captain Thorn know about this when he gets back!"

"Hah! Tell him whatever you like." The wiry man laughed. "What do ya think my Da' will do? Spank me? I speak for the Captain on this. The _Sabrina_'s a free agent, we go where the winds of profit take us, unless you think the Good Cromwell would like to make an enemy of every merchant in the Hanza." The young man grinned, revealing yellowed teeth. "Though for the fastest sails in all of Albion, it might be worth it. Now off with you fool. I've got more agreeable," The man eyed Millia and Caramella respectfully, "And attractive customers."

Looking shocked the nobleman spluttered once, twice, finally, realizing that he had been betrayed by his own wit, the man turned and stormed off furiously, leaving the young man he had been speaking to with a bemused smirk on his face.

The youth turned to the three spies and greeted them with a surprisingly charming smile. "And how may I help you this lovely afternoon? Seeking to book passage to Germania?"

"If only we'd the money." Millia sighed. "Alas, Noble Sir, we seek only to know what cargo you are carrying and if their might be room in your holds for more."

"Hardly a Noble, Miss, thought master of this ship my father may be. My name is William Thorn, first mate of the _Sabrina_, and to answer your question, the holds of the _Sabrina_ are small and in high demand, even if hardly a thing is leaving the white Isle these days save rumors and grief." William lamented loudly, even Kino could tell the man was hamming it up. "Though I can't imagine such Ladies as yourselves bringing aboard the latter. Still, lets talk for a bit and maybe we can make a deal. May I ask just what the cargo may be?"

"Wine." Millia said immediately.

"Wine?" William asked.

'Wine?' Kino wondered.

"From the estates of the Windsor family." Millia explained. Kino couldn't miss the way the man's eyes widened.

"A Windsor vintage?" The man asked, suddenly looking around cautiously. "How did you come by such a thing, if I may ask?"

"We are mere commoners sir, only our mother carried an ounce of noble blood, and with her passed on," Millia breathed, "We do what we can to survive. For the last few years we've toiled on the Windsor estate, my brother and sister in the fields and I in the kitchens. When the Good Cromwell's forces arrived, Reconquista stripped the estate to fuel the efforts to liberate us from the tyranny of the Royal family." To her credit, Millia managed not to choke on the words. "However, they missed one of the wine cellars where the Windsors aged their finest stock."

"Is that so?" William crossed his arms, a grin spreading across his face. "Would be a shame, I'm sure the Good Cromwell would be quite sorry to hear he had overlooked such a treasure."

"Truly." Millia agreed, "Though with the Windsor family gone, their former estates are in chaos, we struggle every day just to get by. Which was why we three were tasked with finding a buyer and bringing the casks to market."

"All the way from the Windsor lands?" William asked, looking impressed. "A treacherous journey for a boy and two maidens."

Kino fought to suppress a growing sense of agitation. He was fourteen and not stupid, old enough to understand that while this man was doing business, he was also playing a game with Millia and Caramella, because they were women. Kino didn't like it.

"Who else to make the journey? Our eldest brother is off to war, and our father is too elderly to travel in these times. Alas, that left only us three. Obviously we cannot sell them to anyone in Albion. Reconquista would simply confiscate the casks, and as for the rest, few people can afford even the poorest vintage in these times, it would be a shame to sell at such prices."

"I see." William said, stroking his beard. "Well, it's tempting, I'll give you. They say the Windsor Wine's have a unique bouquet that cannot be matched by anything but the finest Gallian vintages. And my father is quite fond of the stuff. But it'll be the Captain's decision I'm afraid, and he's out on business until later today."

Millia looked stricken with disappointment. "That's quite alright." She said humbly. "We hardly could be so lucky as to find a buyer on our first try. Still, we must consult elsewhere in any case."

"Aye, I can see how that is, but don't hesitant to come back." William bowed apologetically, "I think the _Sabrina _may be your good omen if you only let her." With that they parted ways with first mate of the _Sabrina_ and headed back down the dock.

"Seems friendly enough." Caramella noted. "Not that it'll matter at sword point. But why wine?"

Millia smiled shyly, "I was just improvising. I needed to think of something that would wet his interest, and I know quite a bit about the wine produced on the Windsor estates. Mostly, I wanted to see if he we would invite us up onto the deck so we could get a look at the cargo they're loading."

"It doesn't do us any good if the ship is leaving port empty. We wouldn't have anyplace to hide." Kino said.

"That's right." Millia agreed.

"He seemed pretty interested about that wine." Caramella said wearily, "You know the first rule of a bluff is to make sure they won't call it, right?"

"Well," Millia said cautiously, "If it comes to that, there may be a way to acquire a few casks. It just occurred to me that the Windsors used to sell to a trading house in the Northern quarter. Since York has kept good order, its likely that a handful of wine casks are still there waiting shipment. And fortunately, I've been to the trading house before, so I know the layout."

"So now you want to add a step to Asuna-sama's plan, steal wine." Caramella said. "You know, we need the crew sober in order to fly the ship."

"It's not for the crew. Its for getting us aboard." Millia said.

"Hide in the wine casks." Kino said.

"Exactly!" Millia agreed. "We drain them down and hide inside them!"

Caramella let out a long sigh, "Millia, is this something you read in an adventure novel?"

Millia frowned, looking perplexed. "How did you know?"

A strange expression crossed Caramella's face, like something was being held in under immense pressure. "Right then, we'll talk to Asuna-sama about it when we get back, but I don't think she'll like it. Besides, there's a few other ships to investigate, right?"

"The _Queen Ann_ is the next one." Millia agreed. "She's set to depart for Gallia."

The _Queen Ann_ turned out to be a much larger cargo ship, lacking the elegance of the smaller "Clipper", she was wider bodied than the _Sabrina_ with sails that were relatively smaller.

Kino hung back and listened with only half an ear as Millia repeated her spiel about the wine to the Ann's first mate, a gruff looking older man. It gave Kino an opportunity to look around and listen. If he hadn't been distracted by the sight and sound he might have missed it.

"Faeries?"

Kino's eyes widened and he looked about. Where had that come from?

"I'm telling you it happened, a whole island of them off the coast of Tristain. I saw'm myself."

Kino zeroed in on the source of the conversation. Standing along the edge of the dock, a group of sailors was consorting as they smoked. Without even thinking about it, the boy wondered closer.

"Right, more likely you had too much to drink and fell outta your bunk." One man said to his fellow as he stamped down on a cigarette butt.

"Wasn't drunk." The first man murmured, his voice growing so low that Kino had to strain to hear. "Captain had me out on the rigging, I'm not stupid enough to be drunk doing that."

"Eh?" Another sailor said, "I've seen you drunk enough to be that stupid." The others started chuckling at the expense of their fellow.

"Enough, if you don't believe me, ask the Captain! The Captain and first mate spoke with'm."

"Then your Captain must be as touched in the head as you." The detractor shot back.

"Now wait just a minute." A third man entered into the conversation. "I've heard stories about this from some of the Germanian ships that've been docking the last few days. Odd lights flying along the Tristanian coast at night. Our captain has had us plying far North and we arrived over the sea, so I haven't seen it for myself, but I've heard this story from a few others. Supposing they're a race of demi humans."

"Demi humans?" The sailor who had accused the first of being drunk, asked.

"Aye, they look human enough save for some parts, they've got these tails and animal like ears." The man gestured with his hands. "Like cats. Call'm selves something, Catseth, I think."

"Cait Syth." The first sailor corrected. All eyes turned to him. Kino felt his heart thundering in his chest. Cait Syth, that was the name of one of the ALfheim races that Kimura had mentioned! "That's what they called'm selves. Cait Syth. And they really did have cats ears I tells ya, and they claim to be Faeries! You should have seen the ones that boarded us, all youthful beauties with hardly a blemish. Would have mistaken them for noble girls if not for their ears and tales, and those wings."

"Wings? So they can fly?"

"Are you daft? I called'm Faeries, didn't I? How else do you think they boarded us underway? They've got these wings that they summon by magic, like a mage's flying spell." The first sailor was gesticulating wildly in an attempt to properly convey what he was talking about.

"Faeries eh? Ha!" A fourth man shook his head. "Strange times we be living in boys. Wonder if our Captain will try his hand plying the the Tristanian routes next."

"Aye, Faeries are good fortune for travelers o' the wind." A fifth man agreed. "Supposen you don't offend them of course."

"I think you'd lot would offend'm just breathing!" The man who had first spoken about the Faeries said crossly, receiving jabs from his companions.

"Eh? Boy, what are you doing?!" The man who had been the strongest detractor of the story had caught sight of Kino who had now crept up right next to the group of sailors.

"Wha?" Kino began. Before he could say more, the man had grabbed Kino by the front of his shirt.

"Aye, a street urchin by the look'o 'im!" The man who had first mentioned the Faeries said. "Gotta watch your purse around here!"

Glancing down, Kino realized that his hand had come to rest beside a small pouch tied to the man's belt. Licking his lips, Kino tried to come up with an explanation.

"Y-your story sounded exciting!" Kino said quickly. "You really saw Faeries?"

"Poor time to start asking boy." The man who had him by the scruff of the shirt jerked so violently that Kino was sure his teeth were going to rattle. This was bad, he was sure he was strong enough to break lose, but he couldn't make a scene in the middle of the port.

"Oy, Mullen, just let the boy go, even if he's an urchin, you caught him so there's no harm. Lads are drawn by tales of adventure as much as coin, just let him be on his way." The man who had supported the first man's story about the Faeries placed a hand on his friend's shoulder.

Kino nodded desperately. "Please, I didn't mean any harm."

"Stay out o' this Rein, last port my purse got swiped, whole journeys pay right out from under me! I've had about enough of it!" The man holding Kino lifted him from the ground and was beginning to draw his free arm back.

"Hey now Mullen, Don't kill'm!" Rein said desperately. The other sailors were conflicted, the first two were trying to calm their friend while the other two were stepping back. Kino watched as the man's fist began traveling forward, swinging around in an arc that would inevitably connect, painfully. He shut his eyes and clenched up for a blow that never came.

"What the hell are you doing!" Caramella's voice hammered venomously against Kino's eardrums.

Opening his eyes, Kino starred at the man's fist, bare inches from his face, and the slimmer hand that held it around the wrist. Through the cuff of her blouse, Kino could see the muscles in Caramella's forearm standing out like bands of steel.

The shield and sword user was a full head shorter than the sailor, but even so, he began to loose the fight against her. His arm was first pulled away from Kino, and then twisted around behind his back. The man let out a grunt of pain and Kino fell to the ground as Caramella twisted the man's wrist.

The other sailors watched in disbelief as the tomboyish woman released her victim and delivered a solid kick to his posterior, causing him to stumble forward. The look on Caramella's face was one of sisterly wrath directed at man in front of her. It reminded Kino a lot of his over protective older cousin, who had once beaten up the kids bullying him in school.

This was bad, really bad, he was sure Caramella had acted without thinking. It would have been better if she'd just let the sailor rough him up. Seeing the look on her face, Kino realized that Caramella knew she'd made a mistake, now she had no choice but to ride it out.

The man named Mullen staggered upright, his face darkening with anger. "Stay out of this you little wench!"

Caramella confronted him, hands held before her. "Sorry but I can't stand by while someone bullies a little kid. How about we all act like responsible adults, take a breath, and cool off."

"Come on Mullen, this is a bad idea, the watch is going to get involved and toss you in the stockades." Rein said, trying to calm the other sailor.

"Shove off!" Mullen roared, the big man shifted forward and charged back at Caramella.

The woman spun aside like a matador evading the horns of a bull and ducked low as the sailor came around with another wild swing. If the man had been trying to deliver a blow, it would have passed cleanly over Caramella's head, however, instead of a closed fist, the man's hand was wide open. The fingers scratched along Caramella's forehead and then grabbed hold in her hair and handkerchief.

Reflexively the the former army player wrenched downward, tucking into a forward roll that left the enraged sailor clutching only a few loose hairs . . . and her handkerchief.

Coming out of her roll, Caramella looked about wild eyed. The sailors had all gone still. The air around Kino suddenly felt thick, like it was holding him in place. The sailor, Mullen, stared at the handkerchief in his hand, and then to the woman standing before him. Caramella's face suddenly paled and she reached up to feel the exposed tips of her ears. This was bad, this was very very bad. Kino thought.

Mullen let go of Caramella's handkerchief and slowly took a step back. "E-el-ELF!"

And suddenly all hell broke loose. The scuffle in the corner of the docks, which had previously been ignored, was suddenly the center of attention and all eyes had turned to the Faerie woman. The crowds along the docks, frozen for an instant, suddenly exploded outward like a wave of human flesh. Shrill screams and calls of "Elf! Elf!" Burst across the dock and the surrounding market.

The sailors scattered for their lives, leaving Caramella standing alone, briefly stunned. In the distance, Kino could make out soldiers pressing towards the cause of the disturbance and a shadow suddenly flashed across the docks, looking up, Kino caught sight of a winged serpentine shape silhouetted against the noonday sun. Millia had told them about dragon knights, the mage rider would be at least a skilled line, if not a triangle, and from the air there would be no escape.

The former army player looked to Kino and mouthed 'Millia' before turning on the balls of her feet and breaking into a run, her dress whipping about her. She snatched up her fallen handkerchief before crashing into the confused crowd and making for a side street. The knife user wanted to run after her, but gritted his teeth. That last silent instruction overrode everything else. Caramella was a fighter, and a lot stronger than him, he had to trust her to watch after herself. Running back down the docks to gangway of the Queen Ann, he caught sight of Millia looking about in confusion.

"Kino, what's happening?" The young tutor asked, "Where's Caramella?"

Kino grabbed Millia's hand and began to pull. "She'll be okay, but we have to get out of here, now!"

Kino cut a path into the crowd that was now collapsing into complete chaos, keeping a vice like grip on Millia's hand lest they be separated. The initial wave of living terror that had burst outward from the docks had rebounded as it crashed into the surrounding streets. The people who had seen Caramella first hand had been scattered and formed pockets of shapeless unease among the greater mob shouting cries of "Elf!" and struggling to make their way outward.

From above a pair of dragons swept overhead and circled around. With a sinewy grace, the creatures folded their wings, plummeting from rooftop height and crashing into the ground in a forward run that brought them to a halt behind a troop of soldiers struggling to contain the mob and prevent it from spilling out into the surrounding streets.

"Order! Order!" The man atop the first dragon shouted. "In the name of Lord Cromwell I demand that order be kept! Someone explain what has happened!"

"Sir!" A foot soldier shouted up to the mounted Knight. In one hand he held a primed pistol, the other was clamped around the arm of one of the sailors from earlier, it was Mullen. "This man made the first call. We've an Elf in the city!"

"An Elf?" The Knight said severely. "Sergeant you best explain yourself!"

"Aye Sir, I saw it with my own eyes, ears as pointed as an orc's fangs! Sir Dunwell took flight with his dragon as soon as he saw for himself."

The milling crowd was on the verge of panic as the Knight looked up, shouts beginning to rise among the background murmur. "Order! Order!" The Knight shouted again. "I will have order or I will have you all in chains!" More than the man's voice, the low growling of his mount silenced the crowd. "This is nothing but proof of the weakness of the Royalists, that a heathen Elf could be allowed stand upon the White Isle!"

"Sergeant! I am ordering these docks closed off. Where there is one Elf there may be others! I want these docks searched from top to bottom, nobody leaves until I am satisfied. Fear not Citizens of Albion, we will purge these Elvish dregs and restore the White Isle to its rightful purity!"

"Kino?" Millia whispered, tugging at the boys jacket. "Don't worry about me, you have to escape!" There was fear in her eyes, for herself, and for him.

"No!" Kino hissed. "I can't leave you here! They're going to question everyone, they'll find out that you were with me and Caramella." Kino hissed. The boys eyes darted around, looking for an escape route. The soldiers were pressing in on the crowd, driving them slowly back towards the center of the open market area that fronted the docks. The same scene was being repeated along the other streets, it was like the Reconquista soldiers had experience dealing with riots.

Over the fearful murmurs of the gathered commoners and petty nobles, Kino heard the distant ringing of bells alerting the city to danger and the far off roars of more dragons. He was stunned by how quickly word of danger could spread in a world without phones or message windows. Their window for escape was vanishing with each second. Even if they got past the soldiers, if the city gates were closed, there would be no way to escape without revealing themselves. And once that happened the dragons would be able to run them down.

Kino's eyes at last settled on the far docks and recalling what he had seen when they had first arrived, he grimaced. This was a bad idea, was a very, very bad idea. He'd be endangering lots of innocent people, but if they were captured, he be endangering all of his friends. "Millia, stay here, I'll be right back." The boy pushed Millia into a narrow doorway.

"Kino!"

"Stay here!" He repeated.

Millia began to say something but closed her mouth. "Hurry back."

"Mmm."

With that, the boy ducked back into the crowd, pushing past beneath the notice of the bystanders. As far as anyone was concerned, he was just a street urchin running the docks. He was able to get behind the crowd which was still pressing against the gradual advance of the soldiers. The area around the docks were completely abandoned, even the sailors had evacuated with the calls that an Elf was present.

There along the side of the docks, the wagon loaded with barrels still sat where the bronze skinned man had been offloading it. This was a bad idea, a really bad idea, Kino thought again as crouched past the abandoned stalls. The wagon was still about half loaded. One of the barrels sat fallen on the ground beside it. Kino unsheathed one of his knives, hidden in the sleeve of his shirt, and carefully pried the lid part way open.

Something dark and course spilled dryly from the barrel and for a second he was petrified. He'd watched enough old anime to know what that stuff was and how volatile it could be. Cupping his hands, he scooped up a double handful of the powder and began to work his way back towards the stalls, laying a trail like he had seen in old cartoons and silently praying that this would work like he though it would. Unlike knife fighting and throwing, he didn't have a skill for this.

As the last of the powder spilled from his fingers he fished around in his pocket for the piece of flint he used to start camp fires. Than, flipping his blade he took a breath, said a small prayer to whatever gods presided over gunpowder, and struck the edge of the flint with the back of his knife. A small bust of sparks was produced and spilled over the edge of the powder trail.

The powder ignited with a vicious hiss of sparks and flame. Kino immediately burst into a run. He had no idea how big the explosion would be. Pretty big if movies were anything to go by. But they carried a fair amount aboard ships for their cannons, so it couldn't be that big, right?

No sooner was he pressing back through the crowd than he found out just how wrong he was. The earth shook with a terrible deep boom and a flash of light and heat. Thankfully the cries that followed sounded to be more of fear than pain, but it had the expected effect. The crowd, which the mounted Knights have barely managed to bring to heel, was suddenly driven forward once more, crashing against the startled soldiers and pushing them aside.

Even the mounted Knights were briefly left stunned by the sudden conflagration. This was their chance! Fighting against the human current, Kino struggled back to where he had left Millia.

"Kino!" She cried, and then, "What did you do?!"

"I'll explain once we're out of here!" The boy shouted over the screams and calls of the mob, and grabbing her hand, pulled Millia into the crowd with him. The masses fleeing in terror offered them safety in anonymity, but there was also danger. If they fell, they would be trampled under foot, this wasn't like SAO, town's weren't safe zones. They were in as much danger here as anyplace else.

The mob crashed out onto the surrounding streets. There was more room to move out here, but not by much and the terrified mass of humanity continued to stretch outward, swallowing up everything in its wake. Racing ahead, Kino followed the back alleys they had traced earlier that morning, Millia panting desperately as she struggled to keep up.

"Kino, I can't . . . I can't keep going!" Millia gasped.

"Please, just a little further!" Kino pleaded, he hadn't realized until just then how weak a normal person was. "We're almost to the head of the crowd."

"I've got her." A voice from earlier said at his side, a wiry shoulder slipped beneath Millia's arm, propping her up. Kino looked to up to the _Sabrina's _first mate, William looking down at him. "Quite a ruckus this afternoon eh? Nasty business with that powder, though I suppose old Captain Jarno shouldn't have leaped ship at the first sign of trouble, always secure your powder in the magazines, aye?"

"What are you doing here?" Kino asked distrustfully.

The man smiled, "Aye, you see, I was wondering if that was you that did that with the powder back their? Not that I mind, the Sabrina is safe on the far side of the dock, and her wards have just been maintained." Kino didn't answer, the man was probably fishing for an admission. "I just though I'd be out to collect the Captain you see. Its entirely a coincidence that we're going the same direction. And if it does happen that it was you back there, well it just so happens we're off to somewhere you might lay low."

Finally, looking at Millia who was barely standing, he decided to chance it. "Why?"

Seemingly relieved at the admission the man gave a toothy smile. "Anything that causes Reconquista some hell tickles me." The man admitted, "Besides, I want to know what your story is. That lovely miss you were with made off like a sprite the second people starting shouting Elf."

Kino thought quickly, he could probably defend himself if it came to that. And looking to Millia, he realized that he was asking too much of her, physically, to keep up. "Alright, where is this place we're going?"

William's smile widened. "Aye. We want the Black the Dragon, follow me and we'll be on our way."

Kino found himself being towed along behind William. Even though the man was half carrying Millia he moved with a distance eating stride that was not quite comfortable for Kino to either walk or run. The young knife users eyes darted back and forth, looking for any signs of danger. The root they followed took them further into narrow back alleys, the sky closed in above them as second and third floors leaned over the street, turning back, then back again until sounds of the crowd and even the alarm bells grew distant.

Ahead of them, a sign marked with a coal black snake like dragon breathing flames hung beside a narrow doorway fronting a dingy windowed establishment. They were almost there when a hand stretched out and grabbed hold of William, dragging him into shadows, Millia along with him.

"Millia!" Kino shouted hand going to his knife. Before he had so much as moved, he felt a gentle gust of wind and the cold steel of a blade at his throat. A youthful man had appeared beside him, pale skin covered in grime, bright blue eyes shown beneath raggedly cut, greasy black hair.

"You're concern is commendable, but we mean you no harm." The man murmured softly. Despite the blade he had pressed to Kino's throat, the youth seemed much more focused on Millia who finally finding time to catch her breath.

"Stop!" William hissed quickly. "There's no danger."

"For him maybe." A tall, gray bearded man growled from the shadows. "But you on the other hand, what are you doing leaving the ship? And with these alarms everywhere! The _Sabrina's _your inheritance lad!"

"Ah, sorry Da' . . . Captain." William replied quickly. "But you see, I couldn't leave these two on the docks though, I suspect they've got an interesting story."

"And where did you get it in your head to decide that?" The older man, apparently the Captain of the _Sabrina_ asked.

"You shoulda seen it Da'," William chuckled, "This little urchin set off a half load of gunpowder in the southern plaza. Probably sank old Jarno's ship. Shame he didn't do it inside the magazines.

"The _Anna_ _Sophia_?" The Captain of the _Sabrina _asked. "Well, I've been wishing a pox on that fool since he got issued that letter of mark."

"Righ, right." William said. "In any case, the Rebels are probably still running around like headless fire dragons right now trying to get things under control. I left Johann in charge while I came to get you and then caught sight of these two along the way."

"So that's what's causing the bells? Gunpowder?"

"Actually, the gunpowder came later." William said, "Seems we might have en Elf in the city." He nodded to Kino and Millia. "And these two might know something about it."

Without hesitating the Captain of the _Sabrina _cuffed his first mate across the side of the head. "And your first thought was to bring them here? You bloody idiot! I should'o taken your sister into the skies with me you no good . . ."

"Captain Thorn." The black haired youth said.

"Drinking. . ."

"Captain Thorn." The youth repeated again.

"Womanizing . . ."

"Mister Duran Thorn!" The youth hissed, bringing the Captain of the _Sabrina_'s tirade to a sudden halt.

"It's quite alright." The youth said softly. "Your Son did the right thing." Looking to Millia, the youth smiled warmly. "It's been quite a while, hasn't it Emily?"

'Emily?' Kino thought.

Recognition dawned on the young woman's face. "Prince Wales?"


	22. Chapter 7 Part 3

Halkegenia Online – Chapter 7 – Part 1

Wales Tudor, Crown Prince of Albion, The Prince Valiant, Admiral of the Royal Fleet, at least when there had been a fleet to command, and now disguised as a mercenary in the captured territory of the enemy Rebels, was left at a loss for words as he regarded the two individuals before him. One was a stranger, a boy who couldn't have been more than fourteen, with oddly shaped, dark brown eyes, and hair the color of straw. The other was an old friend, someone he had thought dead with the fall of the Windsor Estates.

"E-excuse me." The strange boy who he had at sword point spoke shyly. "Millia-san? What does he mean by Emily?"

Wales glanced to Emily who gave a small nod of ascent. The Prince lowered and sheathed his blade in a fluid motion. If Emily trusted him, then surely he was no threat.

Emily looked to the boy. "I'm sorry Kino, you've all been so kind to me, and I've only repaid that kindness with deception." Emily gestured to herself. "Millia is an affection from my childhood, and Winfield isn't my surname, it was the surname of my tutor when I was a child." Her expression grew pained. "Let me properly introduce myself, I am Emily Florence Windsor, third daughter of the Count of Windsor."

"Now, the rightful Countess of Windsor." Wales corrected.

Emily turned to him, "Then my father is truly dead?"

Wales refused to look his childhood friend in the eye. "He perished with the Interceptor. He and his crew took two ships of the line with them into the mists."

Emily was left speechless.

"Emily?" Wales asked with concern.

"That . . . Would be my father's way. He always said he would die in the skies."

As Wales reached to place a hand upon her shoulder, the boy, Kino, stepped forward and grabbed Emily's hand, squeezing gently. "I'm sorry about your father." He said.

The sudden contact seemed to console Emily who smiled sadly, tears brimming at the corners of her eyes. "It's alright Kino, I've known for a while now that my father was more likely dead than alive, all but is left is to shed tears for him. But not just yet." Wiping at her eyes, Emily turned back to the Prince, her face betrayed no hint of the turmoil that must surely be hidden beneath the surface. "Wales, just what are you doing in York? Are you trying to get yourself captured by the Rebels?"

Hearing the bossy undertones in the woman's voice, Wales grinned, "Quite the contrary, I'm here on a mission." He gestured to the Captain of the Sabrina. "Captain Thorn here is sympathetic to our cause."

The Elder Thorn nodded gruffly. Truthfully his reasons for aiding the Royalists were ones of revenge. A half Germanian, his cousins had been commoner retainers loyal to the Royalists and his brother an Albionese Priest who had spoken out once too often against Lord Cromwell. They had been slaughtered to the last in Reconquista's march across the White Isle. A merchant be inclination, Captain Thorn had set about investing his fortunes in spite. Bringing the Royalists news of Reconquista supply shipments and using his contacts to learn of the fleet's patrol routes. It was this information that had allowed the Eagle alone to severely curtail the shipment of supplies into the White Isle.

"So, Mil- Emily-san is really a Countess?" Kino asked.

"She will be, if ever the Rebels are defeated." Wales said with more confidence than he felt. "Allow me to introduce myself, as Emily has already said, I am Prince Wales Tudor, or the Prince Valiant to those who prefer it. Thank you for watching after my cousin." He smiled, "I know she can be quite a handful."

"Y-your cousin?" Kino asked.

"Yes, why don't you go shouting your name and family history on an open street for any passing Rebel to hear." Captain Thorn growled as his eyes darted up and down the street. This far back, the dark alleyways were nearly deserted, but even now the sound of the still ringing alarm bells could be distantly heard. The old sailor had let go of his son and was now appraising the two new arrivals. "Best be getting back inside then, and then these two can explain everything about Elves and gunpowder."

Kino shook his head suddenly. "There's no time! Millia-san . . . Emily-san?" Kino asked.

"Yes?" Emily replied.

"You'll be safe with these people, right? They'll protect you?" The boys eyes were dark and serious, and Wales suspected, older than they should have been. This boy was not as innocent as he looked.

Emily didn't answer at first, instead looking first to Wales and then Thorn and Son.

"It's not our policy to let a Lady come to harm." Captain Thorn assured, jabbing his son in the side, Thorn the younger gave a sound of agreement.

"I will vouch for the honor of these men." Wales said to Emily.

The boy looked relieved and nodded slowly to himself. "Then, Emily-san, please stay with these people for now. I have to go help Caramella-san."

Emily was suddenly all motion, reaching out to grab the boy shoulder. "No, Kino that's too dangerous! You saw the skies, they've set dragons out after her!"

Kino shook his head, "I know, that's why I can't leave her like this, Caramella-san is in danger because of my mistake. If something happens, please find Asuna-sama and tell her that the sailors on the docks were talking about Faeries in Tristain."

Wales felt his brows rise at this nonsensical comment and gave Emily a questioning look. The woman's only response was a pleading glance. Certainly if these circumstances were half as complicated as they appeared it would prove to be quite a story.

"Aye boy, you want to save your friend, I can fathom that." Captain Thorn said. "But we run a tight operation here. You've seen the Prince here and you've seen me in his company. Now come along and we'll . . ." As the Captain made to grab Kino by the shoulder, the boy's small frame skipped back out of reach.

Kino smiled. "Take care, Millia-chan." And then in a blink he was sprinting away, not just sprinting, almost flying. If Wale's didn't know better, he'd have thought the boy a wind mage under the influence of a featherweight spell, but he had seen no focus and nothing to imply he had used magic. Before Kino had gone even a dozen steps Wales summoned forth a cantrip, a burst of compressed wind catching the boy in the legs by surprise and throwing him to the ground with a skid.

Captain Thorn drew and leveled a pistol on the child's prone figure. "Hold still boy! I don't want to shoot at a child, but you're fixing to get yourself killed either way."

"Don't, Please!" Emily shouted, pulling at the arm of the Captain of the Sabrina.

The boy struggled back to his feet. "Don't stop me! This is my fault, I can't leave Caramella out there alone. They're calling her and Elf." The boy looked to be near tears. "They're going to kill her. Because of me!" The boy reached into his shirt sleeve, but froze as he found a second pistol, drawn by Thorn the younger, leveled on him.

"You're brave lad. You do your friends proud, but how about you cool your heels."

"Would you care to explain. Emily?" Wales asked softly.

Emily looked pensive. Even when they had been children, she had never been good at hiding things.

"Emily."

"They are not what you think." She said quickly. "That is, they are not what Reconquista will claim they are."

Wales studied Emily's face carefully. "And what will Reconquista claim, may I ask?"

"They'll claim," Emily hesitated and then began again. "They'll say that they are Elves."

"Elves?" Wales asked, his head whipping back to Kino. The idea that the small boy might be one of enemies of Brimir seemed absurd.

"But they're not, they're . . . I'm not sure, but I think they may really be Faeries. Like the fables of Queen Medb. At least, I've allowed myself to hope that they are a sign." Stepping forward, Emily placed her hands against Wales' chest and looked up at him seriously. Where had this determination come from? Wales wondered, the woman before him seemed to have lost some of the frailness of the sheltered girl she had once been. Always as children when she had played with him and his elder brothers, she had trailed along, hungry for adventure but too frightened to lead the way, now however. "They saved me from Rebel mercenaries and took me in. They may look like Elves, but I swear by the Founder that they are not. That's why," She breathed, "That's why if there is anything you can do, you must help them."

Wales was speechless for far too long. "Faeries, Aye?" Captain Thorn asked. "I wonder if there's some truth to that."

"You've heard something?" Wales asked.

"Aye, from the other Captains. Rumors and hearsay. Lights over a new Isle along the coast of Tristain, and stories of winged demi humans. Though I paid it little mind as it was coming from that drunkard Captain of the Queen Ann." The Elder Thorn said.

Wales looked from the Captain, to Emily, and then back down the alleyway, mind working quickly. The Prince Valiant was not stupid. Stupid men did not live long in a war like this, they were killed. Many of them by Wales himself by either wand or by cannon. Even so, he looked to Emily, who by all reason should be dead and yet had arrived in his company unharmed across a third the length of the white Isle. With a deep sigh the Prince nodded to Captain Thorn. "Captain, can I ask that you keep Emily safe for me."

"Oy, you too now? I thought the House of Air had avoided stupidity in their line. You know, the Rebels will be lined up to take the Prince of Air as their prisoner."

The belittling remark by the Captain of the Sabrina went unanswered by the Prince Valiant. "Perhaps, but no one will think anything of a filthy mercenary in a town full of the same, and there may yet be something I can do without exposing myself."

"Wales?" Emily asked, startled as he stepped away. "What are you doing?"

"As you wished my dear cousin." Wales gave a small bow. "I cannot say what help I might be, but if it is within my power, I will deliver your friends to safety."

A look of disbelief passed across the face of Kino, the boy bowed deeply. "Thank you! Please, save Caramella-san!"

"Wales, that's insane!" Emily struggled not to shout. "The Royalists can't risk you! And how would you find her now? York is a labyrinth in the midst of total chaos and Caramella runs like the wind itself!"

"The Royalists cannot risk a cowardly prince either." He countered. "I will take your word that this is an omen. As for finding her, from the sound of it, I need merely follow the dragons." Turning to Kino he spoke gravely. "You wish to save your friend and that does you credit. But know that this is dangerous. Stay here with Emily or come with me, in either case I cannot be responsible for your life."

Kino didn't reply with with words, instead, he removed the wide brimmed farmers hat from his head, revealing a dark knit cap. Wales hissed softly as he saw the boys ears before Kino pulled the cap down over them. The look in the boys eyes was all the answer he needed.

"Then stay with me. And do exactly as I say."

"Mmm."

"Seeing as you're set on this." Captain Thorn said. "I'll wish you luck now. You'll certainly need it."

Wales gave the Captain a grateful look and then he was off at a run, Kino leading the way. The boy was already pulling ahead, Wales would have to use a spell just to speed his movements enough to keep up.

At his back he heard a cry, "Foolish Boy!"

He grinned, perhaps, for all he'd learned he was still a fool. "Scared Mouse!" He shouted back and then the alleyway curved and they were lost to his sight.

_

Caramella dodged left down another alleyway and cursed as it turned into a dead end. The cries of foot soldiers came from the mouth of the alley. To her left stood a door, without any hesitation she charged into it, leading with her right shoulder. Caramella wasn't a particularly large person, but her body was strong and tough beyond any logic. The door buckled inward, a lock and deadbolt tearing from the wall as she charged into the back of an establishment, a tavern from the smell of it and the sawdust that lined the floor.

Startled guests stumbled up from their seats as she bolted through the room and crashed back out onto the main street through the front door. She was ahead of the riots now, but not ahead of the confusion. Bells were ringing all across the city and people were looking about for the sign of the disturbance. Caramella wouldn't have believed word of danger could spread so quickly without modern technology, but she guessed she shouldn't have been surprised. Where there was a need, there was a way.

A shadow swept across the street. From high above, the lithe form a dragon glided and circled back around. The lizard and its rider seemed reluctant to launch any attacks themselves lest they harm the bystanders. Instead, dragon and knight seemed content to circle above, and Caramella suspected, direct the ground forces by means of magic. It reminded her of the Mechanical Insect Queen floor boss back on Aincrad's lower levels. Which meant the guy up top aggroing all of the foot patrols was either a total pussy or a whole other boss in his own right. In either case, the threat the dragon represented was enough to keep her down on the streets where she would be a harder target.

"There she is!" A guard shouted to his companions as they spilled from another sides street. The shield and sword user reached for the knife hidden in the bow of her dress and then thought better of it. 'I really wish I had a sword right now!' The men ahead of her had formed into a line and were leveling halberds to block her path.

Caramella leaped up onto an awning, bypassing the men and the street all together while staying below the level of the rooftops. Leaping from signs to lamp posts she made good time and actually started to believe she could make it to the gates. There was a loud crack, and something whistled past her, smashing into the second story of the building beside her in a burst of wood splinters. Down on the ground a Reconquista soldier was already drawing another pistol while the men beside him leveled crossbows and long arms.

'Ok, not such a good idea.' She thought, dropping down from the side of the building and diving onto another side street. She crashed face first into the steel chest plat of a burly soldier.

"I've got her!" The man roared, before he could say anything else, Caramella delivered a vicious right hook and felt a satisfying crunch as she shattered the man's jaw.

"I'll take this, thank you much." Caramella said as she yanked the fallen man's sword from its scabbard, a utilitarian one handed blade, it felt like an old friend. With the transference, Caramella had gained an innate understanding of how to handle a bladed weapon, not just the sword specific effects of the system auto assist, even so, she felt better with a sword in her hand than one of Kino's knives.

She rushed past the crowds on the side street and then was back above them, jumping along narrow posts sticking from the side of one building before switching to the opposite side, dropping back down to street level as she emerged onto another wide street. As long as she could keep the soldiers from getting a clear shot and kept moving she still had a chance. Just as long as she didn't run into a ma-

No sooner had the though begun to form then Caramella felt a stinging like a fully body belly flop. She was picked up from her feet and driven bodily into the wall beside her, the force of the blow causing her to collapse in a heap. She sucked in a breath of air and saw the man at the lead of the latest group of soldier waving a staff. A staff? Not good! She staggered to her feet and rolled to the side as another blast of air tore past her and gave the whitewashed wooden building beside her a new floor to ceiling window.

Another pair of mages appeared from a side street, and then a fourth, supported by at least a dozen soldiers apiece. When they weren't trying to pummel her or cage her in with walls of air, she was assaulted by ear splitting shouts that made her brains want to burst from her skull. Yet for some reason, the mages weren't resorting to lethal attacks. It took longer than it should have for her to realize what they were trying to do. They were corralling her. That wasn't good. It meant either they were driving her to someplace where they could finish her off, or else, someplace where they could capture her.

So Caramella did the one thing she could, she ran, she ran us fast as she could, given the crowded streets and constantly appearing roadblocks. She left the foot soldiers behind, but the wind mages were keeping up somehow, probably the same way they were coordinating all of this, magic. As if to confirm her suspicions, more mages appeared ahead of her, this was probably why she hadn't seen any earlier. The guy up above on the dragon had been playing the long game, getting the mages on the ground in position to encircle her.

Suddenly, Caramella felt the air around her beginning to press down, hard. She stumbled and nearly fell to her knees. "What the hell!" She was driven to a stop, her body trembling as she fought just to stay upright. A troop of foot soldiers was approaching, swords drawn, and beyond them a quartet of mages were chanting, casting one after another. She felt the pressure abate for a moment before it crashed back down, nearly driving her to her knees, and then doubled again.

"Surround her for now!" One of the soldiers, a noncom, he had that look no matter what time period or world this was, cocked his head to the side as if listening to a distant voice. The man gave an exaggerated nod, whether to himself or to the dragon knight up above, Caramella couldn't say. "We have an earth mage on the way to form proper restraints."

"No!" Caramella shrieked, fighting to stand. Another of the mages completed his incantation and Caramella had to fight just to keep from crashing to the ground. It couldn't end like this, not like this! She felt tears of anger and fear burning a path down her face. Her stamina was being drained away like an HP gauge under the effects of a poison type attack. And knew with grim finality, that if she hit the ground, she wasn't going to be able to get back up. 'Kino, Millia, someone, please, help me, anyone . . .'

"If you can still stand. You'll have a window to move in ten seconds." Caramella's eyes widened and darted about, looking for the source of the voice. But no one was speaking to her, rather, she felt it, like it was inside her head with her own monologue. She wondered if this was some last desperate delusion summoned by her own mind. "There's a storm drain that connects to a lower street about twenty mails ahead of you on the left. Take that and head south, you'll be covered from the air for a few minutes."

As soon as the voice vanished, one of the mages that was standing back, casting the spell that pinned her in place, suddenly fell over. Judging by the knife lodged firmly in his back, he wouldn't be getting back up.

The sudden demise of one of their fellows distracted the other mages, and for a precious moment the spell holding her in place weakened. Caramella pushed off with hands and feet, sprinting forward. Twenty mails, that was about thirteen meters, she thought. Which would mean . . . here! A narrow stone trench cut between two building, plummeted steeply to a lower street. Caramella skidded down the drain, slipping on dried moss, and loose stones and stumbling out onto a heavily over built street.

The voice in her head. Had she really just called it that? Had been right, there was no way she going to be seen from the air. The second and third floors of the buildings rose up and were built inward so that only a narrow sliver of sky could be seen. Caramella was now left with a dilemma. The voice had advised she head back south, but the city gates were to the north west. Of course, she didn't know how to get there without getting corralled again. And also, the way that mage had been killed. The knife stuck with her, she was almost certain it had been one of Kino's. The shouts from the above forced her to decide, she bolted south. Pushing past confused onlooker and heading back in the direction of the chaos from earlier.

She was let out onto a small market fronting a single empty slip. Caramella was starting to wonder if she should really have listened to the voice when suddenly she heard it whispering once again. "Now, head east along the dock, there should be a narrow footpath that leads down to a terrace. It's hard to see from the streets. We'll be there to collect you shortly."

'We?' Caramella wondered. But there was no time. Narrow footpath turned out to by the understatement of the century. A thin stone walkway clinging to the outside perimeter of one of the buildings that fronted the edge of the cliffs. Hadn't these people ever heard of guard rails? She cursed under her breath as she peaked over the edge and saw the river running by far below as it winded its way towards the edge of Albion.

She was halfway along the footpath when she heard more shouts and saw another patrol, about a dozen, chasing after her. She swore that she would never go anyplace high ever again and cursed Kimura for not knowing how to teach them to use their wings. How ridiculous was that? This body was supposed to have wings and yet she was at risk of plummeting to her death! At least it would, relatively, quick. As opposed to falling off the side of the White Isle all together.

The path widened ahead of her and she found herself on a semi circular platform hanging out over the side of the cliffs. She looked about desperately, this had to be the place, but there was no sign of anyone. The sound of heavy boots came from the along the footpath and from beneath a broad archway that served as the main entrance to the terrace. Soldiers, two dozen in all, came into view, followed closely by a pair of mages. If she tried to jump, one of them would probably blast her off the side of the cliff. Caramella found herself with her back to the wall as it were, leveling her sword to fight, bitterly resigned. If she was going to go down, she was going to go down swinging.

"Signal for Sir Dunwell." One of the mages said to his companion who swiftly raised his staff and with a short chant called forth a jet of mist that shot high into the air. From a dragon, you'd have to be an idiot to miss it. "We have you surrounded, there's no escape." The mage spat. "Submit now and the Founder's mercy will be granted to you."

'Yeah right.' She thought. Then the voice was rattling around in her head again. Now that she had time to pay attention, she could sense the faint vibration along her jaw line. "I know you've no reason to trust." The voice said. "But if you wish to live, then play along, this will endanger all of us if you disobey! If you understand, cock your head to your left."

Breathing heavily, Caramella tilted her head to the left, sweeping her eyes across the crowd. Two figures struggled to the front of the mercenary formation, a filthy looking young man in mismatched armor with greasy black hair, and a smaller cloaked figure.

"Aye! What are you two doing?" One of the mages shouted.

The black haired youth took a deep breath and began to belt out. "Oy, she's just a Gel', we can take her, Elf'er not! Come on Stumpy, It'll be bonus for us if we capture'r alive!"

The hooded figure stiffened at the name but stepped forward, drawing a familiar knife as the man beside him drew out his sword. 'Kino.' Caramella thought, some of the tension draining, the boy might have been a bit thick, but at least it meant this probably wasn't a trap. As if to confirm, the dark haired youth gave a small wink as he leveled his sword.

"You fool! That is an Elf, you commoner sell sword!" The mage spat. "I order you to step back at once!"

The boy thrust forward with his sword, a smooth strike that Caramella batted aside with ease before stepping forward to counter. He wasn't really trying to cut her, he would have probably failed miserably at that, his swordsmanship was on par with her own, but he didn't have her strength or raw speed. Rather, he dashed in an out to keep her distracted while Kino worked his way behind her as they neared the edge of the terrace. To the onlookers it would appear he was giving the 'Elf' a good fight. The foot soldiers were in fact cheering as the mages both screamed for order. Suddenly the youth rushed in, locking swords with her and tried to drive her back. This close, she could see his clear blue eyes locking with her own. "Listen closely, it is absolutely essential, do not block my next strike!" There was only an instant to decide, but she was too far in to back out now.

Nodding. their blades broke contact, the youth skirting around her to switch places, so that Caramella's sword arm was facing the cliffs. With a flourish the boy rushed in once more, and Caramella left him an opening in her guard. She hissed as she felt cold steel barely graze the size of her stomach. At the same time the youth hooked his free arm around her own blade and let out a gasp. From the perspective of the onlooker's it would appear they had run each other through.

"She 'as me!" The youth cried. "A curse upon you Elven wench!" The boy gave a violent push and lurched to the side. Caramella felt her hip pressing against the low lip of the terrace, eyes going wide. Suddenly she felt Kino crashing into her, but instead of pulling her back from the edge, he pushed. Caramella felt her center of gravity slowly shifting out, out, out. Kino pulled, but too late, he was dragged along with her. And then her stomach was fighting to come up out of her throat as the abyss yawned out to meet her. Caramella screamed, cursing her own stupidity, and cursing the youth who had just killed them."

_

As soon as they were over the edge of the terrace, Wales released his sword and pulled out the wand he had hidden upon his person. He had only a few bare moments to arrest their descent and this required precision. Truthfully he had not planned something so daring, but when it became apparent that the woman, Caramella, was truly cornered, it had been the only thing left to try. He was not attempting to levitate them, but rather to slow them enough for their fall into the river to be survivable. The task was complicated by the terrified woman screaming beside him. Though to be fair, he would be screaming too if he thought he was plummeting to his death.

Wales wrapped one arm tightly around the woman's waist. She tried to struggle but Kino was able to get his arms around her and held on tightly. Wales incanted with a short wave of his wand, the spell was hardly even a cantrip, but he felt their fall abating ever so slightly. It would not be a pleasant landing, but the river Fosse deepened here, they would survive, probably.

The water struck him like a body blow and suddenly the Prince lost his grip on Caramella and Kino. All was darkness for one brief moment before Wales began to kick and spin about, disoriented. Opening his eyes, he release his breath and chased the bubbles for the surface. His head broke the surface of the river with a gasp and he found that he was already some distance from where they had fallen, the terrace already curving out of view as the River Fosse ran deep and swift for the edge.

To his left he saw Kino and Caramella rise to the surface, both of them coughing and gasping for air. Wales swam quickly perpendicular to the current. There wasn't much time before they reached the edge spill, and though he had kept a hand on his wand, he was too busy keeping his own head above water to properly use it.

Caramella let out a shout of outrage when she saw him swimming near. "Quickly!" Wales shouted, "Make for the banks here!" Not far past this point, the Fosse would begin to plunge downwards into rapids and both banks would turn to sheer cliffs.

Whatever misgivings the woman, rightly, had about him at the moment. She proved to be no fool and was already doing as he asked. Despite her dress hampering her, she proved a startlingly powerful swimmer and even now was pulling ahead of both Wales and Kino with short determined strokes. Finally, they fought their way ashore coming to stand upon the Fosse's gravelly banks.

From the quiet of the shore, Wales could hear the distant alarms bells of the city. Turning to his new companions, he found himself with the time to finally examine them. His eyes naturally turned to Caramella and the delicately pointed ears that protruded from her head. It was all too easy to attach the title of Elf to the woman for those ears alone. And yet, Emily insisted she was not. Given the utter lack of magic she had exhibited so far, Wales was inclined to agree. Surely a powerful magic user would have used every ability at their disposal to escape. And yet Caramella had nearly been captured by a handful of dot and line mages working in concert.

The woman, still catching her breath, noticed Wales gaze and suddenly stood up straight, placing hands on hips. "You freaking idiot!" Caramella spluttered, the comment directed at Wales. "You could've gotten us killed! Where did Kino dig you up?"

Surprised by such a blunt comment coming from the fairer sex, Wales at first was unsure of how to reply. Fortunately, Kino came to his aid a moment later. "It was the only thing we could think of." He defended.

"And you! I told you to watch after Millia!" The woman snapped, looking furious.

"Emily, Millia, is safe for now, of that I promise." Wales replied.

"Oh? And why the hell should I trust you?" The woman snapped.

"He's her cousin, and a Prince!" Kino said.

"A Prince?" The woman didn't seem to believe it. Kino nodded fervently, "Millia knows him, and she trusts him, we left her with people who will be able to keep her safe."

The woman's anger guttered out as she appraised the boy's words and she let out a sigh. "You're sure, Kino?"

"I'm pretty sure." He said carefully. "But everything went crazy really fast. I'll tell you all about it once we're away from here."

Caramella nodded slowly and then suddenly wrapped her arms tightly around the boy. "Jeez, how can such a little kid be such a big idiot?" She mumbled and rubbed at her eyes. Then, looking back to Wales, "Thanks, for the rescue." She said gruffly, looking uncomfortable.

"It was nothing at all." The Prince replied, sensing that this was the closest thing he would get to an apology. "But we truly must be going." He said and pointed to the skies. Up above, three sinewy shapes were sweeping out over the city and down along the river Fosse. No doubt searching for the corpse of the 'Elf'. Wales cursed inwardly, dragon knights atop fire drakes. He hadn't expected them to arrive so quickly. Even if they made it into the concealment of the forest, there would be little safety. Fire dragons to ignite foliage, and wind mages to drive the flames where they pleased, a powerful combination, and one that had driven more than a few fleeing Royalists to their deaths.

They broke into a run. So long as they weren't spotted there was still a chance of escape. But alas, that was not to be. A call came from above and the grass before them was flattened out by a blast of air. Wales craned his neck to see the dragon knights banking smoothly in formation.

Wales swung about and cast a short air jet aimed at the lead drake's wings. The beast staggered in the air, but it was a trained war mount with a skilled rider and quickly recovered. The response from the Knight atop the creatures was a good deal more lethal, a vortex of air formed as the knight made his closest approach and shaped itself into an elongated spear that shot forth from his cane. Wales was already countering, catching the spear and diffusing it back into its component air streams, he swept the currents around himself and his companions, combining it with his own willpower to produce a more diffused vortex that mixed with the dirt and sand about them and swept up into the path of the following knights.

The Knights were unfazed by the attack, simply sweeping the dust storm from their paths with their own wand-canes. But in doing so they lost their opportunity to attack on this pass and Wales efforts bought him and his companions a few precious seconds.

"Damn, don't you have anything like a tornado spell or something that can knock one of those things out of the air?" Caramella shouted.

"If only!" Wales spat back. "Their riders are mages of air of at least high line and would surely counter! We'd need to distract and overwhelm them with multiple ranged attacks in concert."

"Kino?" Caramella questioned.

"One knife left!" The boy drew a small, lethal looking dagger from his pocket. Wales had already seen what the boy could do at range with his blades and been suitably impressed, alas, against an alert line mage, even a passive wind barrier would stop such an attack.

"We would need something heavier!" Wales replied.

"Well, I could always jump at them with my fists!" Caramella shouted angrily, clearly resenting the loss of her captured sword in their fall.

"Concentrate on running!" Kino said, "They're coming back for another pass!"

"At least they want you alive." Wales said, "Else they would surely have set their mounts upon us."

Wales felt the hairs on his neck stand on end as a terrible dry heat erupted behind them, followed by one of the dragon knights sweeping once more overhead, streamers of fire still pouring from his drake's mouth.

Caramella groaned, suddenly the woman redoubled her efforts, snatching up Wales who had been keeping pace with a feather weight spell and leaning into a full tilted sprint. "This . . . is . . . stupid!" She panted.

Wales thought quickly, as ridiculous as this arrangement was, it meant he could concentrate on casting rather than keeping pace with his companions. "Keep steady!" Wales shouted as he aimed over Caramella's shoulder and let fly with an air spear of his own, forcing the second knight to concentrate on defending himself and his mount rather than directing the dragon's breath attack.

They were almost to the nearest of the tree's now, and though they would still be in danger once they were in the forest, it was possible that they could get ahead of the Knights and use the fires for cover. A plan was forming in Wales' mind. From the lay of the land, there was a small tributary of the Fosse that ran through these woods. If they could get there, they might save themselves, and have a path to escape. Then there was no time left to think as he parried the third Knight's attack, converting it into a gale to drive back the flames breathed by his dragon.

Wales was a skilled triangle of air, and battle tested, only the element of surprise would allow another mage to best him in single combat, but even he couldn't keep this up for much longer.

The Knights above were quickly tiring of their lack of success and split apart, each beginning to circle in a different direction. Wale's grimaced, an all range attack, normally it was a tactic used against small forts or powerful mage's on horseback, against a single triangle it was obscene overkill.

"Miss Caramella, you may wish to part company with me here." Wales said. "If we scatter, there may be a chance for us to escape."  
"Gah! What are you saying?" The woman snapped. "You're the only one who can counter attack so they'll go for you first. Damn it, letting an idiot like you die would just leave a bad taste in my mouth!"

The dragons began their arc inwards from three of the four cardinal directions, North, East, and West. Wales prepared to summon an air shield, it wouldn't stop a concentrated attack, but might save them if the drakes were allowed to lead with their flames.

As the lead rider banked in over the forests to their left, Wales caught sight of something moving like a comet from the corner of his eye. Looking right he nearly missed it as two shapes streaked into the sky in a shallow arc that intercepted with the lead knight. Not expecting the sudden attack, the Knight had only a moment to respond, blasting one of shapes with a cantrip gale, before bringing his wand-cane up in a guard as the second shape crashed into him and swept him from his mount in a single strike.

The first shape, now resolved into a petite cloaked figure, hit the ground with a skid as it dug in its feet, coming to a halt in a cloud of dust only a scant few mails from Wales, Caramella, and Kino and took a guard stance, wielding a rapier of gleaming silver white.

The mage knight let out a roar of fear and rage as he plummeted thirty odd mails from the sky, his attacker locking swords with his cane and preventing him from casting a levitation spell as they crashed into the ground. The dragon, startled and thrown off balance by the loss of its rider, came to the ground in a rough landing, releasing a low roar. Wales grimaced, if well trained, the dragon would act almost akin to a familiar and move to attack anyone who threatened its handler.

"Caramella, Kino, where is Millia?" The cloaked figure asked, the voice was soft and feminine but at the moment contained an edge of steel more at place on the battlefield.

"She's safe." Kino replied.

The figure didn't ask for any further confirmation, instead simply nodded. "Thank heavens," she said, before turning to the fire dragon that was slowly standing up on all four of its powerful legs, hissing and roaring as its attention turned to its fallen rider. Taking a ready stance with her rapier, the cloaked girl glanced to Wales. "I saw you fighting these monsters while we ran. Do they have any weak points that I should aim for?"

As a Royal Son, Wales had been expected to learn the basics of handling a mount and that meant knowing of their training and how to deal with an out of control drake. Most of those techniques were meant for a rider to put down his own beast if need be. He had never heard of any secret to slaying a dragon on foot save ample magic and cannon. But then he considered the way this stranger had moved just a moment before. "At the base of the skull, behind the crest, there is a place where the skull and spine meet. Strike deeply there and you will kill it almost instantly. Other than that, the based of the wings, behind the joint."

The figure nodded and then seemed not so much to move, as to blink, to be someplace else between the time that Wales realized she had moved and found her again. The dragon, barring down on its fallen rider and his assailant whipped around as the cloaked girl landed on its back, bucking violently. The girl crouched down, driving her rapier true through the stem of the left wing. The dragon released a roar of pain as its wing fell to the ground limply. She had severed the tendon with a single strike?!

The remaining knights were rushing in as one, closing on the girl, intent of incinerating her. "Arguile, switch!" The girl shouted to her companion from the back of the crippled dragon.

The lead remaining dragon spat a jet of fire that washed across the flank of its crippled fellow. The grounded drake roared in pain, but a brief jet would do its scaly hide no permanent harm.

"Asuna-sama!" Kino shouted at Wales' side. Then, above the wash of flame, Wales saw the cloaked figure descending in an arc that intersected flawlessly with the neck of the second drake. Dazzled by his mounts flames, the rider didn't see her until she was literally in front of him. Conditioned to let its rider deal with such nuisances while in flight, the dragon died almost instantly as the girl turned and plunged her rapier into the weak point at the base of its skull. The mage knight shouted in surprise as she dashed past him, racing along the spine and tale of his mortally stricken mount and then leaped once more into the open sky.

The second dragon began to slowly list and fall from the sky, its rider leaping clear and casting a levitation spell. Wales didn't give him a chance to land. Bringing up his own wand he enjoyed the luxury of time as the man descended to incant an air dervish. Distracted by his near death, the man never saw the ball of writhing knife like air that severed his wand arm in a spray of gore and sent him screaming to his death.

Down to only a single Knight, the last mage having witnessed the deaths of his fellows, moved only to defend himself and brake off his run. An air whip tore loose from his wand-cane, swiping through the sky in an attempt to bat aside the impossible cloaked figure who had already crippled one dragon and slain a second in the space of only a few heartbeats.

The girl twisted in midair, missing the wind whip which grabbed at her cloak, tearing it loose. The Prince of Air felt a sense of utter disbelief strike him as the form of the impossible swordswoman was finally revealed. Beautiful hazel hair shone lustrously, whipping about in the airstream as she descended, and from her back stretched wings of white, glowing with a pure inner light. For one moment the being before him was not a girl, or even a Faerie, but something else. Wings raked back, she was an embodiment of utter focus, an extension of the blade in her hand which seemed to glow as it caught the afternoon sun. The last mage was slain instantly, the rapier wielder's blade plunging from above through his chest and into his heart.

The man fell from his mount with only a gurgling scream and once again the girl clipped the wings of a dragon, this time aiming for the thin membrane, forcing the stricken beast to land. No sooner had it done so then she rushed down its neck and finished it once again with a blow to the base of the skull. The drake fell to the ground, stumbling once as animal reflexes continue to operate, before crashing down heavily, digging a rut into the earth. Only then did she drop down easily from the slain beast's neck, wiping her blade on a rag before re-sheathing it in a graceful motion.

Wales shuddered. She was truly only a girl, her delicate features were exotic, but their softness reminded him very much of his beloved Henrietta. He could not imagine how such a face could belong to someone who could do what he had just witnessed. The girl glanced over her back in the direction of the first fallen dragon. In the midst of her own aerial battle, her companion had finished the stricken dragon with several powerful strokes of his two handed sword. The drake lay, growling in a labored fashion as its life blood drained from deep gashes along its throat. Finally, the beast's eyes closed and it became still.

All was silence for a time. Then, Wales heard a hissed intake of air from the girl. She stood trembling, for a moment, hand clutched tightly around the hilt of her rapier. Then, slowly, her body loosened, the wings on her back sinking down until they nearly brushed the earth. She turned back slowly to face them. Expression cool.

Wales was left speechless, finally, something in him bubbled up and he almost laughed at the insanity of it all. He'd begun this day, setting out to buy his Royalists a few more days of life, and now he had met a Faerie and saved her life at the side of another, only to be saved himself by a third and forth. One of them, no more than girl, having slain two dragons before his very eyes in the space of only a handful of heartbeats. Was this what had given Emily such hope?

Cocking her head, the girl gave Wales a questioning look.

"My sincerest apologies." Wales bowed, "Forgive me, but . . . " He breathed slowly, "You wouldn't happen to by the Faerie Queen, would you?"

The girl's eyes widened and her face turned dark. Truly, Wales didn't know what he did to receive such a slap.

_

Looking down upon the scene of the battle from atop a powerful drake of wind, the Knight listened dispassionately to the report provided by his subordinate. Three fire dragons and their riders slain. What was stranger, the dragons had all been killed by sword strikes, in two cases, surgically applied at an angle that could only be achieved by the riders themselves. He had no doubt that this was connected to the woman spotted in the southern dock plaza. His eyes narrowed. She had escaped him, but only with the aid of accomplices.

"Very well Sergeant, see to the bodies of the Knights, we'll send for laborers to render down the dragons for reagents."

"Yes, Sir Dunwell!" The Sergeant, a skilled commoner equipped in fine gear for one his station saluted and turned to relay the orders.

"Kyuii!" The Drake let out the soft cry unique to wind dragons, the beast seemed almost to be morning her fallen brothers and sisters.

"There, there." Dunwell rubbed his mounts neck gently. "There's nothing to fear Scirroco."

Even as spoke comforting words to his familiar he was already thinking of his next step. That woman, Elf, half Elf, Spirit, whatever she was, she had not been human, and if this was the result of her, or others like her, then it was a matter that would need dealing with.

"Sir Wells." Sir Dunwell turned to his fellow knight, mounted on a smaller fire dragon.

"Sir?"

"Send message to Lord Cromwell. By order of Reconquista's Glorious Inquisition, I will be directing this matter myself."


	23. Chapter 8 Part 1

-THANK YOU FOR NOTICING THIS NOTICE!

I thought I'd warn everyone that you'll probably laugh your assess off or want to skewer the author for the ending of this snip. But please trust me to continue to defy expectations (While also hitting every trope and cliche I can think of 0_- ) believe me, it'll be good, probably.

So as usual leave comments.

Halkegenia Online-Chapter 8- Part 1

Louise Francois LeBlanc De La Valliere, third daughter of the Valliere family, and now a special student attending at the pleasure of the Headmaster of the Tristain Academy of Magic, struggled to hold in her irritation.

When she had woken to learn that she had not only failed to summon a familiar, but nearly killed herself from willpower exhaustion, she had been crushed. All of her efforts to live up to her family's expectations, to the high standard set by her mother and eldest sister, had seemed to vanish in a puff of smoke. This had soon been replaced with growing dread at facing her mother and explaining her failure.

Then, suddenly, her salvation had appeared as if from nowhere. An offer from the Headmaster himself to continue her studies under special supervision. Not only was she being allowed to stay, but she was being given a chance to learn what was wrong with her magic. Louise had naturally leaped at the opportunity, some of her boundless determination returning. Things would be different this time, she would approach the problem from a new angle, and with the help of a skilled instructor. She would succeed.

Of course, Louise had not known what to expect from her new curriculum. She had thought it might be something exotic, after all, rumors were that Old Osmond had spent much of his life collecting magical techniques from across the lands of Halkegenia and beyond. There were even rumors, ridiculous ones, that he was a square of more than one element. Or perhaps it would be something novel, as the incessantly inquisitive Professor Colbert had been assigned to serve as her mentor.

The reality had been rather different. "This . . . This is . . . First year curriculum?" Louise stammered in disbelief. Before her sat a pile of basic magical texts and references, all of them familiar to her. Of course they would be familiar, they had been sitting on the bookshelf of her room for nearly two years. Most academy students arrived with some prior training and Louise was no different in that regard, but the first year studies heavily emphasized the basic theory and application of magic. The mechanics upon which the students would later build on their latent abilities. There really was no better place to start. And Louise could have grudgingly accepted this logic if not for her tutors.

Professor Colbert might have been her mentor, but he had other duties to see to, not the least of which was serving as a mediator in the ongoing negotiations with the Faeries. In the mean time, three other students had volunteered, or been volunteered, it was difficult to say which. To serve as her tutors.

"Come on Valliere, there's no need to be like that." Kirche Von Zerbst said. "After all, you always have your head in these books, which is why you never found yourself a man, I bet you can list off the chapters with your eyes closed."

"Back to basics." The small, blue haired girl, Tabitha, said.

"Indeed, how can you expect to build yourself up from a weak foundation, Zero." Guiche De Gramont added, flicking his rose wand idly. While Tabitha had collected the books from the reference shelf and Kirche had sorted them by relevance, the Gramont boy really hadn't done much to help so far.

"That's not the point!" Louise snapped, tapping her index finger against the table. Tabitha at least made sense, and Guiche had to have some talent, even if he was only a dot, but the Zerbst was just adding insult to injury. They were currently seated in the Academy Library, Louise having finally been discharged from the infirmary the day before. The floor was vacant save for them, most of the students had taken the opportunity offered by canceled classes to enjoy themselves, and the windows had been propped open to let in the warm morning air. "Are you going to try and cram the whole first year course curriculum into my head?"

Kirche and Tabitha exchanged glances. Kirche sighed, "Look, Valliere, whether you like it or not, if there's something fundamentally wrong with your magic, we have to start at fundamentals. You may have been discharged from the infirmary but you still haven't been given permission to cast any spells so this is where we're going to have to start. You may think you know what these books say, but you can get a lot of wrong impressions if you aren't careful. That's why you're supposed to form practice groups."

"Forget what you thought you knew." Tabitha agreed softly.

"I know that." Louise mumbled, she'd tried in her first year, she really had, but the incendiary results of her failures had driven most of her potential partners away, and her incendiary personality had done for the rest.

"Good then! We'll be your study buddies!" Kirche said cheerfully. "First lesson, Chapter 1, Rubido's Codex on Applied Magic Theory as related to Fundamental Discourses on the Underlying Nature of the Elements."

"The Fundamentals of Elemental Affinity and the synergistic effects of affinities as derived from the governing pentagram of the five elements. Fire, Earth, Water, and Air, with void serving as a pivot for the other four elements to denote its status as the sacred elements of the founder." Louise recited with annoyance.

Kirche seemed surprised, glancing down at the book she scanned the first few pages. "That's . . . correct. But this is all high level theory, nobody actually memorizes all of this!" Kirche seemed to pale at the thought.

Tabitha shot the buxom girl an annoyed look but said nothing. Instead, she reached over and took hold of the open book, scanning through the first chapter she looked to Louise. "Fundamental traits of the Elements."

Louise frowned for a moment, "Earth governs fundamental structure, Water dictates flows and cycles, Air controls etheric effects, and Fire oversees the exchange of fundamental energies. A mage's affinity denotes their ability to work within the domain of each elements" Louise frowned, "But any mage should be able to cast at least dot level spells in the other elements. Even a dot of Wind can cast an Earth dot spell, they'll just exhaust themselves doing it." She growled in frustration, "But if all I ever get is explosions, what does that mean?"

"Too much energy?" Tabitha wondered out loud. The comment caused both Kirche and Guiche to wince, no doubt recalling her explosions.

"Miss Tabitha is quite right." Guiche commented, arms crossed sagely. "Dot level spells are very willpower efficient, they have to be after all, so that dot mages can use them effectively. But that means a great deal of control is needed."

"Aren't you a dot mage, Guiche?" Kirche shot.

"Ah yes, but my natural talent as a son of the Gramont line surely makes up for my lack of raw power, as anyone who has seen my magnificent Valkyries would surely attest!" The foppish boy said proudly.

"So what he's saying is, it's not the size, it's how you use it." Kirche whispered to Louise.

Louise didn't understand what the Germanian meant at first, she tried thinking raunchier and suddenly went red. Admittedly it was rather funny considering that Guiche hadn't caught on, only nodding and agreeing wholeheartedly with Kirche's assessment of his talents.

"What Tabitha was getting at, is that your control might just be no good. Magic is as much about shaping the energy your using as it is about drawing it out. And all of the affinities are a little different." Kirche elaborated.

"I know that, too!" Louise said with annoyance. She just couldn't do it. She thought. No matter what she tried, it always felt a little wrong. She'd start out, and then inevitably veer off at the very last moment.

"Yeah, but have you thought about what happens when you don't shape it properly. Most people can feel out the elements after their first spell or two, and it's even easier if you share the same affinity as the spell. But if you try and force it, well . . ." Kirche shrugged. "It might be that stubborn streak of yours has prevented you from trying it any other way."

"Hmph." Louise grumbled, "If that's the case, then shouldn't we pick an element to focus on and just go from there."

"Not so fast, Valliere." Kirche said. "Professor Colbert wants us to start at the very fundamentals. Basic spells and cantrips. That way when we get to casting spells you'll have a good foundation. And hopefully not . . . "

"Cause explosions." Louise finished, head drooping before shooting back up. "Fine! Let's do it. The Codex Magia and Third Volume of Jafar's Dissertations, Louise demanded, hand outstretched expectantly.

They set to work, books spread out across the table. Tabitha's reputation as a ranking student made her a natural leader for this first study session, however, the small girls tendency to prefer short concise sentences made explanations on complex magical theory an exercise in asking the right questions. It was a trying process for Louise to go over material that she had faithfully memorized long ago, not so much difficult as intensely tedious.

It was around noon that Louise began to feel the gnaw of hunger. She was about to suggest braking for lunch when there was a soft knock on the door. "Excuse me." The maid from the previous day, Siesta, Louise thought, was at the door with a small basket. I someone requested that food be brought up from the kitchen."

Tabitha raised a small hand. "Books away." She said softly.

Siesta smiled cheerfully as she entered, followed by a second figure. Louise blinked, this person definitely wasn't one of the serving staff. His hair was as black as siesta's, but his skin wasn't so much pale, as ashen. Dressed from head to tow in black, Louise thought he rather looked like some sort of bandit, or from the quality of the clothes, some young nobleman playing at being a bandit. Finally her eyes came to rest on his ear, the elongated tips flush with the sides of his head.

Louise's first instinct was Elf, but even before she had finished articulating that thought, she recognized him as a Faerie. She hadn't had the opportunity to see one up close before, but she had seen them from a distance and conversed with Henrietta and her mother extensively about them. Both her mother and childhood friend agreed that they were quite peculiar people.

"Oh, if it isn't Kirito." Kirche said in surprise. "What brings you here?"

Louise glanced suspiciously to the Germanian. And how would she know who he was?

The young man smiled warmly, "Good afternoon, Kirche-san." He bowed slightly. "The negotiations are in recess, so I wanted to come and give you my thanks for your help the other day." The boy hefted a small basket in one hand, it held something large, green, and marbled.

"What's that?" Louise asked.

"A melon." Kirito said, "I brought it as a gift."

Louise frowned as he set the thing down on the table. Louise frowned, she'd never seen anything quite like it, like a large, smooth skinned cantaloupe. Tabitha, Guiche, and Kirche all leaned in to examine it.

"Uhm, thank you?" Kirche said.

"It's some sort of melon you say?" Guiche said with a degree of apprehension. Louise had to agree, what sort of strange Faerie melon was this thing?

Caught up in the moment, something tugged at Louise's mind. She shook her head furiously. "Hey, wait a second, Von Zerbst! Who is this strange person!"

"Oh? This is Kirito, he's one of the first Faeries we met. Why?" Kirche's eyes glinted evilly for a moment and she smiled mischievously. "I wonder, has our little Louise finally started to show an interest in boys?" The Faery Kirito scratched nervously at one cheek, his eyes darting from the window to the door.

"W-what!" Louise stammered and caught herself just in time before launching a tirade, instead she settled on grinding her teeth impotently. Strictly speaking, if this boy was here for the negotiations, he was a representative of the Faeries. She couldn't snap in front of him. She had to show proper decorum and behave herself as a member of the Valliere family. Hah, let that Germanian wench make a fool of herself, that would be her revenge!

"Relax Valliere, that was just a little joke." Kirche said, seemingly pleased with the rise she had gotten out of her.

"Valliere?" Kirito frowned and looked to Louise. His face was quite foreign, slightly feminine, with large, dark eyes, and thin lips. He gave her a kind look. It was somehow very disarming. "You must be Louise. I hope your doing better."

"I'm fine." Louise said a little too quickly. "I feel quite a lot better today. But how did you know?"

The boy smiled, "Well, it came up in conversation when we spoke with the headmaster." He shot a glance to Kirche who had begun to frown. "Consider this a get well present too." He added as Louise went back to tapping the melons surface curiously. "Oh, and by the way, Kirche-san, are you available later to talk about that thing you mentioned. I thought it was really interesting."

Louise would have given anything to know how this strange Faerie could make the Zerbts's expression sour like that. Did he know something embarrassing about her? Louise entertained herself with thoughts of what would embarrass the Germanian.

Kirche smiled thinly, "Do you have a time in mind?"

"Maybe when the meeting adjourns for the day." Kirito said. "At the Academy Gate should be good, right?"

"That works." The Germanian agreed, and with another small nod, Kirito turned and walked over the window. Wait, the window?

"Well, I've probably killed enough time. Everyone will stat to wonder where I went." The boy climbed up onto the window sill, and Louise's eyes widened as she got her first good look of a Faerie forming their wings. They emerged from his back, a smoky translucent folded flush with his back, like the wings of a dragonfly at rest. I'll see you all around, Kirche-san, Tabitha-san, Guiche-san, Louise-san." With that the boy leaned forward and plummeted out of a sight.

Louise couldn't resist. Rising from her seat, Louise rushed to the window to see the black haired boy dusting himself off, apparently unharmed after falling from the fourth floor of the academy tower. He looked back up and waved once before turning and setting off in the direction of the large white tent, rising up beside the Academy Tower, where the negotiations were being held.

"What an odd person Kirito is." Guiche said.

"Guiche!" Kirche said.

"What?" The foppish noble boy had transfigured a bronze knife and had set to work cutting into the odd melon. "He said it was a gift after all. We should enjoy it."

The inside of the melon was red and fleshy and had a sweet flavor when Louise took an experimental bite from her slice. "His skin and hair. He's a Spriggan isn't he?" Louise asked finally. "Mother told me about them."

"Kirito?" Kirche asked. "Yeah, I heard they're all mercenaries and treasure hunters." She grinned. "Rather exciting isn't it!"

"Hmph. He acts suspicious." Louise decided. "And what was he asking you about?"

Kirche smiled as she blotted the melon juice with a napkin. "Ah, well, it appears even the Fae have heard of the Von Zerbst's passions and wish to learn more. I suppose you could come along if you like. We can make it part of your training!"

Louise's face turned beat red, "S-Shut up!"

"It would appear that your broker's information was accurate." Lord Mortimer observed.

"Naturally, you don't think I'd trust a bad informant, do ya?" Alicia Rue asked.

"Perish the thought." Mortimer replied.

The meeting between the Faerie Lords and the representatives of Tristain had been called briefly into recess to allow time for both sides to convene amongst themselves. Mortimer and Alicia Rue stood off from the rest of their party, Mortimer standing with his arms behind his back, while Alicia stretched languidly. They made an odd pair, the grave Salamander, and playful Cait Syth.

"We're doing pretty good today." Alicia noted.

"Hardly." Mortimer replied. "Our position is still precarious and will shift with the whims of affairs in greater Halkegenia."

The Faery Leaders had spent the early hours of the morning convening with the hooded Cait Syth that went by the name of Argo. Despite her strange mannerisms, the information she had gathered, and more importantly, what she had gleaned from that information, were fast proving invaluable. The Faerie Lords now found themselves in a dangerous balancing game.

Tristain was a small nation, one of the smallest of the Brimiric Kingdoms. Surrounded to the North by Germania and the South and East by Gallia. The tiny Kingdom had survived by alliance more often than open conflict. Such an alliance seemed to now be in the making between Tristain and Germania as the small Kingdom was overtly threatened by the forces of Reconquista, a radical revolutionary group that was rapidly taking control of the flying continent of Albion, and growing instability in Gallia.

The former ALO players found themselves caught up both in Tristain's own internal politics as well as international affairs. "Our bargaining power in these negotiations may or may not have reached its peak, too much depends on news from Germania and Albion."

"So its like gambling?" Alicia asked. "Well that's not such a big problem. I'm a pretty good hand at Koi-Koi."

Mortimer's eye twitched. "You do . . . Understand the gravity of this situation? Lady Alicia?"

The Cait Syth leader shrugged, but her expression briefly turned serious. "You're right, its pretty scary." Alicia said, "We're just a small group and the other side wants our unconditional surrender." Suddenly the playful Alicia was back, "But you never know, something good could still be in the works."

"Boundless optimism indeed." Mortimer sighed softly.

"Come on Mort-kun! If you're like that all the time, none of our problems will get fixed!" The childish Cait Syth grabbed the Salamander Lord by the hand and started to tug him back towards the tent. The negotiations would be starting up again soon.

When everyone was settled in once more, the Faerie on one side of the table, and the Tristanians on the other, they continued from where they had left off. The matter of the lands the Faeries were occupying.

"Nine major towns or cities, dozens of smaller villages, and of course, the city of Arrun and the World Tree." Count Woestte said. "All of it spread over two thirds of Tristain. We still haven't settled on a solution."

"The situation surely isn't as dire as you claim." Lady Sakuya responded, the Sylph Leader had come back more aggressively after the initial meeting, though still reacting to the Tristanian delegation more than leading the negotiations, she had put the most aggressive of the Tristanian's, count Woestte, on the defensive more than once. "Freelia appeared off of the coast of Tristain, and the Gnome and Imp capitols are largely underground. Furthermore, Orlein sits on lands that were considered marginal before the transition."

"That still leaves Faerie settlements intersecting with the estates of hundred of Noble families or even displacing them completely. I have it on good authority that a large portion of the Montmorency lands have been replaced by the Salamander Capitol and its surrounding environs. Our family inheritances and our livelihoods are at stake." Woestte countered.

"The solution to that is to evacuate the smaller settlements and relocate their inhabitants to Arrun and the other cities." Lady Sakuya said. "The settlements can be reused by the local peoples or torn down at their discretion. That should serve as some form of compensation for the chaos they've had to endure. In addition, we are prepared to find some way to compensate the current landholders for the lands we are occupying."

"That would seem to be a generous concession." The Duchess Valliere agreed, glancing to Count Woestte, "Surely Count Woestte, you would agree that these are accommodating terms."

"If it were merely one or two settlements, then it might be an acceptable offer." Woestte agreed grudgingly. "But we are discussing ten large areas of land scattered across Tristain." Woestte looked to Lady Sakuya. "And you wish for your own laws to apply in these territories? I can see little difference between what you are asking and the creation of a new sovereign kingdom within Tristain."

"We are hardly demanding our own Sovereignty." Lord Mortimer offered, waving a hand. "We are well aware of why that is impossible given the circumstances. Merely, we wish to secure some guarantee that our own laws will be enforced within our settlements, and that our interests will be represented as we move forward."

"Perhaps so." Woestte said gravely, "But I can say that the nobility would not be in favor of such an arrangement, and surely not Cardinal Mazarin. Am I not correct, Princess?"

Henrietta sat up, the Princess seemed to have been lost in thought on some other matter, "I received the Cardinal's response to my letter just this morning. He is in favor of consolidating the Faerie holdings and permitting the purchase of rights to the lands, but he is insistent that Crown law must remain supreme. I confess that I agree with him." Henrietta said with a look of apology, she then added, "Though, I am personally in favor of integrating Arrun and your other settlements as new territorial holdings, as is the Cardinal. This will at least offer you representation and some discretion in legal matters."

Alicia Rue raised a hand and asked. "What do you mean by 'some'?"

"Sir Visbee?" The Duchess Valliere asked. The normally silent Sir Visbee, scholar of Law, who had been retained for the negotiations looked over his notes and then to the gathered delegations. "Legally speaking, the landed Nobility are the stewards of the Crown's lands. This amounts to defacto ownership of the land, though mineral rights are obviously still held by the crown."

"Obviously." Lord Mortimer murmured.

"The Gnomes won't care for that." Lady Sakuya added before nodding for Visbee to continue.

"Addressing your concerns, My Lady, the landholder holds the right to appoint members of the local jury and to select the sentencing in petty crimes in addition to holding a seat in any gathering of the High Nobility."

"That might work." Lady Sakuya said thoughtfully. "But there is still the matter that we act as elected officials, despite our titles."

"Again with your praise for that idiot system." Count Woestte grumbled, receiving a slight narrowing of the eyes from Lord Mortimer.

"It's imperfect." Lady Sakuya agreed. "But it is what our people know."

"I've actually taken the liberty to review the legal records." Sir Visbee added. "And, with the blessings of the Crown, it is in fact possible to appoint a council to serve in indefinite regency over an estate. It isn't used frequently, and I'm afraid the legal precedent is rather vague, but it is up to the Crown's discretion in how the council is selected. I confess it would be a complicated solution for various legal reasons. But I believe this would allow you to have your elected officials defacto if not dejure."

"Count Woestte, would that be acceptable?" The Duchess Valliere asked.

"Perhaps it would be." The man admitted. "Though I speak for the interests of my peers, I cannot decide for them. It will be up to the Crown and the Faeries to reach suitable arrangements with each."

"It will also make all of the Fae into Royal subjects." Henrietta noted. "You would all have to swear an oath of fealty to the Royal Family of Tristain."

Lady Sakuya nodded, expression reluctant. She glanced to her fellow faction leaders. "I confess this isn't ideal, I can only promise that it will be discussed with the other leaders. In either case, I think this will hasten the negotiations to their conclusion. I believe that would be desirable for all parties, correct?"

The Duchess Vallier gave a solemn nod. "That would no doubt be for the best."

"Then, on a related note, there is the matter of Tristain upcoming alliance with Germania." Lady Sakuya said carefully. It had been a hotly debated matter among the Leaders whether to broach the subject during the negotiations. Eventually it had been decided that getting an answer was more important than offending their hosts.

Both Henrietta and the Duchess Valliere seemed suddenly on edge. "Alliance may be too mild a term." The Duchess admitted. "It would be more accurate to say that Tristain is to be absorbed into Germania as a new principality."

Sakuya nodded, folding her hands before herself. "That is the matter that we wish to discuss. What guarantee do we have that the terms we negotiate will still be honored after alliance with Germania is secured?"

The Duchess Valliere exchanged a glance with Henrietta. It was the the Princess who spoke, voice tinged with apprehension. "That is not a matter with which you need worry. Any treaty with your people will be handled as an internal affair of Tristain. Our Alliance with Germania will require that they honor all prior arrangements."

"I see." Lady Sakuya said. "That is fortunate."

"There would of course be those that would hope to postpone these negotiations until after the alliance has been sealed." Count Woestte suddenly said.

"Count Woestte." The Duchess Valliere said, a hint of danger entering her normally neutral voice.

"I am merely warning that there are some who would prefer to continue these negotiations from a position of strength." The man glanced to Lady Sakuya and the other Faeries.

The Leader of the Sylphs was speechless. Lord Mortimer glanced between Count Woestte and Lady Sakuya and appeared ready to say something when Alicia Rue finally spoke up.

"Mmm. I guess it could work out that way." The Cait Syth leader said. "But that seems kind of risky."

"Risky?" Count Woestte asked.

"Yeah." Alicia Rue said seriously. "I mean, right now Germania is probably just learning about what's going on, right? And I bet they're going to want to hold off on committing to anything until Tristain has sorted itself out. Its bad to get married without your affairs in order! And meanwhile, those other guys, Reconquista? They're the reason your allying with Germania, right? Reconquista is finishing up with Albion and Tristain looks like the next target." The Cait Syth leader crossed her arms. "So really, we should all work hard together to make this thing work. At least, that's my conclusion."

Both the Tristanian and gathered Faeries seemed shocked by comment, both the source and the way it was delivered. But the observation was no less effective for either. Count Woestte's expression had soured but he seemed reluctant to press further. "That has occurred to me as as well. I am only voicing concerns for how others might attempt to gamble on this situation."

"Fortunately we have such a well connected Nobleman to help us convince them otherwise." The Duchess Valliere said icily before turning her attention back to the Faery Lords. "This is of course a momentous event if it comes to pass. Negotiation's would need to be continued in the Capitol and before a convened House of the Nobility."

"I believe that would be acceptable." Lady Sakuya said, a note of relief entering her voice. The childish Cait Syth leader had returned to reclining in her chair, giving a happy little closed eyed smile.

"If that is settled for the time being." Professor Colbert said, "The next matter on the agenda is I believe that of the mineral right mentioned previously, we've received reports from Earth mages in the North that they found a previously undiscovered iron deposit while shaping an aquifer . . ."

Tsuboi Ryotaro, Klein, former guild leader of the Aincrad Guild Fuurinkanzan, and now a Salamander swordsman transported to the world of Halkegenia, was conflicted. The source of this conflict was currently keeping pace at his side, having dragged him from his lunch after a long morning on patrol to voice her concerns about her brother's suspicious behavior over the past couple of days. With serious countenance, a glamorous figure, and the hands on hips attitude she had given when they had first met, it was hard for Klein to reconcile the attractive young woman at his side with Kirito's descriptions of his cute little sister.

'Damn it, she's his sister, his younger sister!' Klein thought, stuffing away his instincts as a tragically handsome, tragically single young man. Kirito was sixteen, so Leafa, Suguha, shouldn't have been older than fifteen. That pretty much killed it for him. Klein had made a promise to himself when he'd turned twenty, as much as he might joke, no girls he couldn't go drinking with.

Still, Klein was concerned, not for himself, but rather for Kirito and Leafa. He and Kirito had been spoiled by SAO, where although a person's true name and motives remained hidden, they at very least had to show their real face. Kayaba Akihiko had made certain of that much. ALO on the other hand was completely the opposite. Other than requiring players to play as their real gender, a feature that was apparently easy to subvert, it was relatively trivial to modify every aspect of ones avatar. Klein had taken advantage of this feature himself in order to get a reasonable approximation of his real world and SAO self. Suguha had either taken liberties with the character editor or had struck a home run with her randomly generated avatar.

With a face and body like that, she was going to be drawing all sorts of the wrong type of attention. Normally that wouldn't be a problem in a VR game. But in this world where game etiquette wasn't enforced by a crime prevention code, no even with such a feature, this suddenly real world could be dangerous to someone who was inexperienced. Thankfully she seemed to be a pretty self reliant kid, and she was usually with Kirito or the Cait Syth hunter KoKo who for respective reasons discouraged anyone getting too close.

When he had voiced his concerns to Kirito, the former Beater had grown concerned. It seemed that the thought hadn't really crossed his mind. He'd thought his sister could take care of herself in that regard. And physically, he was probably right. It was the emotional stuff Klein worried about. As Kirito's friend it was his responsibility to help out and keep an eye on both of them.

"Klein-san, are you listening?" Leafa pressed. She was looking right at him, bright serious eyes giving him a suspicious glance.

"W-what?" Klein nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Ah, yeah, you were saying Kirito hasn't been himself lately." Klein said. "What has he been doing?"

Leafa frowned. "He said he was going to try and focus on his magic in his spare time." She explained. "I teased him about it, but Spriggan illusion magic can be pretty powerful. He's been really quiet lately, and sometimes he just holes up in our room and wont come out for hours or else runs off into the forest outside of Arrun and doesn't come back until late. Yui won't even tell me what he's doing, other than that he's practicing."

Klein thought carefully, it sounded suspiciously like when Kirito had been training dual blades in SAO. The black swordsman was always a bit of a recluse, but for months before the 74th floor boss fight, Klein had only seen him at raid meetings and occasionally in the more secluded dungeons. He wondered if Kirito had discovered a new skill here as well? But why keep it from people? The situation was totally different from SAO.

'What are you up to, Kirito?' Klein thought. He offered his thoughts to Leafa who nodded thoughtfully.

"That may be it." She admitted, "After all, Onii-chan's stats were really unusual before the transition, maybe that caused something here?"

Of course Kirito would be the one to find out that SAO's character data was compatible with ALO. Klein thought to himself. Damn, if he'd known he wouldn't have ditched his Nerve Gear. Well, it wasn't all bad, he'd been able to buy a fairly descent mid level Katana account off of a player that was retiring from ALO and mod the avatar to his liking. And he'd though that would have finally put him on more equal footing with Kirito.

"Well, you could always just ask him what he's doing." Klein suggested.

"I already did, but he just keeps telling my he's practicing his magic." Leafa sighed. "Its like he doesn't trust me."

Klein looked at her and swallowed. Crap, he knew this look, in middle school he had made a girl cry when she had that look on her face. 'Careful Klein.'

"Well, the thing is, Kirito-kun isn't the type of person to brag or really update people much. In Aincrad, a lot of the time I only knew he hadn't died because he was in my contacts list, and I consider him to be a good friend. That brother of yours can be an odd one, but its not because he doesn't trust you, rather, I think he doesn't want to say anything until he has something to show you."

"You think?" Leafa asked. "Sometime I think that as hard as I've tried, there's no way I'll ever understand Onii-chan. I get to where he was, and by then he's far away again." She smiled, "You know what? When I decided to start playing MMOs, a school friend helped me pick ALO, he was shocked when I told him I wanted to play the one that was the most like SAO."

"Really?" Klein looked surprised. "You really told someone something like that after the SAO incident? You've got guts!"

"It got me a funny look." Leafa agreed with a smile. "But we settled on ALO. I just . . . I thought if I could spend time in his world, I could understand Onii-chan better."

"And do you?" Klein asked.

Leafa shook her head, "No, not really, maybe, a little. I think the last few days have taught me more about him than all of the time I was playing ALO. Maybe your right, Klein-san, I think you know my brother a lot better than me." There was a faint sadness in that voice. "After all, you shared a lot of experiences with him."

"Uh, I guess you could put it that way." Klein said sheepishly. They continued to walk for a time in silence. The streets of Arrun were starting to take on the air of a real city. Over the last few days, Faeries from the outlying settlements had begun to Arrive in Arrun, which unlike the other Capitols, had an abundance of spare living space. This was part of the provisional treaty with Tristain. The Fae would be allowed to resettle unmolested in any preexisting Fae settlement of at least one thousand residents. In other words, Arrun or one of the other capitols. In return for this concession, the Tristanian crown had begun exchanging Yurudu coins to pay for the first shipments of food.

Fae all over Arrun had craned their heads to the sky when the first Tristanian airship had arrived and landed in the fields outside of the city, bringing with it the first shipments of meat and grain. Klein had mixed feelings on the matter. It was good that they were getting the food to fill their bellies, but how long could the collective treasuries of the Faerie races keep up with that sort of drain? The latest round of talks had suggested that the crown would be willing to hire the volunteer forces as mercenaries to continue patrolling the roadways of Tristain alongside the tiny peacetime Royal Army forces. Apparently this idea had garnered support from many of the nobility who resented the idea of having their household forces or tenants drafted to bolster the ranks of the Royal Army. Klein supposed that would supplement their cash supplies, and there was a certain amount of prestige involved, hell, he had considered signing up himself.

The Cait Syth were also in talks to offer their skills to bolster Tristain's forces with their dragoons, while news had come from the north that the Gnomes and Leprechauns were in talks to help mine and process the mineral deposits that had been discovered by the Tristanian Earth mages to have suddenly appeared throughout the country. Klein didn't like it. It smacked too much of people settling in. They should be trying to find a way to get back home as soon as possible. But it did serve to placate the agitated nobility, who like his own boss back in the other world, wanted some assurance that things were being done.

"Klein-san?" Leafa suddenly spoke up.

"Uh, yeah?" Klein was snapped from his thoughts once more.

"Klein-san, what sort of person is Asuna-san? The way Onii-chan and Yui make it sound, she's really amazing. She must really be something to get my brother to pay attention."

"Uh, yeah, I guess." Klein said, surprised.

"I bet they hit it off right from the start." Leafa said thoughtfully.

"Actually." Klein chuckled, "It was just the opposite, those two always butted heads. In fact, I could hardly believe it when they partied up. Kirito-kun was always a solo player. he'd only ever party up temporarily for the boss raids and then he'd go off to level grind. Asuna-san was the sub commander of a prestigious guild and lead a lot of the boss raids personally."

"The Knights of Blood, right?" Leafa asked.

"Uh, yeah, how did you know?" Klein asked.

"Onii-chan told me about them. They were some of the strongest players, right? And then, Asuna-san was one of the strongest in the KoB. They called her Asuna the Flash, right?"

"Right." Klein agreed. "I'm surprised Kirito told you all of this."

"I just listened." Leafa defended, suddenly sounding shy. "It was nothing really." She said. "I don't think Onii-chan minded talking about SAO, but it would always lead back to Asuna-san. It caused him a lot of pain, so I stopped asking. Like you were saying, Asuna-san and Onii-chan?"

"Oh, right." Klein said. "Let me see. That brother of yours was the polar opposite of Asuna-san. Asuna-san was always like this white swan at the center of everything while Kirito-kun always seemed like this mangy crow that would show up late to raid meetings and then spend nice afternoons napping instead of clearing the dungeons. Nobody could get under Asuna-san's skin like your brother." Klein shrugged. "I think that must have been what happened, he chipped away at the shell Asuna-san built around herself as sub commander. Actually, outside of their constant fighting in the raid meetings, they did get along pretty well later on. They were at least acquaintances for a long time before they got married."

Leafa suddenly went red. "M-married!" She stammered.

'Oh crap.' Klein thought and began waving his hands, "No, that might not be the best term, it was just an in game thing. There wasn't a priest or any gods invokes or anything!" Unless you counted Cardinal of course. In all honesty, Klein knew he was lying, to be married in SAO was a much deeper show of commitment than it was IRL, it meant that you were willingly placing all of your secrets in the hands of another, a person who despite everything you had shared, might still be a stranger.

Leafa nodded slowly, one hand rising to rest against her chest. "I see. Klein-san, were you friends with Asuna-san as well?"

"Well, I can't say I was as close to her as I was to Kirito." Klein admitted. "But I can definitely see what your brother saw in her. I think they're a good fit for each other."

"Is that why you wanted to help Onii-chan get her back?"

Klein didn't answer for a moment. "That's the biggest reason, but it's not the only one." He rubbed at the back of his head. "Basically, what I was thinking was, what if this all turned out to be a coincidence. I was worried about what would happen to Kirito-kun if this was a wild goose chase. I saw what losing Asuna-san would do to him once." Klein's jaw clenched. "I couldn't let him face that alone. I think the others feel the same way."

"I see." Leafa said softly, she looked deeply troubled by this revelation but smiled all the same. "Thank you, Klein-san, I'm grateful that Onii-chan has a friend like you." And then she smiled warmly.

"Eh? I-Its no problem." Klein stammered, even knowing she was only fifteen, that smile still caused his heart to skip. Yeah, this girl was going to get herself in trouble if someone didn't keep an eye on her.

By this time, they had reached the Inn that Kirito and Leafa were staying at. Klein's own room was located back on the town outskirts where he stayed along with the rest of the squad that General Eugene had assigned him to when he discovered that Klein was an SAO survivor. It sure was a pain to be taking orders in someone's army, but he at least agreed with what the General was trying to do. If his experience from SAO could help keep these newbies safe, well, he wasn't about to pass up the job.

They found a familiar hooded figure waiting at the front desk when they arrived.

"Oy, Argo-san?" Klein greeted.

"Oh, Ke-kun, you're here again?" The information broker chided.

"Eh, what's with these nicknames?" Klein complained.

"What are you here for, Argo-san?" Leafa asked.

By way of answering, the information broker produced a small envelope from beneath her cloak. "I finished collecting the contact info that Kii-bou was asking for." She said. "It took longer than expected because of all the chaos in Orlein and everyone moving around. But this info should be up to date as long as he uses it soon."

"That's good news!" Klein said, he'd only been able to get in touch with Agil so far. The former shopkeeper was currently in the Gnome Capitol, apparently he had his hands full right now with his own problems, so he wasn't going to be able to head for Arrun for at least another week or so. Agil's wife had apparently logged in with him on his first dive into ALO, which meant the big man was probably preoccupied looking after her and helping her to cope. For once, Klein was glad he didn't have a significant other to worry about.

The three of them made their way up to the second floor, and down the now familiar hallway to Kirito and Leafa's room. Leafa paused at the door and was about to knock when a flash of light came from beneath the door.

Leafa stepped back and then glanced to Klein. The Salamander nodded quickly, the old instincts kicking in, and put a hand on the hilt of his sword while Leafa unlocked the door. Argo, for her part, stepped back and simply watched. With another quick nod to Klein, Leafa swung the door open and rushed in, "Onii-chan!" She made it barely three steps into the room before she crashed into someone.

Short, light brown hair, bookish face, definitely not Kirito. The boy, a Puca, by the low level clothes he wore, stumbled back in surprise. Leafa was at a loss as Klein ducked in behind her, hand still on the hilt of his sword. "What's going on here, oh? Ah, sorry. Leafa-san, are you sure this is the right room?"

Leafa frowned, "Positive." She said, her key had worked after all. Maybe that was just a coincidence. Maybe she'd miscounted the doors. The room looked like the one that Kirtio and Leafa were sharing, but then, most of the rooms shared the same basic layout. In any case, the Puca standing before them certainly didn't look like he had broken in.

"Ah, my apologies." Leafa said. "We must have the wrong room."

The boy before them, having recovered, gave an annoyed look and huffed. "I should think so!" He said. "Honestly, you should knock before just barging into someones room, its rude! Did you ever consider that someone might have been getting dressed?"

"Ah, but my key opened this door!" Leafa defended.

"Oh? Then I'll have to take this up with the management, I was insured of my privacy!"

Leafa watched the boy continue his tirade in complete disbelief, meanwhile, Klein's eyes wondered to something, or rather, someone, sitting on the bed. The tiny form rolling about, struggling not to laugh, was no other than the odd little Navigation Pixie and former SAO mental care AI, Yui.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, this was a huge mistake!" Leafa was stammering.

"Leafa-san?"

"I'll make it right with you, I promise."

"Leafa-san?" Klein tapped the apologizing girl on her shoulder and pointed to the bed.

"Y-yui?" Leafa said. "But, what are you . . ." She turned back to the Puca who had gone totally silent, the boy was struggling not to laugh.

"So, I see you got faction disguise to work. Kii-bou learns a new ability!" Argo said from the doorway.

"K-Kirito-kun?" Leafa asked.

The boy broke down and finally started laughing out loud. "I'm sorry Sugu . . . But that look you had was too much." The face was still that of a bookish looking Puca, but the expressions were all Kirito. "I really didn't mean to, but when you barged in . . ." He wiped a tear from his eye.

"Then that flash?" Klein asked.

"It was Papa casting the faction disguise skill Mimic." Yui declared from atop the bed.

"So this is what you've been working on." Klein realized, and then grinned. "Getting up to mischief, eh Kirito-kun?"

Leafa smiled dangerously. "That wasn't a very nice joke, Onii-chan. You're going to have to make it up somehow."

"So this is the end product." Argo said. "It's pretty impressive." The Cait Syth said as she looked over the face. Kirito's appearance as a Puca could be said to be rather ordinary, in fact, he looked extremely generic. "I'm impressed Kii-bou could pull off such a high level skill."

"What, why?" Leafa asked, "Even Recon could use invisibility."

"Yeah, just changing shape doesn't seem so impressive compared to disappearing into thin air." Klein had to agree.

"Haven't you heard?" Argo said curiously. "Lots of people know how to use the spells, but it seems that it's really hard to learn new ones now. You have to practice the words of power until you can invoke them perfectly or the spell wont work at all. So its surprising Kirito could do it so quickly."

"I think its because Beastly Form Is in the same family of spells." Kirito said. Klein noticed as Leafa shuddered as if recalling something terrifying. "And its actually really useful. If your invisible, you cant interact with people or objects without raising suspicion. This way I can be completely anonymous and still go about my business."

"But in that case, isn't it a little too powerful?" Klein asked cautiously. Such a spell would certainly have to have a lot of drawbacks or it would never have been allowed in the game.

Kirito shrugged, "It's not really as useful as it sounds." He said, confirming Klein's suspicions. "The appearance for each race is randomly generated and can't be altered, so if this Puca's face became well known it wouldn't be very useful. Also my stats are the same under the disguise and I obviously can't use any faction unique abilities."

"So people would catch on before too long." Klein finished. "I get what you're saying."

Raising a hand, Kirito began a short lyrical enchantment. Five words to dispel the illusion, and in a soft halo of light, the small Puca boy once more became the Spriggan Kirito.

"But this seems like a strange choice for you Kirito-kun." Klein said. "I would have thought you would go for a more combat oriented spell."

"Klein-san is right, Onii-chan. Even Spriggans have spells that would complement your swordsmanship."

Kirito's expression suddenly turned serious. "In terms of direct combat potential, you're right. I'd be better off trying to learn the shadow clone or substitution techniques, but that wasn't what I was thinking about." Yui flitted up from the bed to sit on Kirito shoulder before the young Spriggan continued. "The World Tree raid is going to be impossibly dangerous. Lady Sakuya and Alicia Rue have both pledged forces, and now Lord Mortimer is promising over a hundred high tier players in support. We'll have the first raid meeting in a couple of days, but the basic plan of attack that we've been going over looks solid."

"Assuming that the spawn rate of the Guardian's is still limited, a sustained continuous barrage of attack spells from multiple raid groups should be able to suppress them almost indefinitely. This will allow an assault group to advance to the top of the World Tree." Yui said. "Lord Mortimer estimates that a minimum of fifteen raid groups will be needed to do sufficient DPS as well as to allow for spell cool down and mana regeneration."

"F-fifteen!" Leafa almost shouted, that was over seven hundred players! Such a gigantic force launching AOE attacks would have crashed ALfheim's servers. Just having them all in one place would have slowed down the game.

Kirito nodded again. "If it's coordinated right, then we could potentially make it all the way up without any losses."

"That's never how it goes." Klein grunted. "Remember the 50th floor boss, back in Aincrad, the pot and switch rotation got messed up and that thing almost wiped us out."

"That's what I'm worried about." Kirito agreed. "Lord Mortimer is really something. As a strategist, I don't think even Asuna could beat him. But this plan has too many points of failure. Which is why I've been hoping to find a way to avoid fighting."

"Avoid it?" Klein asked. "If there was a way to do that in ALfheim wouldn't someone have finished the Grand Quest by now?"

"But this isn't ALfheim anymore." Kirito looked from Klein to Leafa and finally to Argo. "I think that whatever brought us here tried really hard to make ALfheim mesh with this world. Lots of things are different now, and that might mean there's an exploit we can use to get past the Guardian's."

"Mimic might work on more than just Faeries now." Argo observed. "You want to use Mimic on a Guardian and sneak past in the middle of the fight." The information broker frowned, "That's reckless, even for you Kii-bou."

Kirito smiled weakly. "I have more at stake than anyone after all. Hopefully, if we can slip even one person through to the top of the World Tree, we can achieve our objective."

Klein nodded to himself, Kirito had told him about the admin terminal. If such a thing existed in this world, it had probably become some sort of powerful magical artifact. In which case, it might be the key to getting them all home. "But wait, Kirito-kun, that all depends on the Mimic spell working on something other than Faeries right?"

Kirito nodded. "I was thinking of trying it out on some mobs once I had Faerie disguises down." Kirito explained. "But the Guardian's aren't like normal mobs, so I thought there might be something better to test it on first, while I was at the academy the other day, I scanned one of the servants. Since normal humans ren't a race from ALfheim, if it works on them there's a good chance it will work on anything."

"Have you tried it yet, Onii-chan?" Leafa asked. Her irritation with her brother's antic's being replaced by curiosity.

Kirito looked a little nervous. "Not yet. The scan went through, but I wanted to be sure I could do the spell right before I tried breaking it."

Leafa suddenly crossed her arms, "Then, why don't you show us?"

"Eh, what? Right now?" Kirito seemed surprised.

"Right now!" Leafa said with a determined expression, "Beside, you still have to make it up to us for that prank! I though something bad had happened!"

Klein looked between the two siblings. Kirito let out a sigh of defeat. Little sisters were pretty fierce.

"Fine." Kirito relented. "But this is payback even if it doesn't work. Deal?"

Leafa smiled brightly, "Deal!"

"This is something I have to see, Kii-bou's super secret never before seen transformation!" Argo snickered.

Kirito took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and began the invocation. Even though Klein had seen Enya and the others cast magic on several occasions now, he was still unused to the glowing runes that inscribed themselves in the air to accompany a chant. The Mimic ability seemed to be a pretty long spell. As Kirito continued the invoking, the runes stacked themselves eight high before starting a second stack of eight. A sixteen word spell, pretty high tier.

The stacked runes began to separated and spin freely, their orbits coming together until they pressed into Kirito's form. The Spriggan glowed softly and vanished in a halo of light. There was a soft whooshing noise and a bright flash and the light began to fade.

Klein blinked the spots from his eyes, and then blanched. "K-Kirito?" He asked.

"Papa?" Yui said, eyes wide.

"Onii-chan?" Leafa asked. The sylph's face had turned faintly red, at the same time she was struggling not to laugh.

"W-what is it?" Kirito asked in a soft voice. The former Beater placed a hand curiously to his throat. "How does it look?" He asked nervously.

"Well . . . You definitely look human." Klein said.

"How to put it . . ." Argo smiled. "I know." Walking up to Kirito, the information broker placed her hands on his shoulders and spun him to face the mirror. "It's Kiriko-chan!"

Klein had once commented to Kirito in SAO that his real face was actually pretty cute for a guy. The SAO Kirito and by extension his real world self, definitely had some feminine traits, even his ALfheim Avatar had possessed some of those same qualities, though tempered by his Spriggan racial features. The Spriggan Kirito's human form blew all of those out of the water.

Kirito's human disguise shared his dark hair, but it spilled silkily down past his shoulders. Likewise, the eyes were also dark, but shone brightly and were fringed by long delicate lashes. Pale skin, nearly translucent, graced a delicate face with thin crimson lips. His build was even more slender than in the other world. Though it was difficult to tell, he was perhaps two or three centimeters shorter than before and dressed in a simple dark gray jacket and dark pants.

"What the hell is this?!" Kirito shouted, somehow, despite the sharp edge of anger, his voice still sounded girly. Leafa couldn't keep it in anymore, she doubled up laughing. Klein had to admit, the look on Kirito's face was priceless.

"Sugu!" Kirito cried out, looking shocked.

"I'm s-sorry, but like you said, that look! And also, should I be jealous? You're pretty cute Onii-chan!"

Kirito scrunched up his face in irritation. "This isn't funny Sugu." He grumble before crossing his arms. Suddenly, Kirito frowned and began to pat his chest.

"What is it?" Leafa asked, wiping a tear from her eye.

Kirito's hands worked their way down, feeling out chest, sides, and stomach, before reaching further. Kirito's face suddenly went red. "W-What . . . the HELL!" For the second time in less than a week, the birds living in Arruns central district took flight as one.

After hastily dispelling the faction disguise, Kirito stood, breathing heavily, and partially propped over a chair.

"The spell must have been confused since humans aren't an ALfheim race." Yui offered with a look of concern. "It probably couldn't tell."

"Don't worry Kii-bou." Argo said with barely contained mirth. "The price on your personal informational would definitely bankrupt the Kingdom of Gallia."

Kirito whispered something under his breath, prompting Klein, Leafa, and Argo, to lean in close.

"What was that?" Klein asked.

"Never again." Kirito whispered darkly. "I'm not using that form ever again!"

"R-right." Klein said, thankful. He glanced again to Leafa, the only thing that could make things worse was if he had to help keep guys off of both of them.


	24. Chapter 8 Part 2

Disclaimer, I own nothing, and I know nothing.

I, have, no, idea, how, this, snip, got, this, damn, long.

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 8 - part 2

Shinozaki Rika, Lisbeth, "Liz", former master weapon smith in the world of Sword Art Online, and now the unlikely apprentice to ALfheim's most temperamental sword smith, stifled a yawn as she minded the shop of her employer. Though the shop wasn't strictly open for business, they were accepting jobs for weapon repair and maintenance for the time being at the request of Lord Rute. Unlike her own former shop in Aincrad, which had sold weapons of all description, her new employer specialized in the art of the sword above all else. The shop catered to a high end clientele, those that specifically sought out a master sword smith. The walls of the small showroom were lined with tables and sword stands holding the shop's merchandise, leaving barely enough room for customers to squeeze in.

Not that there were many customers at the moment. The Leprechaun Capitol, Goibniu, the smith's city, was just coming out of a moratorium that had lasted for nearly a week as their Faction Leader, Lord Rute, had holed up in his residence along with his advisers trying to get handle on the situation. Though the Faction Leader managed to keep order, he had resorted to placing the whole settlement under house arrest for a time. What had followed over the next few days was still sorting itself out in Liz's head.

She had logged into ALO for the first time only a few hours before the Transition had occurred, having opted to play as a Leprechaun due to the racial bonuses that they received towards their crafting skills. She had been deposited without incident in her race's capitol and spent the first couple of hours just exploring and learning to use the flight controller before joining up with an ad hoc party of beginner players to head out and farm some local mobs for the money she would need to buy a set of beginner crafting tools. Though the real danger she had faced in SAO had left her hesitant to rush into this new world, the looks of enjoyment given by her companions had reassured her and she had soon been in top form, garnering praise from the other players as she skillfully dispatched the low level ice spiders that infested the land around Goibniu.

Feeling a growing sense of confidence, Liz had briefly logged out to grab a bite to eat before returning. No sooner had she gotten back to Goibniu's main street then the game world suddenly froze up around her and she found herself assaulted by a sense of burning pain that spread across her whole body. She had woken an indeterminate time later in the town square, feeling a disturbing sense of deja vu before attempting to open her user menu. When the menu did not appear, either for herself, or the players around her, she had felt panic take hold. It had been like some absurd nightmare, a flashback to that day two years before. It couldn't be possible, ALO had been online for over a year and the AMUsphere was well tested and proven to be completely safe.

Liz had calmed herself with the reminder that the most dangerous feature of the Nerve Gear, the transmitter that was used to intercept and replace incoming and outgoing nerve signals from the brain, had been thoroughly redesigned so that it was physically impossible for it to be used to do permanent damage to the user. With this feature in mind, even if something had prevented her from logging out, her family would soon notice her absence and alert the games technical support staff. Once they were certain it was safe, they would simply have to remove the AMUsphere and Liz would be returned to reality, disoriented but unharmed. In the meantime, the people around her were obviously frightened, some on the verge of panic.

She had quickly turned her attention to calming the other players around her, her experience from SAO lending her a confidence in the face of the unknown that the other players simply lacked. It seemed that her time spent in the Death Game must have maxed out her adaptability stat as the people around her had gradually stopped panicking and started to listen to the cotton candy haired girl who spoke with so much authority.

One of Lord Rute's retainers had overheard her calming the crowd, and after ascertaining her status as an SAO survivor, had asked for her help. The man, who went by the name of Torin, had asked her to come with him to see the Faction Leader. Lord Rute had proven to be a thoroughly stereotypical Leprechaun, standing no taller than Lisbeth, his copper red hair and beard and large nose giving him an almost dwarfish appearance. Dressed in a red, brass buttoned coat and storming frantically around his office, the Faerie Lord had hardly seemed like the sort of person to be managing an emergency situation. The former Aincrad blacksmith hadn't quite known what to make of him as he pleaded for help from any qualified players. Liz hadn't known what to do but to accept. Helping out where she could.

In the confusion that had followed, as the revelation gradually sank in that they were not trapped in the game world as they had first thought, but had in fact been transported to an entirely new reality, a real physical place, not just a virtual world, people had first denied the preposterous claim. But then had come the first reports of injuries and damage inflicted on normally indestructible objects and of the complete absence of any system messages, or in fact, any evidence that the world they were experiencing was governed by a game system at all.

And then, strangest of all, had been the arrival of the troop of men on horseback who had stopped at the city limits and made strangely accented calls to speak with the 'town leaders'. They had fled almost as soon as they had gotten a good look at one of the Leprechaun watchmen, only for a lone messenger to return hours later under a flag of truce requesting a meeting on open ground.

Rute had sent Torin and some of his personal guards. When Torin had returned, he had been grim faced and said nothing to Liz or the others, simply returning to Lord Rute's office which was promptly closed off for the rest of the day in conference. Liz had been forced to learn what had happened from one of the Guards who told her about the "Noblemen" they had met and what they had learned of this land called Tristain on the continent of Halkegenia, where magic was real.

Slowly, people had begun to believe, and with belief had come fear, fear of the unknown, fear that the basic assumptions on which they had relied on were no longer true. For the first two days, the Faeries inhabiting Goibniu had wondered about aimlessly save for those with assigned tasks keeping the peace or giving out food. Most didn't know what to do with themselves, even in the Death Game of SAO, the players had at least known how to clear the game, how to return home, even if many didn't believe it to be possible. There had been breakdowns, people collapsing in the street and weeping bitterly, there had even been an attempted suicide. A girl had flown up as high as she could and then dismissed her wings, plummeting towards the city's central square. Thankfully, a keen eyed watchmen had seen her in time and managed to arrest her fall, at great risk to himself as the girl struggled to be released. Liz had helped to comfort the girl afterwards and stayed by her side while arrangements were made for chaperons to keep an eye on her.

Again Liz had been fortunate, she didn't know how to make sense of the situation, but she knew how to roll with the blows, the coping mechanisms she had learned from SAO had kicked in and she had dove into whatever work she could find. Liz wasn't a fighter by inclination, rather she was a support type, working diligently from behind the lines to help those who fought. It was natural for her to busy herself so that she didn't have time to mope or think too long on questions for which she did not have answers.

The situation began to improve, Spriggan messengers arriving from the south, and Gnomes from the north west, confirmed that the other racial Capitols had been transported as well. This had been further confirmed when the Sylph and Cait Syth leaders had made contact on their second night in this new world, using moonlight mirror to communicate directly with Lord Rute.

The first few days had been hard, but humans were adaptable creatures, even if they weren't quite human anymore. Liz had been oddly comforted by the fact that her avatar was now, as far as could be told, a real living body. Even if it meant that they had been transported elsewhere. It implied that this wasn't an illusion, that she wasn't currently lying on a hospital bed someplace, barely clinging to life. It meant she could continue to live and move forward and hopefully find a way home. This sort of thinking began to slowly spread among the newly reborn Faeries. People had started to settle into new routines, to converse with one another, to make plans. Talks with the locals began in earnest, meetings being held from sunrise to sunset at the city gates. Torin was soon sent off to Arrun along with a delegation to participate in negotiations with the government of Tristain, the small kingdom that they found themselves in.

With the situation gradually falling into the hands of others, Liz had found herself entering her own routine. In the short term she needed to learn to properly use her wings as quickly as possible so that she could get to Arrun and find the others. She knew at very least that Agil, Silica, and Argo had been logged in on time, having received messages, actual had written letters, from all three over the past days. Several of the skilled flyers she had met around town had offered to give her lessons, but by all accounts, learning new skills was no longer so simple. It would take time and lots of practice. Until then, she needed someplace to stay and something to occupy her time.

Her help around town had earned her the attention of many of the former players turned Faeries, and by this means she had found a roof over her head and a job helping to do what she had done best in Aincrad as an apprentice blacksmith. Well, it would be a job once things got going and there was actually money with which to draw a salary, but for the time being it was good enough.

Liz felt herself dozing off again, it was hard to keep awake in the middle of the afternoon. The warm spring air kept inviting her to fall asleep, and with nothing else to occupy her time she had found herself sinking down onto the countertop drowsily.

Someplace at the edge of her perception, a bell chimed. Liz shot up quickly, suddenly fully awake. A customer! Quickly straightening her blouse, Liz checked her hair in a small mirror on the countertop, the face that greeted her was a pretty good facsimile of her real life and SAO appearance. She hadn't given it much thought, but somehow, after two years in SAO, it had felt wrong to use a different face and she'd made every effort to get it right.

Standing, Lisbeth offered a small bow to the customer. "Welcome to Kofu's sword shop."

Part of the reason she'd been offered a job was that her new employer had been impressed by how she handled herself with customers, both when they were there on friendly business, and when they were being rowdy. This appraisal by her new employer had mildly horrified Liz, who had always considered dealing with customers to be one of her weaknesses.

Apparently, manners with customers had always been a weakness of this particular shop. For Lisbeth, whose family operated a small retail store, knowing how to deal with a customer was simply a matter of propriety, even if she wasn't actually that good at it.

Looking up, Liz got her first glimpse of the person who had entered the store. With his ash colored skin and swept back, spiked, black hair, he appeared to be a Spriggan. Well, that wasn't too strange, the Spriggan Capitol was one of the closest to the Leprechaun territories and the two races got along reasonably well, so it wasn't unusual to see a few around. Especially now that there was no longer a faction system to enforce any sort of artificial divisions. They were all in this together.

What was unusual was the massive sword that hung from his back and even more peculiar, the small navigation pixie that sat on his shoulder. Such a massive sword surely wasn't suited for a Spriggan with a speed type build, but the possession of a rare navigation pixie marked him out as a very serious player who should know better. Liz hadn't yet gotten a good look at the young man's face as he curiously examined the gathered swords. Finally he turned to her and smiled. Something about that expression tugged at Liz, but before she could think what it was he spoke.

"Ah, excuse me." He said, sounding slightly apologetic. "I was recommended here by an acquaintance, I'm actually looking for a new sword." The tone of voice, the expression, and the mannerisms all came together.

Liz felt her heart skip a beat. She'd thought about how she would meet him again many times since that day that she had shouted out her love for him at the top of her lungs as it was announced by the system that SAO had been cleared. In the real world she had thought she might introduce herself properly when they began attending school in a few weeks. Then, when she'd first logged into ALO, she had planned to start grinding her weapon making stats so that when they met up, she would already have a sword prepared for him.

She'd thought about him every day since ending up in this place. Wondering if he was here too. But she'd never really doubted. Of course, she should have expected that their first meeting in this world would be like that in Aincrad. The day that thoroughly reckless swordsman had broken her very best sword.

"Kirito." She whispered.

The Spriggan smiled and nodded. He resembled himself to an extent, his appearance, based on his ALO avatar was, she thought, a bit taller with slightly sharper features, but the eyes were very much the same. There was much of his usual kindness in that expression, and also, she realized, more than a little pain. Liz rushed around the counter and took the boy in a tight hug. "Where have you been, you big jerk." She whispered, feeling tears start to sting at the corners of her eyes. With her head buried against his chest, she could feel his heart beating.

"Ah, s-sorry." Kirito breathed awkwardly, waiting for Liz to untangle herself before he continued. "That is, I only found out you were here a couple of days ago when I met Argo. I would have come sooner, but I've been helping Sakuya-sama and the other Leaders back in Arrun. I was really surprised when Sakuya-sama gave me the address of her sword smith and it matched the address Argo-san gave me to contact you. So, I thought it was a good time to come and see you." There was a strange tenseness in his body.

The pixie on his shoulder pulled at his ear as if reminding him. "Oh, sorry, I meant to introduce you to Yui." He gestured to the pixie who gave Lisbeth a small bow.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Lisbeth-san, Papa has told me lots and lot about you."

"Oh." Lisbeth said, and then bowed back. "How do you do, Yui-san?" Looking to Kirito, she asked "Papa?"

"I'll explain later." Kirito said with a smile, however it slowly faded and the tenseness from a moment before returned. "Before anything else though," He took a deep breath, "Liz, I'm sorry."

Lisbeth took a step back, when she looked up at him, she saw that he was looking away as if ashamed. The small navigation pixie on his shoulder had placed a reassuring hand on his cheek.

"Sorry about what?" She asked, but she already had a good idea even before Kirito replied. Someone who risked themselves for other so readily could be pretty predictable.

"You, and Argo, and the others, you're here because of Asuna and me. I've put you all in danger." He said. "At least, I wouldn't blame you if you thought of it that way." And there it was. Exactly what she would expect from a person who would rather 'Die with someone, than do nothing to save them.'

Liz frowned, of course he would think like that. The blacksmith reached out and took Kirito's hands in her own, they were as warm as she remembered. "Kirito-kun, it's like you to worry about others like this, right?" She smiled kindly. "But let us worry about you too, okay? No matter how weird the situation is."

The boy looked up, "Liz?"

She smiled, squeezing her eyes tightly shut so that the tears would be driven back. "There will be lots of time for us to catch up. But first, you said you're here for a sword?"

Kirito nodded hesitantly, the tension hadn't left his body but he seemed relieved to change the subject. Someone like Kirito wouldn't feel he'd actually been forgiven until he had satisfied himself that he had done enough. Saying sorry was just his way of asking Liz if it was okay for him to try and make things right.

"Mmm. I've been using this." He placed a hand on the great sword that hung from his back." With startling ease, the Spriggan swordsman removed the weapon and placed it on the countertop.

Lisbeth examined the sword with a hint of admiration, Black Iron Great Sword, a Gnome weapon meant for one or two handed use. Given Kirito's preference for heavy, resilient blades, it really was a weapon that suited him. However, one important detail nagged at Lisbeth. "Wait, Kirito-kun, how did you even manage to swing this weapon? Haven't you only been playing ALO for a few days?" The strange phenomenon that had seemingly translated each player's abstract stats into real knowledge and physical ability should never have been able to give a low level Spriggan player the strength to properly wield such a heavy weapon.

Kirito looked a little embarrassed, "Well, you see, that because of . . ." He scratched at the back of his head sheepishly.

"You what!" Liz shouted in disbelief. The little navigation pixie on Kirito's shoulder clamped her hands down over her ears as if in pain. Liz caught herself and apologized quickly before looking back to Kirito. "But how is that even possible?"

"It turns out SAO and ALO both used the same save data format. So a lot of my skills were transferred over by accident." He sounded almost apologetic at this fact. Liz did some mental arithmetic, she'd read up on all of the ALO races before deciding to play as a Leprechaun, both the official material and the information that Argo had sent to them in her ALfheim primer. Just about anyone who had played SAO would have mastered simple statistics and numerical extrapolation. Basically, if Kirito's stats were any place near where they should be as a member of the clearing group, Liz paled, there wouldn't be very many people in ALfheim that could challenge him in raw power. Which also meant that she was about a million years away from making a word that could compliment Kirito's abilities.

The young blacksmith gave Kirito a forced smile. "Kirito-kun, you really logged into ALO using your Nerve Gear?" She'd known Kirito was reckless, but she'd never thought he would be that stupid.

Her parents had been rightfully worried when she told them she wanted to try another full dive game. However, when she explained part of the truth, that she wanted to face her fear and move past SAO, they had grown supportive. Even so, they had insisted she use the thoroughly tested AMUsphere rather than the Nerve Gear that had stolen her away from them for two long years. She carefully avoided thinking too much about her parents and how they were no doubt worrying themselves sick at this very moment. She had spent enough time crying over it at night. If Liz had know, she would have seen if there was a way to transfer her save data from her Nerve Gear to the new AMUsphere she had received, not that it mattered now of course.

Kirito looked nervous, "I was in a hurry . . . I didn't have time to go buy an AMUsphere." He paused, "Not with Asuna waiting."

Lisbeth's anger melted away with the mention of Asuna. Of course, this was all ultimately for her. Lisbeth had only learned about the 'Asuna rescue operation' through Agil. Asuna was her friend and she was worried about her too. But would she have ever thought to log into ALO just for Asuna? Or would she have trusted the authorities to investigate and rescue her? Had she logged into ALO for Kirito? Asuna? Both? She liked to believe she would answer all of the above and hated herself for doubting.

"Jeez, Kirito, you really are as reckless as ever." She summoned up a smile that in no way portrayed how she really felt at that moment before turning back to the sword.

"So, you're looking for a blade that's better than this one. Well, that shouldn't be too hard. I can tell it's a good sword," and she could, even as a novice blacksmith she almost instinctively understood that sword was of excellent craftsmanship, "But this is the shop of one of Goibniu's premier sword smiths." Liz said with a hint of pride before frowning. "However, we're not exactly selling anything right now until we can ensure payment, and the best swords here are all pretty expensive."

"I think I have that covered." Kirito said, reaching into his pocket, he extracted a note and offered it to Liz who quickly read it over, eyes going wide.

"This is a promissory note signed by Lord Rute and Lady Sakuya!" Liz read down the note to the very bottom where a maximum budget was written. The zeros just kept going. She was left to wonder how Kirito managed to get in so good with the Faerie Lords. Knowing him, he'd probably dived in and saved one of them in a dangerous situation without any regard for his own life.

"Let me go get my boss. Wait right here." Liz said with a smile, she turned and rigidly marched out of the showroom and down the narrow hallway that connected the shop front to the workshop.

The weapon shop was a two story building with a living area on the top floor and large workshop taking up most of the ground level. She didn't even have to go into the workshop to find who she was looking for. Curled up in a blanket like a caterpillar in its cocoon, her employer and landlady, the sword smith Kofu, was enjoying an afternoon nap on the hallway floor.

Liz's eye twitched. It was pretty bold of her to tell someone else not to slack off and then go to sleep herself. With a sigh, Liz crouched down and began to shake the other girl. "Wake up, we have a customer."

"Mmmph. Why did my wonderful digital paradise have to be turned into meat space" The girl curled into a ball, pulling the blanket over her head. "If they don't have a million Yurudu I'm not interested!"

Liz smiled, there was definitely one way to light a fire under her boss. "What about ten?"

A head covered in blonde hair poked out from beneath the covers. "Ten Million?" She asked.

Liz handed the note to her employer who read it over quickly while rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Her interest had waned slightly as soon as she'd seen the note, on one hand it was the promise ten million yurudo, on the other hand it was again the promise of ten million yurudo, not the coins themselves. "Rute san, he had Sakuya-chan sign off on it because he knows I don't think he's good for it. But okay, maybe we'll deal." The sword smith stood up, letting her blanket fall to the floor.

Many people were surprised when they first met the sword smith Kofu. Standing slightly shorter than Liz, she was not a particularly impressive figure but her ever present smirk left people feeling like they were the punch line to some bad joke only she knew. The girl was pale with golden eyes and hair, actually golden, as if the hairs were made of thin wires of the stuff, tied of in pigtails. Her build would have been slight, but she'd decided to tweak her avatar in the interest of 'realism', with her sleeves rolled up the well developed muscle of her forearms were on clear display. Between her odd look and borderline caustic personality, most people didn't want anything to do with her save when absolutely essential. And now Lisbeth was her apprentice.

Stretching, the girl scratched at the back of her ear and stumbled down the hallway towards the showroom.

"Good afternoon." Kirito said politely as she staggered into the room.

"Right, right." Kofu said. "It's afternoon? I guess." Squinting, she looked back down at the promissory note. "Hmm, you got this signed by Sakuya-chan and Rute-san."

Kirito nodded seriously, "Mmm, Sakuya-sama is the one who recommended that I come to you."

"So, Sakuya-chan is recommending you as a buyer?" The smith asked. Liz gritted her teeth, this was the same act she'd pulled when they'd first met. In ALO such an attitude had apparently earned her a lot of rage quits from customers, not four days ago, it had earned the sword smith a broken nose. Of course, it was due to the trouble caused by her bad attitude that the Kofu had hired Liz in the first place, so she couldn't complain. "How is she treating Takemikazuchi?" Kofu growled.

"You mean Sakuya-sama's katana?" Kirito asked, exchanging a look with the navigation pixie on his shoulder before giving an apologetic shrug.

"Next time you see her, tell her I didn't forge that katana just to look pretty with her yukata. That child wants to fight!" The smith jabbed an accusing finger at Kirito who had raised his hands defensively. "Now then, we're talking about a sword for you. It says here that you've got a ten million Yurudo budget but I'm only going to accept up to a million since Rute-san signed it. You have a problem with that?" She asked with an open lipped smile that suggested a carnivore playing with its food.

"N-no. T-thank you." Kirito said, Liz never thought she'd see the day where Kirito looked intimidated. She was going to have to step in before her boss scared him off.

From behind the counter, and with remarkable precision, Lizbeth brought the heel of her boot down solidly on the other smith's shoe. Fortunately the senior smith had the common sense to wear steel toed boots, another concession to 'realism' in her role as a blacksmith. Unfortunately, Lizbeth had become quite good at bringing her heel down on a thin seem between the toe of the boot and the leather.

Kofu stiffened minutely as Liz leaned in and whispered, "Kofu-san, I can vouch for this person, so please can we not play games today?"

The senior smith looked to her apprentice giving an annoyed frown and sighed. "So, like we were saying, a sword." Kofu crossed her arms, stroking her chin thoughtfully. "Hmm, a sword suitable for a Spriggan. A Spriggan that Sakuya-chan has recommended." Snapping her fingers, "Apprentice, Assassin's Blade, top shelf."

Liz was about to balk at the choice, but it was probably better that Kofu learn for herself. The swords in the shop were arranged by general type and then racial affinity, that was to say, blades best suited to the speed and strength type races respectively. The apprentice smith extracted what appeared to be nothing more than a long sword hilt and offered it carefully to Kirito.

The Spriggan gave her a nonplussed expression. "Ah, Liz, this sword is missing its blade, isn't it?"

Liz smiled evilly, "Just keep the hilt pointed away from you and grip like you want to swing. Obeying her instructions, Kirito nearly jumped out of his skin as dull gray metal telescoped from the hilt, forming a forearm length blade.

"So what do you think?" Kofu asked, "It's a special Spriggan assassination weapon, since it can be drawn almost instantly, it's great for stealth based builds since it can remain sheathed up to the very last moment."

Kirito gave the short sword an experimental swing and then shook his head. "It's too light, I feel like I'm going to break it."

Unseen by her boss, Liz gave a small pump of her fist.

Frowning, Kofu snapped her fingers again, "Okay, next one, Wild Fang."

They went through a dozen swords like so, each one receiving a comment like, "It needs to be heavier", or "Still too light."

Kofu was starting to look not just irritated but on the verge of going apocalyptic, it was clear that she wasn't used to a customer being dissatisfied with her products, not for the same reason every time. Finally she asked in irritation, "So what kind of sword are you looking for?"

"W-well, I'd like one better than that." He gestured to the black iron great sword that still sat on the table.

The sword smith starred at the weapon for a long time and gave a short bark of laughter. "You're kidding right? You've got a Gnome standing outside who hauled that thing in, right?

By way of demonstration, Kirito walked over to the table and hefted the sword one handed, easily re-sheathing it much to the smith's surprise. Kirito starred at her and shook his head.

"R-right then. So we need a sword for Super Spriggan." Kofu growled softly, "If you're so strong, what's wrong with this one?"

"What wrong?" Kirito asked, as if not understanding.

"Mmm. You're saying you want something heavy." She gestured to the Black Iron Great Sword "I don't think I have anything heavier than that repurposed kite shield you're using."

Kirito closed his eyes in thought. "It's not the weight that's the problem. I guess that's too simple a way to put it. I like the weight of the Great Sword but, how to put this, this world's physics engine has some disadvantages."

Understanding dawned in the eyes of both smiths. "Kirito-kun prefers fast attacks despite using a heavy blade." Lisbeth explained.

"But a sword like that's going to have a lot of momentum behind it." Kofu finished, "So when you say a heavy blade, you really mean something thin but solidly built and properly balanced."

"Kofu-san, what about the one we were working on yesterday." Liz asked.

"We?" The senior smith repplied. "You mean the one I worked on while you tended the bellows."

"They're both important jobs." Liz pointed out dangerously, causing her boss to back down.

"But the thing is, I don't want to give him that one." Kofu said with a shake of her head.

Kirito watched the exchange with rapt attention. The swordsman could clearly sense that securing a new blade depended on the outcome of this argument.

"I thought you were just finishing it as a matter of pride since the client wasn't logged in when the transition happened. You could have broken it back down into component materials."

"But I didn't want to do that either!" The smith whined and scratched her head in thought. "I know, let's have him try it out, if he's any good, then maybe he can use it." Liz gave a nod of thanks and went back into the workshop to retrieve the sword while Kofu gestured to Kirito to follow her. "Come on, we'll do this outside so you don't break stuff, Super Spriggan."

The shop backed up to an empty lot that Kofu used to give customers a demonstration of some of her wares. Liz was already waiting with the sword by the time Kofu and Kirito had circled around. With her employer's permission she handed the sword to Kirito, who hefted it thoughtfully. Unsheathing the sword, he was met with a mirrored steel surface. Drawing the blade fully, the sword was without any excess adornment, a simple single edged blade forged with singular purpose.

"Split Moon" Kofu said simply, "It requires lots of rare reagents but it's probably one of the best blades you can produce using iron ingots as the base crafting material."

"How does it feel, Kirito-kun?" Liz asked.

"Good. The weight feels right, balanced." The swordsman gave an experimental swing before nodding for Liz and Kofu to stand back. The navigation Pixie, Yui, flitted from his shoulder and came to rest on a fence post beside Liz.

"Okay Boy Wonder, let her rip!" Kofu instructed.

Kirito nodded taking a low initial stance he took the sword through its paces from thrusts to short swings. Each motion demonstrated blinding speed combined with near perfect control. Kirito didn't just swing the sword about, he made it dance, as if fighting an invisible opponent. Kofu seemed surprised by Kirito's level of accomplishment but said nothing until he had finished, re sheathing the blade and working his shoulders.

Kirito smiled to Liz and Kofu. "I like this one."

"Yeah, it doesn't suit you at all." Kofu said suddenly, shaking her head, "It's really a more feminine weapon I'd think. I won't sell it you." Liz and Kirito both gave the girl a look of utter disbelief before she continued. "Kirito . . . Kirito . . . Where have I heard that name before?"

"The Black Swordsman of Aincrad, Kirito." The navigation pixies, Yui, suddenly said with a hint of pride. "That's what people called Papa in SAO."

"In SAO?" Kofu asked, quirking an eyebrow. "Wait, you can't be that Kirito, can you?" She said with a hint of disbelief.

Liz put a hand on the senior blacksmith's shoulder and gave a small nod. "It's him, remember how I said I would vouch for him?"

Kirito looked embarrassed at the attention but nodded reluctantly. "I hope that doesn't affect your decision."

Kofu let out a low whistle and rubbed at her chin. "Kirito. I suppose I should be honored to have the famous Clearer come to my weapons shop. If you're that Kirito, then you must have also been the one who took out General Eugene. They say you used some two handed style."

"Dual Blades" Yui said knowledgeably, "It's a special ability Papa learned in SAO, the experience he gained allows him to use it even without the system auto assist feature."

Liz gave the navigation pixie a curious look, she certainly was very knowledgeable about Kirito, and her behavior was definitely different from the pixies she had seen being used by Lord Rute's retainers. She was going to have to take Kirito up on his offer of an explanation.

In the meantime, Kofu was in the midst of deep thought. "You know what? That might work. Assistant, there's something I was working on a while back but I never got around to finishing. Rute-san ticked me off so I refunded his money and tossed what I'd finished into the back room. Figured I'd finish them one day if I kept them around. However, it's going to take a while, a week or so if this encyclopedia that's been crammed into my head is anything to go by. Still, I'd hate to send away such a highly recommended buyer empty handed. Apprentice!"

"Y-yes?" Liz asked, startled.

"You still going to vouch for him?"

Liz looked quickly to Kirito, "Of course I am. Kirito-kun can handle any sword you can make!" For any other smith that might have been an insult but Liz had learned over the past few days that those were exactly the sorts of buyers that Kofu wanted.

"Then here's what I'm going to do. You can take that child for right now and use it as your personal weapon, but I want it back in one piece. Do that and I'll let you trade it in for part of the price of the one I'm finishing for you. Doesn't that sound generous?"

Kirito's eyes widened and he bowed deeply. "T-thank you, Kofu-san!"

"Whatever." Kofu said, waving a hand. "And one more thing, start calling me Kofu-sama, I like having skilled swordsmen groveling at my feet. Apprentice, I'm thirsty, go make tea or something, then give some to the customer and have some yourself. We'll close up early today and start early tomorrow."

Liz smiled, she wasn't even that bothered by the attitude, "Right away!" Victory had been achieved and the end of battle BGM chimed in her head. Or would have if the game soundtrack hadn't disappeared in the transition.

The apprentice blacksmith had been asked to make tea, but she'd already gotten into the habit of starting a kettle around noon. Poring glasses for herself, Kirito, and Kofu she watched her employer shuffle back inside to go back to sleep, leaving Liz to speak unmolested with Kirito as they sat at the back of the workshop.

They talked for a time. About the odd little nav pixie that called Kirito Papa, about what had happened over the past few day, about their past adventures in Aincrad, and strangely, about home. It had never been a subject open to them during the SAO Death Game. The real world had been a subject that was off limits, but after returning, and then being lost again, they were already linked by a common thread through that time, it would have been wronged to treat it the same way.

Liz told Kirito about her parents and how they were probably out of their minds with worry right now, and Kirito told her about his sister Suguha who had been transported to this world along with them. He gave Liz a pensive look before continuing. "Liz, I'd like to ask a favor."

"Hmm? Sure, whatever you want."

Kirito rubbed at the back of his neck. "In five days, we're going to launch an assault on the World Tree."

"What!" Liz tried to shout at the top of her lungs, only to be muffled as Kirito quickly clamped a hand down over her mouth and gestured for her to shush.

"It's already been decided. We're already gathering the forces in Arrun. Since we don't have to obey raid rules it should be possible for us to assemble a party that's large enough to completely overwhelm the World Tree Guardians and clear a route to the top of the World Tree."

"Should be?" Liz asked, "And if it isn't?" She asked, Kirito was strong, but she'd seen the screen caps from failed attempts on the World Tree. There was a reason nobody had made it to the top before. And in a situation that was now easily as dangerous as SAO, there were far too many things that could go wrong.

"That isn't an option, Liz, if Asuna is at the top of that tree, we can't wait much longer. And also, the Faerie Lords agree, there may be an admin terminal at the top of the World Tree. If it has been changed by the Transition like everything else in ALfheim, it may have the power to send us back to our world."

Liz cast her eyes downward. "I understand." It was foolhardy, dangerous, and their only hope, of course he would go.

"That's why, if something happens, promise me you'll watch out for my little sister, and also . . ." He nodded to her lap where Yui had fallen asleep in the folds of her apron.

Liz looked Kirito in the eyes. She wanted to shake her head furiously, if she said no, would he really risk going on this dangerous quest? Of course, he'd just go ask Agil, or Argo, or Klein. And if they all said no? But they wouldn't, because they all knew what Asuna meant to him. Finally, Liz gave a small, solemn nod of her head. "Of course I will. But, I won't have to, right?"

Kirito smiled, "Right."

They finished their tea in silence. Kirito departed not long after that, taking the sword Split Moon with him. On his way out he had stopped and given a small bow to the senior sword smith. "Kofu-sama, please do everything you can to teach your apprentice about sword making."

"Eh?" The request had caught the girl completely by surprise.

"Your blades, they way you talk about them, and the way that they feel, they have a soul to them, I think." Kirito said.

"Kirito-kun." Liz said softly, remembering what he had told her when he'd received Dark Repulsor.

"Liz has been my weapons smith since SAO. But since her stats were low when the transition happened she'll have lots to learn to be an expert sword smith again. So please, teach her well so that one day I can again say with pride that my sword was made by the smith Lisbeth."

Liz felt her heart catch in her throat as Kirito turned to depart, the bell of the storefront chiming once as the door opened and once as it closed.

"That was one strange Spriggan." Kofu said with a shake of her head before returning to the workshop, "But in a good way."

Liz didn't say anything. That night, once more, she cried herself to sleep.


	25. Halkegenia Offline Set 2

And for you philistines who commented about this in the last Offline Snipe, an Omake is simply an "extra", it needn't actually become part of the story's actual plot nor need it actually be linked in any way to what is actually happening in story. These snips are just amusing ideas thought up by the author for a change of pace, not that I don't end up drawing inspiration from them.

Halkegenia Offline – Snip 2

Despite its name and reputation as an institute of magical learning. The Tristain Academy of Magic provided a broad and balanced curriculum to its students, including lessons in language, history, geography, etiquette, and even the vulgar science of natural philosophy. The Academy's charges were the children of Nobles, many of them placed to inherent the duties and responsibilities of their parents, it was only natural that they required a broad education to prepare them for adult life.

For this reason, lessons in magic took up only three days of each week. The second and fourth day of each school week were reserved for mundane lessons. For Louise Valliere, who had never excelled at magic, the opportunity to excel in these other academic fields provided a great sense of relief. Here at least, she was able to excel, and even the most vicious of her detractors didn't dare to question her ability.

Louise had arrived early as usual, and taken a seat at the front of the classroom near the window. Her 'remedial' lessons had not given her a pass from her other classes, and she was still expected to attend all of her normal lessons. Other students came trickling in in ones and twos, most still waking up as they took their seats. Today's lesson was on the history of the early Romalian Empire and would be given by Professor Arbuthnot, the academies resident historian. The man bored most of the students, his lectures gaining a reputation as a sure cure for insomnia. It was going to be a long morning.

"Good morning Louise!" Kirche said as she came strolling in, looking much too bright eyed and bushy tailed. How the woman managed it given her late night antics was quite a mystery to Louise.

"Zerbst." Louise replied, trying hard to sound polite, an internal timer had started counting the seconds until the first insult was thrown.

"It sounds like we're going to have an interesting morning."

Louise frowned, not an insult? "Well, the Early Romalian reformation, and the formation of the basic tenants of the Church of Brimir are forming moments in history." She recited by rote. "I suppose even a Zerbst can appreciate that!"

"Not what I was talking about." Kirche sing songed. "Honestly Valliere, I think your the only one in this class who gets excited over the curriculum." She rolled her eyes, "It must save you a fortune on relieving all that tension."

"Go catch the plague Kirche!" Eleven seconds, that was a new record, the Germanian was losing her edge.

"Depends on how I catch it." The harlot Germanian wagged her eyebrows. "Now really, its going to be interesting, I hear we're getting a new student."

"A new student?" Louise asked, not quite sure what to think.

"Yup, I heard the teachers talking about it this morning. All of the staff were asking if they would need to make special arrangements."

"I should think so." Louise said, anyone transferring at a time like this would certainly have to have been some sort of delinquent kicked out of their previous school. It seemed ridiculous, but somehow, the Academy seemed to have developed a reputation for picking up everyone's trouble makers. Then again, that was partly the source of the school's impressive reputation and why it had been the natural choice for a talentless young mage who could only cause explosions.

They were not left waiting long as the last students filed in, followed by the gray haired Professor Arbuthnot.

"Good morning class, I hope everyone has enjoyed the brake from lessons but I'm afraid it has put us quite behind. We'll be rushing through at a breakneck pace to make it to the formation of Germania before the end of the year."

The students all groaned, Germanian history was a Labyrinthine affair that deserved its own class.

"However, before we begin lessons today, I've been asked to introduce a new student to you all. By special agreement of the Crown and Headmaster, she will be attending part time to learn Halkegenian history and proper diplomatic decorum. As children of your Noble parents, I hope you will all extend the hospitality of our fair Kingdom." Professor Arbuthnot turned to the door, "You may enter now, Miss."

All eyes turned to the door, and suddenly the students were silent. With a bounce to her step, skirt swishing and arms swinging childishly at her side, the boys were all staring at her cute face, her wheat colored hair, and her languidly lashing tail . . . Her tail?

Louise felt her eye twitching, had the headmaster finally gone completely senile? She wondered.

The girl stood at the front of the classroom, the heels of her school issued loafers clicking together as a sunny smile stretched across her face. "How do you do?" She bent forward, every boy in the class attempting to replicate the motion as they sat at their desks. "I'm Alicia Rue. I'll be attending history and etiquette lessons. There's lots for me to catch up on so I hope you'll all help me out."

The boys all nodded stupidly as murmurs began to pass among the girls.

"Alicia Rue, the Countess of Freelia?"

"What's a Faerie doing at the academy?"

"I bet the Headmaster wanted some new eyecandy."

"What a perv!"

"She is kind of cute, though."

"Don't say that! Haven't you heard, she dresses more indecently than that Zerbst."

"Well, she's not right now."

"Like I said, she's cute."

"Don't keep saying that! I have a hard enough time keeping my idiot boyfriend from looking at other girls as it is!"

Louise turned to her side to find a still gobsmacked Kirche. Seeing an opening, she took it, Louise smiled. "I think you're right Zerbst, this is going to be a very interesting lecture. What do you think?"

Kirche shook her head and looked thoughtful. "I think . . . I think I finally have competition."

Up at the head of the class, Alicia Rue smiled mischievously.


	26. Chapter 9 Part 1

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 7 - Part 2

Yuuki Asuna, Asuna the Flash, Commander of the Knights of Blood, and now a Faerie transported to the world of Halkegenia, regarded the latest addition of her troop with mixed feelings. Having rinsed his hair of the black ink that he had used as dye, and scrubbed his face clean, Asuna could almost believe that he really was of royal blood. Kino vouched for his story in any case, claiming that he was Millia's cousin, Wales Tudor, the Crown Prince of Albion. Even as she looked him over, the Prince studied her in turn with clear blue eyes. She mused at the absurdity of the coincidence of meeting the Prince of Albion like this, but Asuna found that she was fast growing to accept the absurd.

After meeting in the midst of battle, they had taken flight as the distant alarms continued to ring with barely a moment to make introductions. Kino and Caramella had explained what had transpired in the city as they traveled with occasional clarification offered by Wales. It was a story that Asuna was still struggling to make sense of. Caramella's unveiling in the middle of the city, the gunpowder explosion set off by Kino, and the improbable meeting with the Prince.

But most important in Asuna's eyes had been the discovery made by Kino. They were not alone in this world. The sailors on the docks had spoken of Faeries known as Cait Syth appearing in the Kingdom of Tristain. Cait Syth, Kimura had described them as a feline themed race from the game of ALfheim. The very thought lifted Asuna's spirits. They weren't the only people transported to this world, there were others like them, perhaps even the entire world of ALfheim had been transported, and with it, maybe, 'Kirito'.

So, even though the York infiltration had been for all intents a complete disaster, it was also an incredible success. They were in more danger now than ever, now that the Rebels had been alerted to their presence, yet they also had a clear goal and perhaps even a means to make it a reality.

"All of the sentries are in position." Arguile reported as he approached the small patch of ground where Asuna and Wales were seated facing each other.

In the dim light of the early morning, beneath the thick forest canopy, the former SAO survivors lay curled up beneath blankets and bed rolls. It was dangerous to remain in one place for long, but it was even more dangerous to travel in broad daylight. Asuna's scouts had spotted dragons and even warships on more than one occasion. Whether the the rebels were searching for them in particular, or simply patrolling near the the front lines was still unclear.

Following behind Arguile were Nishida and Baku, the unofficial spokesmen for the non-combat members of their group, as well as two others, a powerful looking man in high grade armor called Ivan, and a taller, thinner man named Shio, both were former clearers. They were members of the reformed Knights of Blood, leading the B and C defensive squads responsible for protecting the troop as they traveled and keeping everyone together.

"Good." Asuna said. "And you made sure the sentries have clear instructions to stay hidden from the air?" The last thing they needed was to be revealed by their own efforts to keep watch.

"Yes, Asuna-sama." Arguile replied dutifully.

"Then we should take this time to lay out our next move." Asuna said.

There had been little time to do much organized planning since the escape from York. As soon as they had arrived at their campsite, hidden some distance from the port, Asuna had ordered them to break camp and prepare to march. What had followed had been a tortuous night on the move, covering half again as much ground as they had on any of the other nights. There had been little time for more than a whispered exchange as they traveled.

"Should we wake them?" Arguile nodded to Asuna's side where Kino lay curled up in Caramella's arms beneath a course blanket. In sleep, snuggled up to each other, they both looked so much younger, so much more innocent.

"No, we can let them rest. They're both exhausted." Asuna shook her head, ignoring her own fatigue.

Asuna turned her attention back to Prince Wales. She had already apologized for her indiscretion when they had first met, it had not, she reflected, been the best first impression to give to Royalty. Surprisingly, Wales had apologized in turn for having been so forward, and begged pardon for whatever offense he had given. Asuna hadn't been quite sure how to reply, and so had simply decided to consider the matter settled.

"Let me properly introduce you." Asuna said. "Prince Wales, this is Arguile-san, my second in command," the knight gave a respectful nod to the Prince of Air before Asuna continued, "The two next to him are Nishida-san and Baku-san, they represent the members of our group who are not fighters."

"It is an honor to meet you Prince Wales." The elderly Nishida said, Baku giving a small bow.

"Finally, the men standing behind them are Ivan and Shio, leaders of two of our combat squads."

"Prince Wales." Ivan rumbled politely.

"An honor." Shio said, arms crossed.

Wales rose to his feet and gave a formal bow. "It is my great honor to meet all of you. I am Prince Wales Tudor, Crown Prince of Albion. Though it is belated, in the name of the Royal House of Air, I welcome you to Albion. I only wish I could receive you in happier times."

"Which is the problem." Asuna said. "The matter at hand is still getting off of Albion and down to the continent."

"I cannot blame you for that." Wales agreed with a small smile, "I suppose that Albionese hospitality has declined recently. In that much I may be of service."

"Your ship." Asuna said.

Wales nodded, face growing serious, "With the sinking of the Interceptor, the _Eagle_ is all that is left of the Royal fleet, but she's one of the finest vessels in the skies and well crewed. If any ship can slip through Reconquista's blockades and deliver you safely to the continent, it will be the _Eagle_. The only problem will be arranging to meet with her."

"I apologize." Asuna said politely, "We took you from your rendezvous, didn't we."

The prince waved a hand. "These things happen." Wales replied with no hint of concern, as if Asuna had merely spilled her tea. "Though I won't be able to make it to the backup retrieval point on schedule, we have contingencies in place for a situation like this, but it will require that we make our way inland a ways I fear."

With the clearers, Nishida, and Baku, all gathered around him, the Prince began to sketch out a rough map of Albion in the earth at his feet. "We'll need to make our way to the town of Queenswall. From there I can signal my ship to make one last pickup attempt along the coast."

"Forgive me for asking." Nishida said. "But if it's an airship, what prevents it from simply overflying the Island?"

"Nothing save the Rebel patrols." Wales explained. "The _Eagle_ is a fine ship, but she's only survived this long on cunning and the skills of our navigators. If she were to run across the top of the Isle, half the Rebel fleet would be upon her. And as the _Eagle_ is our last ship, my crew have been ordered to take no risks with her, even for me."

"So we make for Queenswall so that you can send your message." Arguile said. "Then we make for the coast once more?"

"Exactly." Wales said, tracing a line. "We should be able to reach Queenswall tomorrow if we again travel through the night. From there, two nights march would bring us to the rendezvous. Three hundred passengers will be a tight fit, but doable."

"Splitting up would let the civilians make better time." Asuna said, studying Wales' crude map, "But I'd rather not risk it."

Arguile nodded in agreement, "We don't know the lay of the land and we can't afford to lose the civilians and their escorts. Baku-san, do you think the others can keep up this pace?"

The former army player rubbed at the bridge of his nose, as if adjusting imaginary glasses. "With a goal to work towards, I think so. We've been holding up well over the last few days. Even Nishida-san has been pretty spry."

"Even with all this walking, I haven't felt this good in years." The elderly man agreed, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

Asuna laced her fingers beneath her chin. "What would be best is if we could split off during the day while the main group rests."

"We?" Wales asked with a quirk of his brow.

"Mmm." Asuna nodded as she starred at the map, "The roads are dangerous, you'll need an escort. I'll go along and wait outside of the town for you."

"Asuna-sama!" Arguile protested. "Surely, a less . . . conspicuous person would be better suited to escorting the Prince. Allow me to go in your place."

"Denied." Asuna said immediately. "I don't intend to enter the town, and we'll be taking the back roads, so it will be easy to avoid patrols." She fingered her cloak thoughtfully, in this she looked like nothing more than a beggar and wouldn't draw any suspicion so far from York. "And if something happens, I have the best chance of getting Prince Wales to safety."

Arguile could offer no counter to this. Asuna was by far the fastest member of their troop and anything she couldn't outrun, she could easily outfight. In the open country, away from cities and towns where her appearance would draw suspicion, she was an excellent choice for this sort of work.

"Arguile-san, please see to the safety of everyone in my absence."

The man took a breath and released it. "Very well, Asuna-sama, but I want you to know that I protest this decision."

"I hardly need an escort from you, Lady Asuna." The Prince replied with a hint of mirth which was wiped from his face a moment later as Asuna gave him a half hooded glance. "I mean to say, a Prince of Air is in no danger traveling alone."

"Maybe, but your safety is essential." Asuna said, crossing her arms. "Besides, I don't think the crew of your ship would be too happy if we let you get yourself killed jumping off of cliffs or fighting dragons."

The Prince, displaying a suitably royal sense of diplomacy, realized he was beaten and conceded.

"That only leaves the matter of payment." Asuna said, receiving looks from the others.

"Indeed, there is a price on my offer of safe passage." Wales admitted apologetically. "I must receive something in return for the risk my crew will be taking and for the time that the _Eagle_will be absent. Every day she is not on patrol is a day that the rebels may ship supplies unopposed."

"And what is your price?" Arguile asked cautiously.

Wales looked first to Arguile and then to Asuna. "I would like to ask for your services on behalf of the Royalists."

The clearers looked among themselves quickly. Asuna had expected this having heard the request often from Millia. "I'm sorry Prince Wales, but this isn't our war." Asuna said. "And I won't endanger the lives of our people."

"I understand your concern." Wales insisted. "Despite what my dear cousin might think, truly our cause is already lost. With but one ship and a few hundred fighters left. The Royalists will be gone in but a short while. But I've seen how you fight. Lady Asuna, you alone would be a match for a strong triangle or even a square mage. There are ways to make use of fighters with your talents. I do not ask that you fight with us to the end, only that you help us bloody Cromwell's nose one last time, and let the continent know that the Royal House of Tudor did not bow to a usurper to the last."

Asuna looked away. "You make it sound so easy." She said quietly. Participating in Albion's civil war would mean exposing the Knight of Blood and the civilians to danger, and also, more killing. Asuna's hands balled into fists.

Wales closed his eyes and bowed his head. "My apologies, Lady Asuna. I meant no offense. In either case, you must leave this area before your troop is discovered. I can offer you safe passage to Newcastle for now. That will at least give you safe haven for a time, and when the situation becomes too dire, we can slip you back past the Rebel lines. But to reach the continent I will need something to show for it."

The gathered Knights were silent until Asuna spoke again. "I understand, and we accept your offer of passage. We'll just have to make arrangements as we go."

It was hardly what Wales had asked for, nevertheless, the Prince appeared to be satisfied. Asuna stood slowly. "You should all get some rest. We're going to have another long night ahead of us." With that, Asuna departed to find someplace to lay her own head.

A few of their group were still awake, or just beginning to fall asleep as she slipped by, eventually finding herself beside the mammoth bulk of Kimura who was in the process of deflating himself down into a shallow depression in the earth. A position he said he found quite comfortable. The slug noted her presence, one of his many tentacles, reaching up to tip the large, banded hat that the seamstress Maki had made for him after he had complained about his lack of pockets. At least he wouldn't be getting slime all over the items he stored on his person anymore.

"Asuna-sama." Kimura said.

"Kimura-san." Asuna said guardedly. The former researcher trapped in the body of a slug type mob had become much more tolerable as their journey had continued. His ability to live off the land, easily transport large loads, and keep pace with the civilians without tiring, had proven invaluable. While no one in the group particularly cared for him, Asuna least of all, they were at least able to act cordially.

"If you're looking for someplace to lay down, I think there's still room for you two over under the tarp." The slug pointed with one of his tenctacles.

"Two?"

Asuna looked over her shoulder to see that Wales had just begun to follow her. He was still some distance away and she hadn't paid much notice. "May I help you, Prince Wales?" Asuna asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"I merely wished to the take the opportunity to apologize again for earlier." Wales said, standing straight.

"Its not your fault. Like I said, I overreacted. I should be the one apologizing." Asuna said mechanically. Right now, she simply wanted to sleep. There were still so many difficult decision to make, but they could all come after that, she'd been on her feet for over a day as it was.

"No, I offered offense to you after you saved my life." The Prince replied. "My honor demands that I make it right."

Asuna shrugged. "Then take us to the continent."

Wales smiled, "I confess that is steep price, even for the honor of a Prince. Truly though, I meant no offense. But when I saw you in flight, I believe I saw what my cousin saw in you, and why you gave her so much hope."

"That wasn't flying." Asuna said bitterly, "I just know how to fall." She glanced over her shoulder where her pale wings hung hidden beneath her cloak. During the fight, she had though she had sensed something, a brief rush of energy as she had twisted in the air, but it was likely that it had been nothing more than her imagination.

"They trouble you." Wales observed. "Your wings."

Asuna almost laughed. After realizing that this world was reality, that this body was flesh and blood, Asuna had wanted to tear her skin off to be rid of marks left by Sugou. Even if he hadn't begun his work on her mind, he had already been busy erasing her identity. She didn't feel like herself, more like a doll of Yuuki Asuna. The other survivors had picked up quickly on her discomfort and none had been brave enough to speak of it directly save in the most oblique fashion.

"They're more than just trouble." Asuna said. "In fact, I've thought of trying to tear them off." The Prince's eyes widened in surprise. "But the others won't let met." She shook her head. The worry over her well being had been the only thing that had stopped her from trying to do just that. "I can't even fly with them, so what good are they?"

"I understand." Wales said. "Or rather, I do not, but I wish I did. Is there nothing I can do to make amends?"

Asuna didn't reply immediately, thinking of what little had been exchanged between them. Even now, she knew very little of the Prince as a person, only that Millia had vouched for him and that he had risked his life to save Caramella.

"Prince Wales." Asuna spoke up suddenly, softly.

"Yes?"

Asuna breathed slowly. "In our country, we are taught that war is a terrible thing. Its the very worst thing that people can do to each other, and that civil war is the worst."

The prince grew stiff. "That is true." Wales admitted, looking regretful

"How do you bair it?" Asuna asked. "The killing?"

Wales' eyes widened again and then his face gained a degree of hardness. "Taking a life should never be an enjoyable thing." Wales said. "I don't think of it as killing. I fight to defend myself and uphold my ideals. There should be no pleasure in taking another persons life. But there should also be no regret in protecting others and upholding what you stand for."

"It isn't right." She said softly.

"It isn't." Wales agreed. "But because of it, I am still alive, so again, I thank you. Not for you part in killing those men, but for saving my life."

Asuna mulled over the Prince's words. It was small comfort, but even so, it felt good to hear it. "You're welcome."

Wales smiled again. "I hope my words have helped. Though I confess that I am still curious about you."

Asuna frowned.

"About your people. I wish for you to fight for our cause, but I know nothing about you." Wales clarified. "You claim to be refugees, but from a land I have never heard of. I know that you are not Elves. Certainly you are not human. And you claim that you are not really Faeries, though it is what Emily insisted you must be and I know no other name to describe you. I vow that whatever the truth is it will not change our agreement, so please tell me, who are you really?"

If Wales had asked it any other way, or perhaps at any other time, Asuna would have simply bid him good day and gone on to find a place to sleep. But the Prince remained still, waiting for her to answer one way or the other. He would no doubt accept if she declined, maybe that was why she decided to tell him.

The girl with Faerie wings thought carefully on the matter and then let out a long low sigh. "I don't even know how to begin. We tried to explaining it all to Millia-san, but I don't think she really believed us. You can't really understand." Asuna shook her head, "No, it's not that, you'll think I'm saying one thing when I mean another. It's difficult to explain when that keeps happening. I think I could only really make you understand it very broadly for now."

"It must be quite a story." Wales observed.

Asuna meditated on those words. "I suppose it is. Prince Wales, would you like to hear a bedtime story?"

The Prince quirked his brow, an amused expression crossing his face. "A Faerie's Faerie Tale? That would be a novelty."

Asuna gestured for him to take a seat, noting out of the corner of her eyes that Kimura had lifted his eye stocks in curiosity. The Prince seemed quite unfazed by the researcher. If he could accept the Faeries of myth, then what was a talking slug?

As Wales looked on in anticipation, Asuna composed herself, finding a seat before beginning.

"Once upon a time, in a land very far away, there lived a young noble girl. Her father was a respected senior guildsmen and her brother had followed in their father's footsteps. The girl was raised to be elegant and refined, a credit to her mother and father." Asuna spoke, voice remaining low and calm. As each line ended, the next began without even thinking about it. Like she'd rehearsed it over and over.

"One day, the girl's brother was called away on business, leaving behind an invitation to a grand masquerade to be held by the greatest Magician in all of the lands, to be held in his home, a great flying castle of stone and iron . . ."

The story took a long time to tell, but at the same time, it was shorter than Asuna had expected. She told the Prince of the great floating castle of Aincrad whose floors were each unto a county, stacked one atop another atop another high into the sky, capped by a Ruby Palace. She told him of how the girl, trapped by the cruel Magician, took up the sword and was transformed from a shy child into a peerless swordswoman. She told him about the many guilds of adventurers, heroes who had stepped forward, ordinary people, who had fought to free them all. She told him about the war they had waged against monsters the likes of which the world had never seen, and the battles with powerful Lieutenant Beasts that barred their way to the top of the castle. And she told him about the kind boy that the girl had met and shared many adventures with, the Black Swordsman who had slayn the Magican and saved them all.

If it had been a Faerie Tale, that would have been the end. The people were saved and the boy and girl lived happily ever after. But life was not that simple. Asuna went on, telling Wales of how the girl was freed from the castle only to be trapped by an apprentice of the Magician, coveting his former master's achievements and seeking to corrupt them for himself. She explained how the apprentice had used an enchantment to shroud his victims in the form of Faeries in a world of dreams and how quite out of the blue, when all seemed lost, they had been freed and found themselves in the land of Albion after escaping their prison.

The Prince remained silent as Asuna finished. It would certainly be a lot to take in, Asuna thought. She wouldn't blame Wales if he simply ignored her story and stuck with calling them Faeries.

"You're right. It is quite difficult to explain. Even now I'm sure I don't understand. But your words wring with the truth. It does explain a great deal about you, Lady Asuna, to have fought but never need taken a human life, that is a rare blessing. I have but one question."

"Yes?" Asuna asked.

"The Black Swordsman. You're deeply in love with him, aren't you?"

Asuna felt her face flush faintly. "Was it that obvious?"

Wales shook his head. "No, you were careful, but that's what gave it away. He must truly be a unique man to hold your affections."

Unique? Maybe. Kirito was many things, none of them special alone. But like anyone else, he was more than the sum of his parts. No list of words like 'kind', or 'generous', or 'brave', could ever do him justice. Asuna only knew that if Kirito was in this world, he would be searching as desperately for her as she was for him. "You're probably right." Asuna said.

By now, the sun had fully risen and light was slanting down through the trees, falling across the slumbering forms of the other SAO survivors. Asuna felt her weariness, held at bay as she told her story, return with a vengeance and she struggled to hold back a yawn.

"I've kept you from your bed long enough." Wales said. Asuna finally noticed signs of fatigue in the Prince's own face. "Good night, Lady Asuna, or rather good day. As you said, we will have a long day ahead of us. Thank you for your story."

Asuna nodded, "Good day to you, Prince Wales."

* * *

Wales Tudor, Prince Wales, the Prince Valiant, Admiral of the Royal Fleet, when there had been a Fleet to command, now disguised as a wandering beggar traveling the roads of Albion, trudged up the hill outside the town of Queenswall with the Lady Asuna in tow. At the top of the hill sat a low shack built into the side of a decrepit stone tower. To the untrained eye, it looked to be nothing but ruins from an era before canon had made the old castles obsolete as fortifications.

In fact, it was a Royal messaging station. One of many commissioned in the days of Wales' grandfather to relay messages across the Isle. This particular station had seen better days, with the aviary tower partially collapsed, the stables in disrepair, and several of the windows boarded up. Still, even in the midst of war, especially in the midst of war, there was a need to send post and military communications at a rate faster than a horse mounted messenger without tying up valuable dragons. Thus, with each captured city and town, the Royal Message Stations had been usurped by the Rebels. Their operators pressed into service sending reports and orders to and from far off Londinium where the traitor Cromwell directed his forces.

What the Rebels did not realize was that they had not been as thorough as they believed when it came to expunging Royalist sympathies. The number of safe stations was few, and they had to be used rarely lest they draw suspicion. But from Queenswall station it would be possible for a messenger bird to travel all the way to Skiesedge, a small town to the south of York, not far from where the _Eagle_ waited hidden away among the many hollows and caves that dotted Albion's cliffs. From there, the message would be received by his crew and they would make best speed for an alternate pick up point further south from York.

Finally reaching the top of the hill overlooking Queenswall, a town of three thousand built at the intersection of two major highways and the River Tans, Wales knocked heavily on the shack door before turning to wait for his companion.

Their journey had been surprisingly uneventful. Though there were patrols along the roadways and in the skies above. As the Lady Asuna had predicted, it had been relatively trivial for the two to evade them. This far from York the garrisons obviously weren't taking the alert as seriously.

With her cloak pulled around her, the Lady Asuna looked innocuous enough. Wales was secretly thankful to have the Faerie girl at his side after the events in York. While he was confident of his ability to defend himself and did not need a girl for protection, he was not so arrogant as to deny her skill with the rapier or her supernatural strength and agility which were akin to the heroes of fable. It reminded him of the tale she had told him the day before, of a great castle of stone and iron and of the endless battles that had raged within. Even now he still didn't know what to make of it. And yet it explained so much about her.

It reminded him once more of what his cousin had said to him in passing. It was said that Albion was the lowest of Medb's domains, and that the Faerie Queen presided over the land of dreams. The very place that Lady Asuna said that the impossible castle did reside. He suspected that the Lady Asuna had been correct and that the story of the Faeries would take time to properly explain.

"This place looks abandoned." The Lady Asuna observed, looking up at the rundown Message Station.

"The Rebels can be thanked for that. In better times the Royal Message Stations carried post for both the army and private citizens. But after the Rebels took control they have monopolized the stations for their own use. Fortunately the postmen chafe as much under their abuses as anyone."

The girl seemed unsure. A moment later there was a creaking, and the door to the Station was cracked open. A pair of dark gray eyes peeked out from beneath thick gray eyebrows. "By order of the Good Lord Cromwell this message station is closed for use by the public!" The man said in a dry old voice.

"And yet the birds still fly free, like all true sons of Albion." Wales said, watching the eyes widen slightly.

"Until they are returned to the bosom of their mother isle?" The query was spoken with a mix of caution and excitement. To Wales' knowledge this station had been rarely used.

"To lay before her white cliffs, home once more, everlasting." Wales answered.

The door swung open to reveal an elderly looking commoner dressed in the carefully maintained uniform of a Postman. The man ushered them quickly inside and shut the door behind them. The interior of the shack was in much better condition. The floor recently scrubbed and not a spec of dust on any of the furniture. They were admitted into a small waiting space fronted by a high table behind which the Postman would sit when receiving customers. Behind the desk was a tall bank of slotted cubbyholes where the letters coming and going from Queenswall by courier would be sorted, and a second smaller set of cubbyholes for pigeon post.

The old man gave them both a thoughtful look, mumbling something under his breath before circling back around and taking a seat at the desk. "Welcome to Royal Courier Messaging Station Number One Hundred and Fifty Seven. God save the King. How may I help you this day?"

Both Wales and the Lady Asuna were left momentarily speechless by the small man's clear delight. It was like he had waited through the whole war for this moment.

"We need to send a message." Wales said politely.

"Right you are sir! Where will it be to?"

"Skiesedge." Wales said.

"Station Eight Nine it is then." The man said. "Not supposing you have the letter with you?"

Wales raised his hands pleadingly. Though the Lady Asuna's knights had come across some stationary supplies, they had been lacking in the thin paper used for letters by messenger birds.

"Well that's quite alright. Stationary is right there, a half pence a sheet, ink and pen are complimentary. I tell you what, those Rebel hoodlums come in and just use the stuff. Haven't got any respect for the establishment I tell you what! It's been hell taking and receiving those letters, never opening, never spy'n on'm in case the crown ever needed my services. They took off all the others, thought that the young lads were more likely to sympathize with the cause, just left me to tend the birds."

Wales gave the man a pained smile and turned to the offered writing desk, taking three sheets of paper and laying them out side by side. He duplicated his message three times with different recipients in Skiesedge. He called it duplication but the content was in fact a little different. Just looking at each letter, they appeared to be nothing but notes home from sons off to war. The gist of each was an apology that the war was dragging on. One asked if a lover was still pining for him at a certain location. Another reminded his mother where to pick the herbs for her bad back. The third promised to build his wife a house overlooking the cliffs. They all referred to the same location. The Rebels might have clamped down on the post but that simply meant it was severely underutilized allowing a black market to be established for use by petty nobles and well to do commoners. Even if the notes were intercepted, they would simply be assumed to be contraband from their own rowdy troops and not Royalist communications.

Looking over the letters one last time, Wales handed them to the Postman. "I'd like you to send them by three different birds. Their arrival at their destination is vital."

"Right you are sir!" The old man said with delight. He worked with shaky hands, quickly rolling each letter up into a roll thinner than the cigarettes smoked by commoner soldiers and then carefully sliding each into a small brass cylinder. Screwing each shut and capping the cylinders in wax. The Postman took the messages in hand and disappeared into a doorway at the back of the shack. His head poked back out, "Well, then, come on. Don't you want to see them off?"

Wales looked to the Lady Asuna who seemed just a perplexed but followed close behind. The door lead into the aviary tower, which like the shack, looked much better kept on the inside with dozens upon dozens of small rectangular cages lining the walls. The birds in their assorted cages cooed softly to one another as if commenting on the new arrivals.

"Station Eight Nine, Station Eight Nine. Here we are!" The Postman opened one of the cages and gently extracted a medium sized, gray feathered bird, carefully affixing the first cylinder to its leg and taking it to a small window for release. This was followed by two more before the man wiped his hands on his trousers smiling happily. "And that'll be all of it. No need to worry. They're the fastest birds in the isle, Royal Messenger Pigeons, your letters will arrive by nightfall."

"Excellent." Wales said. "That will be all then. Thank you for your service to the Crown." Wales was about to turn to depart when something struck him. "Ah, how much was the postage?" Such an absurd question to ask, but something about the old man struck him as incredibly sad.

The Postman shook his head vigorously, "Why you should know sir, official messages are carried free. That was the original job of Royal Message Stations after all. A sight better work than they're doing now."

"I see." Reaching into his pocket, Wales removed a small purse and fished about.

The Postman frowned. "I said the message was sent for free, didn't I?"

Extracting three half pence, Wales took the man's hand and placed them in his palm. "Yes, but you still charge for the stationary." Wales smiled kindly, "We have to show respect to the establishment."

The old man looked down and then back up to Wales. "Right you are sir." He said, swallowing.

The man walked them back to the door before speaking again. "By the way. They've been saying all sorts of slanderous things down in town you see." The Postman said, fidgeting. "Say the Royalists are almost wiped out. Ah, begging your pardons, but does the Prince Valiant still live?"

Wales looked to the man, of course he wouldn't recognize Wales in person. Not dressed in rags and half hooded. "Yes, the Prince Valiant still lives. He still fights for Albion."

"Good, good." The man nodded his head slowly. "We haven't lost as long as that boy lives. That's what you gotta keep telling yourself lad! As long as the Prince's is alive we've got a succession and things can go back one day once all this madness has ended."

Wales looked at the gray man, he was old enough to have fought in the last war, Wales thought, the one that had ended just before he had been born. Standing straight, Wales gave the man a military salute. "God save the King."

"God save the King." The old man said. "And God save the Prince."

Wales looked over to see the Lady Asuna repeating his gesture, though she said nothing, and then they were departing, the shack door closing behind them, leaving no hint of the strange encounter that had occurred within.

"That was easier than I expected." The Lady Asuna observed as they descended toward the roadway to make their return journey.

"You say that as if you were expecting a fight." Wales observed.

"Not exactly, but I'm not used to these things being this simple." The girl said. "It's almost boring really."

Wales quirked an eyebrow. "You've certainly lived in interesting times, Lady Asuna."

It was almost enough to draw a smile from the Lady Asuna's lips. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"To have lived in them and survived, it may well be." Wales agreed, turning back to his recollection of the Lady Asuna's story.

He still didn't know what to make of it, or what to make of her or the other Faeries and their strange mannerisms. And the story she had told was too incredible to believe. Magicians shaping dreams and imprisoning thousands. Impossible battles of swordcraft against all manner of monsters and powerful Lieutenant Beasts. Just what had this girl experienced? Just what had she witnessed to make her the person she was now? He could not say.

Any further comment was cut off as a shrill scream echoed across the countryside. Both the Prince Valiant and the Lady Asuna were suddenly alert. Wales reaching beneath his traveling cloak for the wand cane he had taken from one of the slain Dragon Knights and the the girl at his side taking hold of her rapier.

"It came from outside the town gates." Wales said, already turning to follow the road away from Queenswall. A scream like that couldn't mean anything but trouble.

"We should go see." The Lady Asuna said without a moment of hesitation.

Wales grimaced. "We can't risk drawing attention to ourselves."

The cry came again, and the girl glared at him. "These are your people, aren't they?"

"Believe me, I am aware of their plight." Wales clenched his jaw. "Discretion has been a hard won virtue these past months."

"Well then, haven't you ever heard of Prince's helping their people while in disguise?" The Lady Asuna asked, starting out towards the noise.

"Lady Asuna." Wales sucked in a breath through clenched teeth.

"We'll just see what's happening. It might be nothing, or maybe something is happening and we can help without being seen."

"Yes, because that worked well the other day in York." Wales rolled his eyes, but found himself following behind the girl. At times she showed the discretion of a proper commander, but then at others she was so clearly reckless. He doubted Sir Arguile would think too kindly of him if he allowed her to come to harm.

The noise was coming from an open market at the gates of the town. Queenswall's location along the major highways and a river route meant that a great deal of the local commerce passed through the town on its way to York or the other port cities. The Market was likely a seasonal affair as farmers bought and traded in preparation for the planting season and the local townspeople sold tools and services.

A crowd had gathered in the middle of the roadway. "Order! Order you rabble!" A voice was shouting.

The crowd was too thick to see past, but the foot of the hill formed a shoulder along the roadway, allowing Wales and the Lady Asuna to see above the gathered townspeople. With a small spell, cast from beneath his cloak, Wales was able to make the sound carry from the scene unfolding below. A mage in the uniform of a Rebel officer was busily dragging a woman about by her hair, shouting at the crowd as he jerked her back and forth. At his side, a second mage and about a dozen foot soldiers looked on.

Wales' eyes narrowed. They were sloppy, not front line troops. A weak mage should never allow a crowd to surround them like that, and a powerful mage would have known to not let it happen in the first place. The risk of a hidden assailant or of the mob surging in was simply too great.

"I, SAID, ORDER!" The man screamed, yanking hard on the woman's hair. She let out another pained cry and Wales winced sympathetically. "We have reports of Royalists sympathizers in Queenswall. By order of the Good Lord Cromwell you are commanded to submit for inspection! All contraband will be confiscated! Any information leading to the arrest of a Royalist will be rewarded! Any attempt to conceal a Royalist will be punished!"

From somewhere in the crowd, a stone was throne, not very well, and not very hard. The mage holding the woman barely noticed as it struck his leg. Glaring he cast his eyes to the townspeople, catching sight of his assailant.

"Let go of my mother!" A little commoner girl shouted, she couldn't have been more than nine or ten years old, Wales thought.

"Attacking your betters?" The mage asked, looking to her companions. "I can see this town has been without supervision for too long, the rabble hasn't been properly disciplined." The man leveled his wand on the girl and suddenly she was falling upwards into the sky, shrieking in terror.

A commoner, better dressed than the others, most likely a craftsmen from the town, stepped forward as spokesman. "Please sir, she's just a girl, and her mother was widowed by the war. She meant no disrespect!"

Wales looked across the crowd. There were bound to be a handful of petty mages among them, but non seemed willing to expose themselves in defense of the girl or her mother. Even as he watched, he saw several faces turning away.

The Rebel mage smirked as he waved his wand up and down, causing the girl to bounce thirty or forty males in the air above the hard packed roadway. Each bounce bringing with it another scream. "You're right of course." The Mage said, yanking again at the woman's hair. It's a mother's duty to keep her children in line." His gaze trailed across the onlookers. "Though, as they say, it takes a village to raise a child. So I suppose you're all equally responsible."

The spokesman swallowed slowly, understanding dawning. "N-name your price. I'll accept punishment on behalf of the girl and her mother."

"I think a fine should do." The mage said, glancing to his fellows who all nodded in agreement. "Yes, a fine. Of course, it will have to levied on your whole lot, interfering in an investigation is inexcusable."

There were shouts of protest from the crowd at which the mage twitched his wand, sending the girl higher into the air. At Wales's side, the Lady Asuna trembled, in any other girl he would think it fear, but from the look in her eyes, and the stance she had taken, he could describe it only as rage. His second eldest brother had been like that, an affectionate man who was quick to anger when others were harmed. "Still yourself." Wales advised softly.

"A fine? More like theft!" A voice shouted from the crowd. The two mages and their subordinates seemed suddenly on edge. The shouting redoubled for a moment before another voice continued.

"That's right, I've heard of this! They're using Reconquista's name to line their own pockets!"

"They probably aren't even soldiers!"

The crowd was growing restless now, and Wales grimaced. The words were too well coordinated and much too close to the mark. Some fool in the crowd was trying to whip them up into a frenzy.

"Order I say, in the name of the Good Lord Cromwell!" The mage spluttered, lifting the girl higher into the sky. The man seemed suddenly aware of the danger he was in. Fear more than the actual power of the mages had kept the crowd back, but a crowd could be fickle and irrational, easily led by anyone who knew what levers to pull.

"Please, everyone remain calm!" The spokesman said, but nobody was listening to him. "Sir, just put the girl down and walk away. I'll pay your fine from my own pocket!"

"You don't have the money, Samson." Another of the townspeople, a man dressed in the working clothes of a blacksmith said. "I've seen your purse these last few months. They're stealing bread from the mouths of our children!"

"And now they'll steal the life of Anna's child!" The spokesman pleaded.

"Back, back all of you!" The mage was shouting. He had released the woman and was now retreating behind the safety of the soldiers and his fellow mage.

"Horace! Catch the girl!" The blacksmith shouted as he drew his own wand. A mage, naturally most master blacksmiths were mages with a fire or earth affinity. With spells to control the heat and purity of the metals, and skill with the hammer and quench to provide the precision that magic lacked. The situation was rapidly growing out of hand.

"Lady Asuna, we need to leave now." Wales whispered. But the girl at his side barely budged, her whole body as immobile as if she were cast from bronze. The crowd was closing in on the mages. It was clear that they had gravely miscalculated.

Suddenly, another stone was thrown from the crowd, faster, and much harder than the first. The mage holding the girl swept his wand down reflexively and deflected it with a burst of wind. The girl's screams redoubled as she plummeted from the sky. One of the townspeople, a petty mage raised his wand to catch the girl as the crowd, now in a frenzy, charged in.

The second mage finally took action and Wales looked on in horror. The man wasn't a wind mage. From the tip of his wand lashed a tongue of flame, sweeping across the mob and sending them writhing back. It was merely a cantrip, something meant to be summoned quickly, more to dazzle and frighten than to do harm. Still, it was effective. With the commoners briefly cowed, the mage quickly turned to neutralize the greatest threat in his sight, attacking the petty mage who was occupied safely lowering the girl to the ground. Still too high up, the petty mage flung the girl back into the air to give himself time to guard, throwing up a wall of wind to keep the flame tongue at bay. No sooner were the flames scattered than the unlucky petty mage, no real fighter, was hit by a blindly cast wind hammer from the first mage.

"Wales!" The Lady Asuna shouted.

With barely a thought, Wales reached out with his own focus casting levitation to break the girl's fall. Wild eyed, the fire mage below caught sight of his next target, a cloaked figure standing on the shoulder of the roadway, a mage desperately trying to prevent a little girl from falling to her death. Wales saw the man's arm extend, he saw the chant passing his lips, and the tongue of flame that erupted forward. And then there was not time to do anything but guard as the flames rushed in.

* * *

Asuna saw Wales lower his wand,desperately attempting to guard himself from the flames, the Prince couldn't hold onto the girl and protect himself at the same time. At the last moment he launched her once more into the air, buying the child another few seconds. In the chaos, the girl was almost an afterthought. Those who were paying attention could do nothing to save her, and the few mages in the crowd were either cowering back from the power displayed by the battle mages or else occupied in protecting themselves and others from their flailing attacks. Asuna began to move instantly. The girl was too high up to simply catch, Asuna would have to intercept her at the apex of her own jump and hope she could break their fall enough that the girl wouldn't be too badly hurt. But it was too high, it was too far, and the girls upward flight was slowing too fast.

Asuna willed her body forward, ignoring its protests. She knew could go faster! She was past Wales and halfway to the road in the blink of an eye, then she was vaulting the low stone wall that sided the shoulder of the roadway, sweeping around the crowd. The girl had reached the apex of her arc and was just beginning to fall downward once more. Asuna felt her sense of self expanding, stretching down her back, tracing out bone and muscle that didn't really exist. Asuna wasn't fast enough, she wasn't going to make it. But she had to try.

And so Asuna jumped, and so the girl fell, and so Asuna flew.

Thinking back later, Asuna realized that it hadn't really been flight. Rather, there had been a surge of energy, and for an instant the wings on her back hadn't been lifeless things placed their by Sugou to torment her. They'd been a part of her, as natural as her arms and legs, and though she didn't fully understand how to use them it didn't matter, she only needed to travel straight forward as fast as she could. Asuna caught the girl in mid fall and clutched her closely to her chest, fifteen meters in the air. She felt her wings stretching out, catching the air, and slowing her descent, but it wasn't going to be enough on its own. Asuna hit the ground, legs folding up and body hunching forward to absorb the impact and convert it into a forward roll, shielding the girl in her arms. They came tumbling to a halt in a cloud of dust.

For a brief moment their was silence. Asuna struggled to sit upright, the girl in her arms clinging to her in terror, tears running down her face, hands clutching white knuckled to Asuna's blouse. Slowly the girl looked up wide eyed at Asuna, her grip loosening and her mouth falling open.

"Are you okay?" Asuna asked.

The girl nodded her head slowly. "A-are you a Faerie?" She whispered, looking at Asuna with big dark brown eyes filled with wonder. Although her cloak was still wrapped around her, nobody could have missed the wings that glowed faintly as they stretched from her back, folded like those of a dragonfly at rest. The crowd was silent, stunned by what they were witnessing. Even the fire mage and Wales stood starring, waiting to see what she would do. Asuna was taken aback, but looking at the wander in those eyes, she simply smiled.

"Un." Asuna nodded, letting go of the girl and standing slowly. "Now wait here."

They had come to a stop just a few paces from the mage who had started this all. The man stood slack jawed as Asuna approached, unable to reconcile what he was seeing. Asuna's face became a mask, cold and emotionless. That finally seemed to make the man remember himself. He leveled his wand on Asuna and let loose with an air blast. Too slow. Asuna sidestepped the attack and then was on him.

The Rapier's first thrust was cleanly along the inside of the forearm on the wand hand side. The man let out a shriek of pain as his hand fell uselessly open. The next strike was along his opposite flank, then again along the opposite shoulder, left upper arm, right forearm, right upper arm. It was like a dance, each thrust eating away at the man as he screamed in pain and terror. He collapsed, a twitching heap before Asuna who regarded her work clinically. She hadn't really done that much damage. Her aim had been to hurt and humiliate, not kill, and in that she had succeeded magnificently.

"P-please, don't killy me! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" The man shouted in terror as he struggled to get away. Asuna thrust out one more time with the Rapier, just grazing the man's cheek and watched with some distaste as a stain spread across the front of his trousers. Asuna stamped down on the man's wand, cracking it in two, and took a half step back, eyes flicking to the commoner soldiers who were now leveling their weapons on her. The first six found the courage to charge in.

Sighing, Asuna went to to work. This wasn't like the battle the day before, she could neutralize these men without taking their lives. She wouldn't kill needlessly. She rushed forward to meet them, rapier in hand, the men stumbled back, not knowing how to respond to a bare waif of a girl meeting their charge. The rapier licked out, catching the first man in the hand and causing him to lose his grip on his halberd. The next man received a merciless strike to the inside of his upper arm, each attack was aimed to cripple without killing. From what Millia had told her about water mages, the wounds would be easily treatable, later, after Wales and Asuna were gone.

She danced in and out. Threading between the fighters. No sooner had she disabled one attacker than she was behind him and on to the next. It didn't seem fair, her speed was a good approximation of what she had achieved in SAO, while these men moved like bottom floor players. The forth man managed to swing his halberd, aiming a bone shattering blow for Asuna's shoulder. Rather than twist away, the swordswoman brought her rapier up, sliding it along the halberds shaft and diverting the swing as she moved to the side, before countering with a thrust under the arm.

The last two men fell quickly, having had time to see Asuna's handiwork and grow horrified. They weren't fighting a little girl. They were fighting a monster. The two men stumbled back to cower behind the six remaining soldiers. Two of the men had taken the time to ready crossbows and were taking aim when a gust of wind struck the whole group, laying them out flat. Asuna glanced to the side, where wales had disposed of the fire mage and come to her aid. And then it was over, only the calls of pain from the defeated men left to indicate that anything had taken place, and the eyes of the crowd on them.

Asuna felt small arms wrapping around her, and looked down to see the girl clinging to her side.

"Sophie!" The woman from before cried and ran out to snatch up her daughter, hugging the little girl fiercely to her chest. She looked up to Asuna and the approaching Wales, her eyes resting for a moment on Asuna's ears and then her wings. The woman shook her head, "Thank you. Thank you for saving my daughter."

Murmurs were already spreading through the crowd, Asuna bit her lip. They'd have to break through and make it back into the forest. She was still looking for an opening when the cheering began. Applause and whistles of admiration rising from the crowd. Asuna blinked, startled. "W-what?"

The large blacksmith from earlier approached the woman and her daughter. Helping them back to their feet. He gave a nod of thanks to Asuna and Wales. "I don't know who you are, but thank you. Sophie here was the daughter of one of my men. I promised I'd look after her and her mother." The man chuckled, "She's always been a lucky girl, but I never thought I'd see a Faerie come to her aid."

"We need to leave now." Wales said, voice soft but carrying a hint of urgency. The crowd seemed too distracted by Asuna and her wings to have payed much mind to the Prince, and of course, none of the people would ever have seen him in person. Even so, there was a strange gleam in the blacksmith's eye as if he suspected.

"If you want to be going, then take flight now. It'll be a few minutes before any of the rest of the garrison respond." The Blacksmith said. "Which way would you like us to tell'm you went?"

Wales paused. "Say that we went North." The Prince said.

"They'll believe that, sure enough." The blacksmith agreed, glancing back to get another look at Asuna. "Though I doubt they'll believe Medb has returned to her Isle."

Asuna wasn't pleased by the words, but somehow, they stung less at that moment, she noticed from the corner of her eye, the crowd closing in on the defeated Rebel soldier. "What will you do with them?" She asked.

The man looked down to the girl and the woman in his arms and then chuckled evilly. "Aye, they threatened a townswoman and her daughter without bringing it before the town hall. Not even Reconquista will want to trouble with that. We've ways of making examples of men like that. Mark my words."

Asuna swallowed softly as an evil look crossed the man's face.

* * *

Sir Terrance Dunwell, former Knight in service of the Royal House of Albion, and now serving at the Good Lord Cromwell's pleasure in the army of Reconquista, listened as his aide, Sir Wells, offered his report.

"Two mages seriously injured, their supporting foot soldiers found hung upside down, bound and gagged and beaten to a pulp. There are no reported casualties. Quite peculiar if I do say so myself."

"The injuries?" Sir Dunwell asked his subordinate.

"Multiple minor lacerations across the arms and face for one man. Burns and blunt force trauma to the other." Sir Wells looked confused. "Both men were also tarred and feathered."

"Tarred and feathered? They still do that here?" Sir Dunwell snorted.

"Its a minor miracle they weren't lynched given the reports." Sir Wells observed. "The mage officer in charge wants punitive measures to be leveled against the townspeople."

"On what grounds?" Sir Dunwell asked.

Sir Wells scanned the report in his hands. "Apparently interfering with the lawful duties of his men."

"What he means is extortion and highway robbery." Sir Dunwell sighed, truly he had no time for these matters. Reconquista had far too many greedy idiots in its ranks for his taste. "Tell the good Garrison Captain that Lord Cromwell will not look favorably on him harassing the people of Queenswall. Or need I remind him this is one of the only productive towns left in this region." It was like the den of vipers back in Londinium didn't understand that there needed to be a working country for them to rule over.

"As you wish, Sir Dunwell." Sir Wells bowed his head in affirmation.

"Now, let us return to our real mission here." The Senior Knight said, gesturing to the site of the incident that had occurred earlier that same day.

There had been no dead this time, somehow. But the disturbance had drawn his attention nevertheless when one of his men had returned with reports that the town of Queenswall was abuzz with sightings of a 'Faerie'. Such rumors would normally have meant little if they had not been accompanied by the grievous injury of two mages before hundreds of witnesses. Knowing his superior, the Knight had returned immediately to Dunwell's side to give his report.

Accounts said that it had been a startlingly beautiful young woman wielding a silver white sword and born aloft by gossamer wings. Possessed of incredible grace, she had defeated the mages at the side of a gold haired youth in only a few heartbeats. Rumors were already spreading among the townspeople that it was a daughter of Medb, arrived to fight beside Albion's rightful masters. Some even claimed that the Prince Valiant himself had been the one at her side. Silly rumors spoken by soft headed commoners, but a nuisance nonetheless. Already it had made the local people less than cooperative with his investigations.

Sir Dunwell paused, or perhaps they weren't so soft headed. Prior to the spotting of the Elf woman in York, the sabotage at the docks, and the woman's subsequent escape, Dunwell's mission in York had been to investigate rumors of Royalist sympathies in the port. Someone was feeding information to the Royalists, allowing them to strike ships arriving from the continent with disturbing reliability and accuracy. Lord Cromwell refused to let up the blockade around Newcastle, his advisers having convinced him that the attacks were being staged by a handful of ships still loyal to the Crown and staging from hidden ports along the cliffs of the white Isle.

Personally, Dunwell suspected there was only one ship. Most of the rest of the Royal Fleet had been accounted for, captured, destroyed, or their flotsam found riding the waves beneath Albion. And if it was one ship, it would be a particular ship. The commerce raider HMS _Eagle_, captained by the Prince Valiant himself. And at York, a Youth of the Prince's build had been seen aiding the Elf woman in her escape. The man had certainly been no commoner mercenary to have survived the drop from the cliffs of York into the river Fosse.

Dunwell frowned, it was a pleasing narrative of course, Prince Wales was known to travel often in disguise, but the Knight could not fathom what the heir to Albion's throne would be doing traveling so far inland. Had he been separated from his ship? A possibility if he had been in York, in which case he might have intended to enlist aid to return to Newcastle. It would be some time yet before every Royalist sympathizer was stamped out.

"The prevailing report is that the two assailants departed North in the direction of the front lines. If they are Royalists, they may plan to break through and make for Newcastle." Sir Wells said.

"Indeed." Dunwell said, still distracted. That didn't make any sense. The front lines closed in on Newcastle everyday. By now, it would be all but impossible to cross them on foot. You would need a mount, or a ship, to overfly the patrols.

The logical conclusion was that the people of Queenswall were lying. No doubt the townspeople were attempting to protect their benefactors, some misguided show of gratitude. The prevailing opinion was that they were heading north, but dissenters claimed that they were traveling East. But to where?

"We should send a message to the front line commanders, in any case." Dunwell decided, and then paused as he eyes fell upon the tower at the top of the hill outside of Queenswall. "Sir Wells . . . come with me."

"Ah, yes sir Dunwell." The Knight followed closely behind as his commander hiked up the hill. A pair of the escorting dragon knights were keeping watch from atop their mounts, using the hill as a vantage point as their dragons rested.

"Sir Dunwell!" Both men saluted as the Senior Knight passed them by. He hammered solidly on the door to the Royal Message Station. A few moments later, a gray haired commoner peaked his head out.

"Good day to your sir." The man said. "God save the Good Lord Cromwell, how mayhaps I be of service?"

Dunwell spared the man barely a glance as he pushed the door open and swept inside the confines of the Message Station. The birds in the aviary grew anxious as he entered, hooting among themselves in fright. The Knight's movements were much too predatory for their tastes. Dunwell's eyes swept the cages, well tended, he thought. Half were empty and thoroughly scrubbed down, awaiting birds that might never arrive. His came to rest on three cages, all listed as eighty nine. The feathers, feed, and water all present in the coop were evidence that the birds had just been released not too long ago.

"Sir Dunwell?" Sir Wells asked.

"A message drop." Dunwell replied. "Our query sent a message from here to station eighty nine."

"I'll send a dragon to collect the messages immediately." Sir Wells said.

"No. These are royal messenger birds. Almost as fast as a wind dragon. They'll have been received by now. But I suspect I know the contents."

Sweeping back into the post room Dunwell continued past the spluttering postman and to stand before a map of Albion that had been nailed to one of the walls of the post office. The isle was covered in small red dots containing numbers in white. The dot numbered eighty nine was some ways to the south of York, a small town along the edge of the Isle, south east of Queenswall. Examining the map carefully, Dunwall grabbed a pencil off of the counter and began drawing a series of short concentric arcs centered on Queenswall and expanding eastward.

"Hey, what you are you . . . ?!" Sir Wells clamped a hand down on the shoulder of the elderly postman.

Finally, Dunwell's markings reached the coast. They would follow the roadways to make good time. From memory, there were only a handful of places that would make for good rendezvous points along the curve of the Isle. A ship would either have to risk overflying the Isle, or stay near one of several pockets where the turbulent air streams abated. Satisfied with his conclusion. Dunwell strode over to a small writing desk by the door and took two sheets of paper. Duplicating and signing his instructions on each. His eyes wondered to a small placard on the table, and with barely a thought, placed two half pence pieces in a small collection tray.

"I have a priority message to be delivered to York. I would like you to use two birds. The message contents are essential. I will of course see them off myself." Dunwell said, offering the two thin sheets to the Postman. The old man looked down at the letters and that up to Dunwell, eyes filling with tears.


	27. Chapter 9 Part 2

IF YOU ARE ENGAGED IN THE STORY THEN PLEASE READ THIS

Well, the good news is, we're getting closer and closer to Kirito and Asuna's reunion.

The bad news is that there's another story coming up that needs to be posted. It takes place over the course of a few days in the Tarbes area and sets the stage for some things to come. Specifically just what the transition and actualization of ALfheim is doing to the game world's more intelligent mobs.

It will also get Louise and Friends involved, something that is badly needed to make this an actual crossover, and set up some character development for Louise. However, lots of people are going to be annoyed because the arc, which is already written, takes up nine updates. I'm curious whether people would want to have these uploaded as a separated story or as a single large chapter right here.

Personally I prefer the latter option.

Sincerely, the Author.

Halkegenia Online- Chapter 9 – Part 2

The forest was as silent as a grave. That was fitting, Caramella thought as she walked beside Prince Wales and Arguile, escorting their condemned prisoner. The late afternoon sun was setting over the crest of the trees, it wouldn't be long before they could start moving again. With any luck, they would make it to the rendezvous point by the middle of the night and leave the Reconquista patrols far behind. But before that, there was still some unfinished business that needed to be seen to. Caramella gave the man a glance, he was a murderer and very likely a rapist, what was more, his usefulness had come to an end and he was now more of a liability than an asset. Yet Caramella still felt her stomach knot up at the thought of killing him in cold blood.

As a former member of the Aincrad Liberation Army she had resigned herself to the fact that she might one day have to kill an orange or red player. But the very nature of Aincrad guaranteed that it would be an act of self defense. She almost wished she'd finished the job that first night, she could have excused herself in the heat of battle.

And so Caramella had been almost grateful when the matter had come to the attention of Prince Wales that day as they were settling in. The youth, no the kid, he was younger that Caramella herself, had listened calmly as Caramella and Arguile retold the events of their arrival in Albion. The Prince's face had grown hard when he had learned of what the man and his companions had been planning to do to Millia.

"He assaulted a woman, a noble woman, with intent to force himself upon her and then murder her." Wales Recited. "Why haven't you put him to death?" The Prince's voice was tinged with anger and his gaze fell accusingly on them.

Caramella and Arguile had both averted their eyes. "It's not that simple." Caramella had offered, it was a lousy excuse. They knew what the logic of the situation demanded they do. It wasn't like they could take him with them to Newcastle, the Royalists probably wouldn't care to feed a useless prisoner and would back their Prince without hesitation.

"Another of your customs?" Wales had asked.

"In a manner of speaking." Arguile sighed. "Passing judgment on the man is easy, actually going through with it is . . . Much more difficult."

The Prince had stood in silence looking back and forth between the two Faeries. Finally, with a level of insight that had surprised Caramella, Wales spoke. "The Lady Asuna is no doubt conflicted in this matter."

Arguile nodded hesitantly, "Yes. I think that she dreads giving the order. That's my fault, I've allowed this to go on to spare her the pain."

"You fear that she can't bring herself to do it?" Wales asked.

"No, I fear that she can." The Knight replied.

The Prince's browse rose. "I see." He said simply. "Nevertheless, the man committed a crime on Albionian soil. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. As an Admiral in Service to the Crown, I am granted judicial powers in times of war. I would like you to remand the prisoner to my custody for punishment." There was a sort of cold kindness in the Prince's eyes.

Both Caramella and Arguile had been stricken speechless. When the matter was brought before Asuna, their leader had grown very quiet, it was clear that she had been thinking about it as well but had been able to distract herself with other things. Asuna didn't evade the question, listening silently as Wales presented his argument.

"Lady Asuna, that man is a criminal and a danger if he is released. I understand that you vowed not to harm him if he cooperated." Wales said. "But he has broken the laws of my Kingdom. Your vow and honor will be untarnished if I take this matter into my own hands."

Asuna had only given a small nod of affirmation. "This is your country, so I don't have any right to argue about your laws . . . But I should be there to see this through."

"No. You shouldn't." Arguile had placed a hand on Asuna's shoulder. The girl breathed in slowly, looking up at the Knight. "Please do not argue Asuna-sama, grant me this much."

It had been clear that Asuna wanted badly to say something, but for once she didn't. Caramella thought she was getting to know the girl well enough to take a guess at why.

"Very well, Prince Wales." Asuna said, turning back to the Prince. "I'll leave this matter in your hands. I trust you will be discrete."

The Prince had given a small bow and departed without saying a word, intent on finding the prisoner and seeing to the matter swiftly. And so it was that the three members of Asuna's troop plus one prisoner had found themselves in a small clearing out beyond the perimeter marked by the sentries.

"This is far enough." Arguile decided. They were a good ways from the campsite, if the man decided to scream or shout, it would simply be mistaken for animal cries. The others would find out eventually, but only after the deed was done and over with.

Taking hold of the Prisoner's bound hands, the Knight yanked off the man's blind and pulled the gag from his mouth. The mercenary didn't look much better now than the day after Caramella had pummeled him. The bruising had turned to welts, hidden beneath a slowly thickening beard, nobody had been willing to trust him with as much as a butter knife to shave.

"Oy, what's this!" The man struggled against his bonds. "I've been cooperatin' 'aven't I?"

"You have." Arguile agreed coldly. The look in his eyes was one of utter loathing for the man who stood before him. "As a matter of fact, I'd say you've more than earned your freedom." With that, the knight pushed the man towards the waiting Prince Wales. "So go ahead, you're free. Though I believe this man might have business with you."

In the afternoon light, the mercenary squinted as he was confronted by the Prince Valiant. "An' who the 'ell are you?" The man croaked.

Bringing up the wand cane at his side, the Prince spoke. "I am Wales Tudor, Crown Prince of Albion. By my authority as Admiral in service of the Crown, I hereby sentence you for the high crimes of assaulting a Noblewoman and attempted molestation and murder of the same.

"What are you on about?" The mercenary spluttered, looking back at Arguile in disbelief. "What is he on about?" From her vantage point leaning against a nearby tree, arms crossed, Caramella watched the scene unfold. She was partly responsible for this, the least she could do was not look away.

The Prince continued calmly as if the outburst hadn't happened. "The woman that you and your fellow mercenaries were found taking liberties with, was the third daughter of the Count of Windsor." Wales clarified.

"And he really is the Crown Prince." Arguile added, "He's well within his rights to serve as your judge, jury, and executioner."

The condemned man's lips moved, eyes flicking about for a way to escape, and then he started to snicker. "Oy, I see 'ow it is! A quick chop is all a mercenary's life's good for!" The man's shoulders sank in resignation. He glared at Arguile. "Well then, go ahead boy, 'ave your justice!" The man spat. Caramella had to give the bastard credit, he wasn't groveling for his life, he had balls if nothing else.

Wales lifted his wand and then paused. "I will give you a moment to set yourself at peace with God and Founder?."

The mercenary barked a short laugh. "I part'd company with the Founder a long time ago lad! Jus' tell me one thing . . . You're really the Prince Valiant?"

Wales nodded slowly. The condemned man laughed again, hoarsely. "Aye, Prince's and Faeries!" The man's breath eased. "Alright Lad, I'm ready as I'll ever be. At least I go by the hands of Royalty." With that the man closed his eyes and lowered his head as if in prayer. Arguile placed hands on the man's shoulders and forced him to kneel.

Wales regarded the mercenary for moment longer and then with a flick of his wrist, drove an air needle through the man's temple. Caramella had seen video clips of gunshots to the head on the internet, there had been a push by the moral watchers in Japan to sensor that sort of content, but she'd looked it up when she'd visited her grandparents in America. One second the man was there, the next it was just a corpse hitting the ground, eyes sightless, blood rushing from the nose. The Prince gave the the body one last look, prodding a limp shoulder with the tip of his wand-cane. Satisfied, Wales turned, giving and receiving a small nod from Arguile, and began to make his way back towards camp.

Caramella and Arguile remained silent for a while, both starring at the body. Caramella realized, they'd never bothered to get the man's name. Maybe Asuna knew it, she'd questioned him extensively, but if she did, she hadn't shared it with anyone.

"Glad that it's dealt with?" Caramella asked, coming to stand at Arguile's side.

The Knight continued to stare at the body. "I can't say I'm happy with the outcome. Relieved, I suppose."

"Does it . . . Bother you?" She asked awkwardly.

"Not as much as it should." Arguile admitted. "What is this place doing to us?"

Caramella didn't answer. "Should we we bury him?" She prodded at the body with the toe of her boot.

"No, the forest will deal with him soon enough . . . You're right, I'm glad. I'm thankful that Asuna-sama didn't have to see this."

Caramella looked up at the Knight. He was a bit of an uptight asshole, but underneath that there was a decent person. He reminded her a bit of her dad. "Hey, Guile-kun?"

"Hm?"

"I'm just curious, why do you worry so much about Asuna-sama."

He closed his eyes. "I worry about everyone." The Knight replied matter of factly. "That's my job as second in command."

"Well, yeah." Caramella admitted, the former front liner was tireless in his efforts to see to the safety of the troop. The only person who had worked harder was Asuna herself. "But, I mean, you have a special interest in Asuna-sama."

"Of course I do." The man agreed, frowning, his face was very good at that. "We were in the same guild. Thought I was never close to her back then. She had Hea . . . The Commander, and friends her own age to confide in. She is our leader, her health and well being are essential to everyone."

Caramella's eyelids drooped suspiciously. "No, it's more than that . . . " Then, she asked, cautiously enunciating each word. "You don't, have a thing for her, do you?"

The question received an almost immediate rise. "What?! No!" The man's head snapped around. "Caramella!"

The former army player shrugged. "Just checking, I worry about her too after all, and not just because she's our leader. She's . .."

"She's someones little girl." Arguile said softly.

"Y-yeah." Caremella agreed, that fit almost perfectly. Caramella wasn't the best judge of appearance, but she guessed that Asuna couldn't have been more than eighteen by now. That was too damn young to have done the things she'd done and seen the things she'd seen.

The Knight breathed and looked up through the treetops above. "I can't stop thinking that, every time I see her. We're supposed to be the adults. Children are supposed to rely on us, not the other way around. But in Aincrad we were all just swept up in Asuna-sama's wake. Her, and the Black Swordsman. And now we're still relying on her. I can't even do anything to ease the burden. I feel so helpless."

The former army player tried to think of something to say. Hearing the big man admitting weakness wasn't something she'd ever thought she'd be around for. Finally, she just settled for cuffing him gently on the shoulder. "Yeah, you're pretty useless. But I think we all are. So, do what you can, and we'll all try to pick up the slack."

"Maybe that's all I can really do." He agreed. Finally, tired of looking at the corpse at his feet, Arguile turned and began the hike back to camp.

Caramella was about to follow him when something struck her. Fishing around in a pouch on her belt for a silver mark. Laying the body out flat, she placed the coin in the man's cooling hands and shut his eyes. "Even a bastard needs to the pay the ferryman, right?" Not that her little gesture would mean much. Like Arguile had noted, the body would be picked apart by scavengers in a few days. But it settled something inside of her, so that was good enough.

By the time they got back, people were already stirring, getting ready for what would hopefully be their last night on the march for a while. Caramella noticed a couple of players carefully lacing their boots, an almost lost art in Aincrad that had been quickly relearned in Albion. There had been some painful blisters after their second day on the march.

The troop had made good time away from Queenswall after Asuna and Wales returned with news of the incident that had occurred there. But as far as could be determined, they hadn't been followed. Maybe the townspeople had made good on their promise? Or maybe Reconquista didn't care as much about an outlying town as their precious port. In any case, now that they were paralleling the roadways, Wales knew where they were heading and seemed to think it best they not arrive too early, lest they draw attention to his ship's landing site.

Wales had already returned to Asuna's side furiously sketching something in the earth at their feet. If anything more had been said about the prisoner and what had just transpired, neither the Prince nor Asuna gave any sign. The meaning was clear, the matter was closed.

"The Eagle will be waiting for us here. It's a dead zone in the updrafts that occur around the edge of the Isle. My crew will standby for my signal and then rush in to retrieve us. It would be best that I be at the head of the group when that happens." The Prince smiled ironically, "To avoid misunderstandings."

"Arguile-san, Caramella-san." Asuna said, her eyes settled on each of them for a moment as if looking to see if something in them had changed. "Prince Wales was just describing the rendezvous plan. We'll be heading to a sheltered area along the cliffs"

"Yes. Its a small natural harbor near Skiesedge. The prince said. "During the early stages of the war, the Eagle and other raiders staged often from this area. But as we were pushed back, I fear we were forced to abandon it. Still, my navigators know the area well. They will be able to move in and quickly retrieve us."

"Having the troop well organized tonight is essential." Asuna said. "We can't afford to take too much time or we'll expose the Eagle to danger."

"I'll see that everyone is in their traveling groups and inform the squads." Arguile said.

"Good." Asuna said. "I want the defense squads to be the last aboard."

Final preparations were made as people ate 'breakfast' and hefted their packs. A sort of routine had developed over the past days to keep the column in good order as they marched. The civilians, those that did not frequent at least the upper middle floors, or who lacked extensive combat experience, had been organized into eleven groups of around twenty people apiece. Each group was assigned a leader who reported to Nishida who in turn reported to Asuna. Group leaders were responsible for keeping an eye on their entire group and had been selected from the former guild leaders and responsible volunteers.

The eighty odd combat players had been reformed along the lines of a large clearing guild and given lettered designations. Squads B, C, D, and E were responsible for column escort. There duty was to travel up and down the line while on the march, making certain that nobody had gotten lost and also patrolling the flanks to alert the troop of approaching threats. The F and G squads traveled on point, keeping an eye ahead and blazing a trail for the civilian players to follow. The H and I squads fanned out behind the main troop to catch any stragglers and J squad brought up the rear, keeping watch for any pursuit. A squad served as Asuna's personal unit and was comprised of the remaining fighters, including Arguile, Caramella, and Kino.

It was odd to think of Kino as a 'fighter' but Caramella had realized with some horror that, at the moment, his body count stood at at least two people, possibly more in their escape from York. She hadn't questioned the boy about this revelation, he seemed to be holding up pretty well given the circumstances and she didn't want to change that.

The sun was just setting by the time that the lead elements of the troop reached the edge of the forested lands and began their march parallel to the highway. The night was clear but both moons were just slivers in the sky. Wales told them that it was a good sign. There would be enough light to see air patrols but it would be difficult to be seen in turn so long as they stuck to broken ground. Using her perception ability from the edge of the forest, Caramella caught occasional glimpses of men on horseback traveling the road, or solitary figures hurrying towards the welcoming light of a distant town. But there was no sign of any organized patrols.

Eventually they had parted ways with the road as it curved south. They had continued east back on into the forest, climbing one last incline that brought the 'coast' into view. The land formed a shallow half bowl descending towards a portion of the cliff face that had fracture and warn away long ago. Through the sparsely populated trees, Caramella caught glimpses of a semi circular bite taken out of the side of the isle. Wales was quick to confirm that this was indeed to be the rendezvous point.

As word spread down the line, there was a lightening of spirits. The tension from the past week beginning to ebb off. They were almost there. People began to talk quietly among themselves, voices barely a whisper as they finally dared to think past the next few hours.

"Excuse me." Nishida asked as he walked beside Prince Wales, "But if the port at Newcastle is being blockaded, how are we supposed to get there?"

Prince Wales answered with a smile. "I'm afraid that is a secret for now, you'll see for yourself soon enough."

Caramella looked to Kino, "Hey, I bet your excited, you finally get to be up on one of those airships we saw in York."

The knife user nodded with embarrassment. "They were pretty cool looking . . . What kind of ship is the Eagle anyway?" He asked.

"She's a frigate of the Royal Fleet." Wales said, seemingly pleased to describe his ship to the curious boy. "In times of peace her duties were to patrol the Isle and travel far abroad to guard against piracy. In war she acts as a scout and commerce raider. My crew and I have been able to use her curtail the Rebel efforts to supply their front line forces, and in doing so, resupply our own stronghold at Newcastle with our spoils."

"It sounds like you've become pirates yourselves." Asuna observed.

"We are pirates, Lady Asuna." Wales admitted. "And that is how we prefer the Rebels think of us. So long as they believe they face a few opportunistic brigands, they do not devote the resources to discover how the Eagle continues to slip through the blockade. "Though, I believe my crew prefer to consider themselves privateers. In any case, passage for three hundred will make for tight accommodations, but bare with it and we will be in Newcastle by tomorrow."

Nishida was about to say something else when he was cut off by a shriek and sudden pop and flash of light in the sky. All eyes turned skyward as another jet of flame erupted upwards and then blossomed into a brilliant red flower. 'Fireworks?' Caramella thought, but already her heart was racing, instincts making sense of the signs and responding faster than her conscious mind. She heard whistles coming from the direction of the forest and sudden shouts.

"Flares!" Wales shouted, bringing up his wand. "It must be a patrol!"

Asuna began unsheathing her rapier. "Our scouts couldn't have missed them."

"Then they must have been waiting." Wales growled eyes slowly widening, "Quickly, I need to get to the front of the column to signal my ship. Lady Asuna we must move now.! This is an ambush!"

Shouts and the sounds of battle suddenly erupted from the south. B and D squads were already getting stuck in it. Asuna was suddenly speaking calmly and swiftly. "Arguile, take command of the rear guard. Nishida-san, you need to keep the civilians together and move as fast as you can after Wales. Squad A we're moving to support B and D squads, prepare to divide up and offer support!" Another flare rocketed into the sky, signaling the troops position. "You all have your orders now move!"

* * *

On nights like this, Sir Dunwell could almost forget himself. From the deck of the Reconquista Frigate Hawken, the pale mist shrouded cliffs of the White Isle were peaceful. It was the vista that had greeted him every time upon his return as a young man. At his side, his mount and familiar, the wind dragon Scirroco, chirped softly as she she studied the scene alongside him.

"We haven't had the time lately to enjoy this view, have we old friend?" Dunwell said.

Scirroco cocked her head to the side and let out a soft low "Kyuii."

"Speaking to your dragon again?" Sir Wells asked as he came to stand beside his superior.

"An old habit. We've been together for many years." Dunwell replied fondly placing a hand against the rough, warm skin of a forelimb.

"The men seem to think you're married more to your mount than any woman." Sir Wells said and then cringed at the look given by his superior. "My apologies, Sir."

Dunwell almost chuckled, "No, it's quite alright. The men will say what they will. I've simply never had the time to find a wife. Perhaps I can only accept a partner, of any type, that meets my own high standards."

"Then if you don't mind my asking, the rumors of a mistress?"

"Quite baseless." Dunwell waved a hand.

"Very good Sir. In any case, the Raptor should be in position by now. All is ready."

The two men stood in companionable silence. There was little to do but wait until word was received from the Raptor or else they spotted a signal flare. Sir Dunwell had been busy these past two days. Setting out from Queenswall. He had first returned to York to find that the Noblemen who had been placed in charge of the Port had yet to release the forces he'd requested. Exacerbated by the latest round of idiocy, Dunwell had used his authority as one of Lord Cromwell's inquisitors to simply commandeer a pair of warships, the frigates Hawken and Raptor, and requisition the services of a dozen Dragon Knights.

Fortunately, the Garrison commander had proven much more accommodating and had sent word south immediately upon the Knight Commander's behalf. Two companies of commoner foot soldiers, a cavalry squadron, and two dozen front line battle mages had been sent for. They had been supplemented by the mage forces brought aboard the Hawken and Raptor before departing from York. The Noble officers had balked at the forces he had demanded, but he was taking no risks with an unknown quantity, especially one that might be in the company of the Prince Valiant.

The use of the bays and coves as safe landing points was only too obvious to the Knight Commander. It was what he would do in the same situation. But that still left the question of which one. He'd been able to narrow it down to two. One, closer to York, was larger and generally had better winds at night. The other, nearer to village of Skiesedge, was less favorable but also wasn't found on most maps. Dunwell had sent one of his Lieutenants along with the Raptor and half of the Dragon Knights and ground forces to watch the northern approach while watching over the southern bay himself.

There was of course the very real possibility that their prey would use neither port or were in fact moving north as the people of Queenswall had claimed. Patrols sent fourth from Queenswall had been unsuccessful in spotting anything. Land based cavalry simply couldn't travel far enough fast enough, and dragons were always in limited supply for patrol duty. They would know in a day or two at most if this was a wasted venture. If that was the case, so be it, the men and material he had requisitioned had been doing little good stewing in York.

Along the coast, so small it could almost be missed, a red light blossomed for a moment. A signal flare, an invention used by commoner soldiers to sound an alarm while on patrol. Dunwell had made certain the ground forces had them issued before he had positioned the men along the coast. The Knight Commander gave a satisfied smile. So his suspicions had been correct. "Sir Wells, it seems that luck is with us. Make ready the men"

"Yes, Sir Dunwell!" The younger mage saluted before rushing down the deck to take position atop his own mount.

Dunwell turned back to his familiar. "Shall we go, Scirroco?" He asked.

The dragon chirped a soft affirmation and hunched down, waiting for the mage to take his place upon the saddle. As soon as Dunwell was securely in place, he gently slapped the side of his mount's neck. In one fluid motion, Scirroco dove from the side of the Hawken and unfurled her wings. Behind them, five more dragons, all fire drakes, followed.

Another flare was rocketing into the sky as sir Dunwell watched, and then another. The endless mists beneath Scirroco's wings were replaced by the close rushing lands of Albion's shores. Scattered trees obscured Dunwell's view but straining his eyes, he though he could see movement along the ground. Then, a gout of flame, a battle mage casting a spell, illuminated a clearing and the Knight Commander cursed. He had expected only a handful of fugitives, but before the light from the flames faded he was able to count dozens of figures fleeing towards the coast.

Aiming his wand at the dragons behind him, Dunwell began issuing orders. Most wind mages lacked the proper finesse to throw their voice, but the Knight Commander had found it a useful skill while leading detachments.

"Sir Wells, circle back and ignite the trees, we need more light for this!"

There was no verbal answer, but the other dragons peeled off and sank into a shallow dive, flames jetting from their mouths and catching fire to the tree tops. By the sullen light cast by the fires, they would at least be able to see the battlefield, and hopefully not roast their own men.

The fighting on the ground was fast devolving into chaos, as Dunwell swept overhead he spotted at least a hundred heads running for the coast while the Commoner and Mage forces were already in disarray. As he watched, a solitary warrior wielding a sword and shield, a commoner, charged against a fire mage. The mage swept a great fan of fire across his assailant's path, only to be thwarted as the warrior moved with incredible speed. Jumping up onto a tree stump and them vaulting over the flame jet, crashing down atop the luckless mage.

That speed and inhuman strength brought pause to Sir Dunwell. He was reminded of the woman in York, the stories of the 'Faerie' in Queenswall, and the dead Dragon Knights and their mounts. At that moment, Dunwell came to two conclusions, he had drastically underestimated the strength of their opponents, and he could not allow their escape.

All across the field, more of the fighters, wielding nothing but swords and their impossible strength and agility, clashed with the forces of Reconquista. They were few but they moved swiftly in small groups of six to eight, gathering together for attacks before scattering and falling back. Here a block of musketeers was scattered, on the flank a group of battle mages was pressed back, but before reinforcements could arrive the attackers would always retreat.

It was a delaying action. They were buying time for those running for the shore. "Sir Wells, alert the Hawken that the Eagle will soon arrive. The rest of you, form a firebreak ahead of that column. Do not let them make it to coast." He recalled again the Dragon Knights who had been killed and the leaping ability he had witnessed both in York and moment ago. "Stay high and use wind magic to drive the flames."

Trusting Scirroco to keep an eye out for threats, Dunwell began directing the battle in person, using his cane-wand to direct the ground forces from high above. With some coordination between the commoner formations and scattered mages restored, the ambush force was once again able to advance. Encircling a squad of the mysterious fighters while holding the others at bay.

In response to the sudden change in tempo the behavior of the fighters also changed. A small group thrust out, striking at the mages who were harassing their comrades and pinning them in place. At their lead was . . . Dunwell blinked, it was a girl, a girl with wings? Long slender things, like gossamer, spread from her back folded behind her.

She led with a rapier, and as Dunwell watched, she danced between the spells of two of the mages, moving faster than the men could track with their wands and delivering a devastating rain of precise thrusts faster than the eye could see. The first mage fell, but even before had finished striking the ground the girl sank to her knees to evade an attack from the remaining mage before rushing forward, delivering a thrust to the second mage's exposed back as she passed.

So the Faerie spoke of by the people of Queenswall really did exist. The arrival of their champion seemed to give the beleaguered fighters new strength. They were going to steal the initiative once more from Dunwell's own forces if he didn't do something soon. Sweeping south he found himself above another group of hard pressed Reconquista soldiers, a half dozen battle mages beating back a concerted attack by one of the squads of warriors. The fighting was to intertwined for Dunwell to do anything from the air, and the trees prevented him from getting close, even if had been willing to risk it. No, coordinating from above would only do so much good, he would have to assume direct command of the forces on the ground.

"Guard me from above, old friend." Dunwell said as he undid his restraints and slipped from the neck of his familiar. The ground was racing towards him as he began to incant, gathering the air around him and spinning it faster and faster until it reached a single point. Reaching out for a target, his eyes fell on the shield and sword wielder he had glimpsed briefly before.

* * *

"Caramella!"

The cry from Kino was the only thing that saved her. If she hadn't jumped back at that instant, she would have been pulped instantly. The tornado in the form of a lance, or whatever the hell it really was, instead struck empty ground. Not that it helped much. An instant after colliding with the ground the vortex began to come apart at the seams, a rush of wind that battered the unprepared swordswoman with debris and nearly succeeded in tearing away her shield. When she opened her eyes she found herself on her back a good ten meters from where she had started, this was getting old.

"Caramella, are you okay?!" Kino shouted as he rushed to her side, his heavy combat knife in one hand and a throwing dagger clutched in the other.

"I'm fine." Caramella said, sinking into a crouch and looking past Kino.

Where the vortex had struck, a lone mage now stood. He didn't look much different from the others, better dressed maybe. The only things that really distinguished him was age and posture. The man looked to be just at the verge of graying, his short cropped beard peppered with white. An old mage in a fight like this probably wasn't a good sign, Caramella thought. The way he carried himself just confirmed it. The other mages seemed on edge, the former SAO players forced them out of their comfort zone by pushing them into a close range fight and then not letting up. But this guy had charged right in, staying completely calm.

Looking up, Caramella saw the shadow of a dragon sweeping over head and she was reminded of the fight in York. She didn't know how she knew, but she was sure this guy was the boss she had seen at that time.

"One more from above, is he a Dragon Knight?" The man to Caramella's left, a heavy shield user named Clyde, asked.

"I think so." Caramella said, "Be careful, I'm getting a bad vibe off of him." They were in a bad position to deal with an unknown, Arguile had broken off to lead the rear line forces, and they'd been separated from Asuna a few minutes earlier. Caramella wasn't even sure where they were relative to everyone else in the confusion.

"He's probably one of the triangle types. Okay, lets hit him like the ones earlier." Clyde called, "Keep coordinated and we can take him out."

"R-right." Caramella gritted. The three faeries split up. Kino racing to the side while Caramella followed behind Clyde. The heavy shield wielded by the man made Caramella's own shield look like a cardboard cut out, but it also limited his mobility. Clyde would get her close, then she would rush in using her speed. If an opportunity presented itself, Kino would move to distract or neutralize the mage from the side.

That was the way it was supposed to work. The way it went down was much different. Clyde thrusted out with his offensive weapon, a one handed assault lance, putting all of his inhuman speed and strength into the blow. The mage brought his cane-wand up, wielding it like a fencer's foil. He did that thing . . . Caramella thought it was called a parry, and suddenly Clyde was out of position. The big man brought his shield around to guard, barely getting it up before the tip of the cane-wand connected. The tank was sent flying back, barely missing Caramella who rolled out of the way and was now too close to retreat. 'Damn!'

Nothing left to do but attack. Caramella's first sword strike was deflected by the mage's cane-wand, as was her second. Damn, she was faster than this jerk, so how the hell was he doing it? If she'd blinked, she would have missed it. Her sword wasn't connecting with the cane, it was stopping a finger's width from the shaft. 'Hax!'

And then he was pushing her back, thrusting with the cane like it was a sword, and if what he had done a moment before was any indication, at that moment, it might be. The man's tempo sped up, a thrust got between her shield and sword guard, grazing her cheek. 'Damn, time to counter attack!' Caramella ducked down behind her shield and pushed off, crashing into the man. He was driven back, but not as far as he should have been, at the last moment he had brought his cane close and formed a wind barrier. Then, with nothing but a small twitching motion, the spiraling wall of air blossomed outwards.

Caramella felt the shield straps wrenching free. She found herself nearly thrown to the ground, shield gone, and completely out of position. The wind mage kicked at the earth at his feet, a mixture of gravel and course sand. He trailed his cane through the dust cloud, bulling the debris close around the shaft of the cane. A special technique? Her sword came up in a desperate guard as the man swung his cane, this time it was totally unlike the foil style from earlier, it was like he was handling a meat cleaver. Caramella saw the edge of her sword sparking and starting to glowing white hot. She pulled back reflexively, probably the only thing that saved her life, as when she opened her eyes once more, her sword ended right above the handle.

The woman shivered, he'd sliced her sword in two . . . 'No way. No freaking way!' She looked up as the man twirled his cane like a conductor's baton, intent on delivering the final blow. At the last instant a cry of 'Kyuii!' came from high above and the man switched his attention to Caramella's left, the shroud of sand around his cane vanished as an air shield whipped away one of Kino's throwing dagger.

The boy was on him in an instant swinging wildly with his combat knife, a second throwing dagger in his off hand. The mage danced back, weaving and bobbing between blows. Then he was countering again, a quick burst of wind threw Kino off of his guard and left the boy unbalanced as a more powerful blast caught him in the stomach, winding him and throwing him bodily through the air. Something glinted, forcing the mage to block, at the last second Kino had managed an offhanded throw.

The cry of 'Kyuii!' came again from on high and the mage ducked to the side, and like a dancer, pivoted on the balls of his feet as a third assailant came crashing down on him garbed in brilliant red and white.

"G-Guile-kun!" Caramella stuttered.

"Caramella, take Kino and go! The rear guard is almost to the Eagle, run!" Arguile roared as he forced the mage back. In the chaos and confusion, they must have gotten turned around.

The Knight leaped back as the mage launched another thrust with his cane before pressing in again. Caramella was frozen in place, this was how a top tier front liner fought, relentless attack and defense, no fear, just initiative and reaction. The mage almost definitely had more raw power, but up close he had to fight almost like a swordsman with quick, rapid fire attacks. But Arguile wasn't having it entirely his way, the mage seemed to have a bottomless supply of dirty tricks and spells to disrupt or counter.

Finally Arguile broke off for an instant, diving to the side as a wind whip tore through the air and splintered a tree at his back. "Caramella! The Eagle is almost ready to depart, they've spotted a ship. If we don't get back now, they're leaving us behind!"

"Hgn!" Kino struggled to his feet, clutching his stomach.

"Go!" Arguile roared the Knight dug the tip of his two handed sword into the earth and swung, throwing up a cloud of dust before using his speed to sweep around the now shrouded mage. At the edge of her hearing, Caramella could just make out a faint high pitched clicking noise coming from within the cloud, it reminded her of the sounds made by dolphins . . . or bats.

"Guile no!"

The cloud began to shrink inwards, collapsing on itself, on the mage, on a single point at the end of his cane. It wasn't like the weird wind-sand sword he had created earlier, this time, the debris was concentrated into sphere about the size of tennis ball at the tip of his wand. Arguile was suddenly caught exposed in mid thrust, the mage moving calmly to the side and thrusting the point of his wand against the Knight's torso. The sphere burst, it blossomed outwards, into Arguile, and through him. For a moment, all Caramella could think was that there was a lot of blood.

The blast had completely killed the man's momentum, his sword flying loose from his hands and skidding to a halt only a few feet from Caramella. The mage stepped back, looking at the man clinically, and then let him drop to the ground. A hole the size of a fist had been punched through the Knight's chest. Having dispatched one opponent, the mage turned back to Caramella.

Caramella tried to will herself to move, but, but she couldn't. Her legs wouldn't work, it was like her nerve gear was busted, she couldn't move this useless body. Why couldn't she move? She felt tears brimming up in her eyes as the mage leveled his wand on her.

"Caramella!" Kino screamed, and she moved, diving under another blast of wind and grabbing Arguile's discarded sword. She locked blades with the mage, crying, screaming in rage and anger and hurt. Then the man was diving back, no, she had been scooped from her feet. The tank, Clyde, had finally recovered, though he had discarded his heavy tower shield. Kino ran at his side as they fled from the battle.

"Damnit, put me down! Put me down damn it! You jerks!" But the big tank wouldn't listen. "Kino, please, tell him to let me down, Kino, please, please, we can't leave him! We can't leave him back there! Please!" And then she couldn't see anything past the watery film of her own tears.

* * *

The seamstress Maki cried out in pain. She hadn't been hit, but while running she fallen. A weak player who stayed inside the safety of the towns, she must have sprained something in the fall. Aninstant later, slender pink tendrils were wrapping around her waist, she let out a shrill cry as she was pulled into the air and then found herself atop the back of a giant slug beside the fisherman Nishida and two injured front liners. One with an arrow through his knee, the other suffering from severe burns along his face and side.

"Giddyup Kimura-san!" Nishida cried.

"I am, not an equine!" The slug replied indignantly, nevertheless he easily matched the running speed of the rest of the civilian column as he plowed a path through the foliage.

A pair of commoner spear men who had somehow gotten this far attempted to attack the unwieldy slug and the easy looking targets on his back only to discover just how strong and dexterous a slime type mob's tentacles could be. Pink tendrils grabbed hold, crushing wrists, and rib cages, and windpipes without Kimura even slowing down. The bodies trailed behind the slug for a few moments before coming lose from the relaxing tentacles. There was a reason that the slug type mobs had been encountered only after level sixty.

Asuna tried not to look at Kimura's handiwork. She could hardly blame him for defending himself and civilians. At her back, the sleek bulk their rescue, the HMS Eagle, clung to the cliff face before a crude wooden dock, left over from the time when this harbor had been a staging point for the Royalist fleet. Wales had been quite surprised when they arrived to find the Eagle already docking. His crew had seen the flares from afar and realizing what they must have meant, had made best speed for the rendezvous. Wales had been angered that his men had disobeyed orders, but at the same time, Asuna wasn't going to complain about the lack of discipline.

Asuna counted heads as they arrived. Two hundred and fifty so far, the last stragglers were trickling in now, dark shapes silhouetted against the burning forest. The dragons in the air had tried to lay down a wall of fire to separate them from the dock, but the arrival of the Eagle and its battery of deck mounted guns had driven them off for now. The ship was too close to the cliffs for the dragon's to make an approach that wouldn't bring them into the arcs of either the small swivel mounted cannons, or heavens forbid, the powerful broadside guns.

"Two sixty eight, two seventy!" Asuna counted. "Where are the rest?" Asuna looked from side to side desperately.

"Asuna-san!" Nishida shouted leeping down from the back of Kimura, "The rear civilian groups took casualties and so did their guards."

"I know that!" Asuna said shaking her head. "But it can't have been that many!" The time since the ambush began seemed like a blur. It could have been anything from five minutes to five hours. The whole time she had fought to hold off the mages and their commoner lackeys, rushing up and down the north side of the column while Arguile handled the rear and southern side, shoring up the defenses and giving the civilians time to escape before withdrawing her fighters in good order. She wasn't even sure where one fight had ended and another had begun."

"It's not your fault Asuna-san." Nishida said, pulling on her arm.

"No, some of them must still be out there!" Asuna bit out, gazing out on the forest. She felt Nishida's grip tighten on her wrist.

"You can't! The Eagle is going to depart any minute now!"

"Lady Asuna! We must go now, we've sightings of another frigate!" Prince Wales shouted down from the deck of the Eagle as his bewildered crew helped the former players aboard. Only a handful of front liners and Nishida remained on the dock.

Asuna scanned desperately, and then, spotted three more forms bursting from the forest. Focusing on them, her vision closed in. Caramella, Kino, and Clyde, members of squad A. The others had already made it back, a brief flush of relief raced through her.

And then she had no time to think as another form appeared behind them, at first she though it must be Arguile or another front liner, no normal human could move that fast. But the form wasn't running so much as bounding in brief bursts of speed and the cane clutched in its hand was proof enough that it was a mage.

Asuna turned and looked to the Eagle. The last handful of civilians were making it aboard now. But they still needed to get them settled in before they could depart or the crew would be unable to manage the ship.

Wales had spotted the approaching mage as well and no doubt was unwilling to risk allowing the man closer. If he was strong enough, then he might be able to damage the ship's rigging which would make it difficult or impossible for them to escape. "Gunnery crews, prepare a broadside!"

"No, you'll hit the others!" Asuna shouted. Pulling loose from Nishida, she was sprinting to meet the mage. The man saw her, and his focus suddenly diverted, crashing to a halt he crouched down and lashed out with a wind whip, first low, then striking high. It was difficult to see, but the smoke from the fires gave Asuna a momens warning and she danced and spun through the attacks.

Changing tac, the mage grabbed at the sandy soil and threw it up in a cloud before himself before driving if forward, a shotgun blast of a sand and dirt that Asuna was able to barely evade, feeling a few light grazes along her shoulder.

Then she was in striking distance, lashing out as fast she could. Tonight had been unlike Queenswall, there was no time to be merciful, she'd aimed her attacks to kill and this was no different. The man didn't survive so much by evading as propelling himself backwards, staying just out of reach as he attempted to devise a counter attack. He couldn't match Asuna's reflexes but in terms of linear speed he was almost her equal. A wind whip crashed out, bringing a burning tree down between them.

On the other side of the flames, the man watched her. His eyes were calm and gray and she sensed that he was taking her in.

"Lady Asuna!" Wales' voice thundered in her skull. She gave the man one last look and then was bolting back towards the Eagle. The ship was already pulling loose from the dock, only a few ropes were left to be cut.

"Jump!" Wales shouted. And so she did, throwing herself into the air. She felt her body hit a gradually thickening wall of air and she dropped lightly onto the deck of the Eagle.

"Now, all batteries, give that mage a taste of hellfire!" Wales shouted.

Asuna slammed her hands over her ears as the Eagles broadside erupted, sweeping across the dock and the forest beyond. She'd thought sailing ship cannons were supposed to fire big iron balls, but the Eagle's guns seemed to fire whole clouds of smaller shot. The massive blasts turned the dock and the surrounding forest to splinters. Trees were felled and men torn to shreds. She prayed fervently that those who had not made it, if they were not dead, had not been caught in that blast.

From the corner of her eye, she caught a dark shape rising from the forest, a dragon, it let out a long cry and then angled off, unwilling to approach the Eagle on its own.

"All hands, cast off, half sail! Make ready for full sail as soon as we've passed the turbulence!" Wales shouted from the rear deck of the ship. As the Prince gave orders, his men struggled past the refugees left on deck. Climbing out onto the wing-sales to extend masts and tie down lines.

"Lady Asuna, if you please." Wales invited, looking about in confusion Asuna obeyed, climbing the stairs to where Wales stood.

"You said there's a frigate after us?" Asuna asked.

"Indeed." Wales replied gravely. "A look at her rigging leads me to believe its the Hawken or one of her sister ships. They're of an older line than the Eagle. We'll have no trouble evading her once we're clear of this harbor."

"And until then?" Asuna asked.

"Pray that the winds favor us." The Prince glared to an elderly white haired man at his side. "Which reminds me Maison, I believe I instructed you to await my signal to approach."

"Indeed you did Prince Wales." The man said as he adjusted his glasses.

"I am the strongest mage of wind aboard this ship. If I hadn't been able to make it to the rendezvous, then the Eagle might not have been able to make it from harbor before that frigate descended on her."

"Very true sir." Maison replied. "However, I had faith in your ability young Prince."

"I'm glad you did." Asuna said. Looking down on the deck.

Her last count, two seventy three . . . Who hadn't made it? She was entirely sure. Maybe a few more had made it aboard while she was distracted with that mage. She hoped. Twenty seven people gone . . . Every loss hurt, and she knew once she had time to find out who had made it, and who hadn't, that she would have to sit down and cry.

But they might all be dead now if the Eagle's crew hadn't taken a chance to save their Captain. That other frigate could just as easily have done to the forest what the Eagle had with its batteries. And then there would be even more dead.

"Thank you, Maison-san."

The elderly man gave a small bow, "Of course, Lady Asuna, it is my pleasure to be of service. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lawrence Maison, the Executive Officer of the Eagle."

"I do believe you mean my butler." Wales countered.

"Butler, executive officer, and whatever else is needed of me." The man replied. "Now then Prince Wales, let us depart at best speed."

The Prince nodded in agreement. "Lady Asuna, please feel free to see to your people. Most are below decks. Once we are safely beneath the mists we can speak again."

Asuna nodded and obeyed. Wales had deferred to her on land, so it was only right that she obey him in the skies. One of the crew showed her the way below deck, watching her with barely concealed wonder in his eyes. Her wings had apparently convinced the crew even over their own Prince's claims, that the mysterious strangers the had been asked to rescue were truly Faeries. If it made their journey any easier, and helped to keep people safe, Asuna would gladly accept it.

Wales had not been exaggerating when he said the journey would be cramped. The lower decks of the Eagle were jam packed with refugees, taking up whatever space wasn't filled with the ship's own supplies. She found Nishida wandering the hold and the the elderly man gave her a tired smile.

"I have some good news, Asuna-san, we miscounted. Two hundred and eighty."

Seven more safe. Asuna thought. That alone almost made the tears flow. "That's . . . wonderful news." Asuna said. And it was, but it shouldn't be.

The man nodded. "I've checked twice, but I want to go through one more time just to be certain."

"Thank you, Nishida-san." Asuna said, "And when you're done, please give me a list of . . . of . . ."

The old man placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "I understand." He said, his own eyes growing damp.

Asuna wandered deeper into the hold. People looking at her as she moved. She paused, speaking with them, reassuring them, consoling them. And then she reached two figures huddled up near the bow.

"Caramella-san, Kino-san, I'm glad you're both safe." Asuna said and put on her kindest smile. It wasn't hard, she really was happy to see them.

She worried when Kino didn't meet her gaze, and then when Caramella wouldn't look up. "What's wrong?" Asuna asked.

Of course, everything was wrong, they'd lost people . . . People . . . One person hadn't been at her side when she'd spoken with Wales, she'd thought maybe he'd be below decks, or among the injured, he was too tough to go down easily.

Caramella looked up, her expression broken. A two handed sword lay cradled in her arms. Asuna felt something break inside herself as the first casualty became known to her.

"I . . . I . . ." Caramella hiccuped. She didn't get beyond that before Asuna was hugging the older woman tightly. The army player, normally tough as nails, shook like a leaf.

"He's gone . . ." Kino whispered, "He's really gone . . ." And so Asuna pulled Kino into her embrace as well. Holding both tightly as they let out their grief. The others around them watched but remained silent. They had all lost friends, tonight, it would come time for them all to shed tears.

* * *

Sir Dunwell watched the hull of the Eagle vanish back into the mists from atop his mount. So the Prince Valiant truly was the one behind the recent raids against Reconquista's supply lines. This information, or rather, this proof, that the Eagle was able to slip through the blockade around Newcastle, was almost worth losing the fugitives. Now he would be able to pressure Lord Cromwell to devote forces to hunting down the Eagle and properly sealing the blockade.

Scirroco let out a soft "Kyuii", crying in concern for her master and partner. His loyal familiar had arrived just in time to extract him from the field, mere seconds before the Eagle had fired its salvo. For that, Sir Dunwell had to be thankful, he had expended a good deal of willpower in the fight and to remarkably little effect. He was not certain he would have been able to defend himself from a point blank blast of grapeshot. He would have to revise his tactics if ever he faced such powerful melee combatants again.

"Sir Dunwell!" Sir Wells shouted from the back of his fire dragon. The other Knights had been driven back by the arrival of the Eagle, obeying Dunwell's orders not to risk themselves pointlessly. "Shall we pursue?"

"There's no point." Dunwell replied by voice. "If the Eagle is astride, she no doubt has royal navigators aboard. We'll lose her in the fog for certain. Let us return to the Hawken for now. And from there, on to Londinium. I must have an audience with Lord Cromwell."

Sighing inwardly, that girl . . . What was she? Certainly no elf. Some new species of demi-human? Even the others had been incredibly strong and resilient, but the girl was something different. He'd been forced to retreat against her onslaught.

Reconquista had made use of non human races, Orcs in particular, as expendable shock troops. Their powerful builds and resilient constitutions rendered them devastating if indiscriminate weapons in battle, set loose against only the most tortuous Royalist holdouts. Now it seemed the Royalists may have found something even more potent, monsters with the strength and resilience of the savage Firstborns but the appearance and ability to reason of a human.

Regardless of their origins, be they some form of hybrid, or even Faeries as the people of Queenswall suggested, one thing was clear. They were friends to the Royalists. They would have to be eliminated.

* * *

William Thorn, first mate of the clipper ship Sabrina, out of port at last after three days under lock down in York, leaned down and rapped gently on the wine casks lining the ships hold. At least they'd found something of worth in Albion to make money on the return journey. Though prying the casks from the hands of the trading house had been bloody murder. His father, Captain Thorn, had been on the verge of tearing his hair out before finally settling on a deal that would still allow him to turn a profit.

Windsor Vintage was highly sought after by the up and coming nobility of Germania who would tastelessly follow any trend if it was considered the fashionable thing to do. A bunch of tasteless back stabbers the lot of them, turning their noses from the people and way of life that had allowed them to rise to nobility in the first place. At least, that's what his father would say, and why Thorn the Elder would have no problem ratcheting up the price of the wine three or four fold when they arrived in Germania.

Whistling to himself, William tapped lightly on the lid of each cask until he found one that sounded hollow. Taking a crowbar he managed to wedge the lid off despite the the protest of the wood. The strong sent of wine spilled from the inside of the cask, along with a brown haired young woman. Squinting in the dim light of the hold, Emily Windsor looked up, shaking her head as if in a daze.

"The Reconquista officers are off the ship now. We've been released into open airspace."

"Oh . . . Good." The woman said shaking her head. "I think I might have gotten drunk on the wine fumes." She squinted. "They never mentioned that in the novels."

"Oy, watch it there, you 'aven't got your air legs yet." And, he realized, she may well be a little drunk. "You know, we could have just dressed you as one'o the crew. They wouldn't be looking for a gel' amongst this sorry lot, and I can promise no man on this ship would do you any harm."

"No, no, quite alright, it was no trouble, besides, this was my idea." Emily said, blinking away stars that only she could see. "Now then, I need to see the Captain." She set off, only to have William turn her around carefully so that she was facing the stairs up onto the deck.

Captain Thorn was busy shouting a mixture of orders and threats at his crew. Usually only one was was serious and the other was in jest, it was up to the crewmen to be smart enough to know which was which.

"Oy, Lady Windsor!" The Captain chuckled as he saw his son helping the young woman from the hold. "I'm glad you could see to join us. I'm happy to say more spacious accommodations have opened up since you booked your flight." The men nearest their captain laughed heartily.

"Yes, well, thank you for taking this risk on my behalf." Emily said.

"It's hardly a risk for you girl. Besides, I owed the Prince and I fear there's little time left for me to make good on my debts. We're heading for Germania and can let you off there. Its a rough country, but not so savage as people say, if you survived in Albion at a time like this, you'll make a life for yourself there." The Captain grinned, "Supposing you aren't afraid of a little hard work."

Emily's face pinched up in irritation. "No, I'm not afraid of labor. But I have one request."

"If its to marry my son, I'm afraid I will never allow any maiden to make that mistake." Captain Thorn said. Thorn the younger gave Emily an exagerated, crestfallen look.

"Captain!" Emily said hotly.

"Alright! Alright!" The man said. "Speak your piece girl."

"I would like you to drop me in Tristain."

Captain Thorn frowned. "Aye, its a fine Kindgom but I'm afraid we're set to overfly the Ocean into Germania, we'll approach Tristain no closer than a half days journey."

"Please Captain." Emily pleaded. "What you said, about the Faeries. I need to get there and speak to them."

"Why in such a hurry? The white Isle will be there in a few days." Captain Thorn said.

"Yes, but Miss Asuna and her cohort may not!" The landless Countess of Windsor placed a hand to her chest. "I owe Miss Asuna a great debt. The least I can do is speak to her kin. Perhaps I can enlist their aid for the Royalists, or at least to help rescue Miss Asuna and her people." Emily looked up, "You say you owe Wales a great debt. I am his cousin, the daughter of his mother's sister. Please consider fulfilling that debt in my name, on behalf of my cousin. And if that is not enough." Emily pulled out a ring she wore upon a chain about her neck. "Then perhaps this will do. I know its not worth much of itself, but it is the ring worn be the head of the Windsor family. With this, you will be able to collect Reconquista's bounty on my father's life."

Captain Thorn looked down at the girl, face growing stern. "Oy, put that away Girl!"

"But . . . " Emily protested.

"I said put it away! That's all what you have of your Da' isn't it?" The Captain barked. "I won't take an heirloom as payment." Sighing slowly, Thorn the Elder ran a hand over his face. "Right, right. Alright you lot! Set course forty degrees off of North."

"Da?" Thorn the younger asked.

"If we're going to make Tristain and still keep our schedule, we'll have to hit the trade winds as they spike over the sea. Now stop making yourself useless lad!"

Disbelief blossomed into shear joy on Emily's face. "Thank you Captain Thorn!" She stood up on tip toes and gently pecked the man on the cheek.

The Captain, taken aback by the gesture only blinked owlishly. Thorn the younger chuckled, of course this is how it would go. As his Maam had always told him, Dah was a sucker for a pretty face.

Calls rang out across the deck of the clipper as the Sabrina, fastest sails in all of Albion, changed course, and continued on over a sea of clouds amidst the morning light.

End of Chapter


	28. Chapter 10 Part 1

Disclaimer

So, we're about 3 updates out from the Beginning of the Tarbes Arc Trouble With Pixies What I'm probably going to do is post them three at a time so that all nine chapter get posted in around 3 updates.

Halkegenia Online – Chapter 10 – Part 1

"Levitate."

-Pop-!

"Grrr."

"Again"

"Levitate!"

-Pop-!

"Grrr!"

"Again"

"LEVITATE!"

-BOOM-!

The blast blossomed up from the center of the training field, trailing streams of mud and shattered stone. The gathered students, save Tabitha safe behind a hastily erected wind barrier, coughed furiously as the smoke began to clear. Magic, the learning of magic and how to control and shape it, was always a hazardous thing. Even more so when the student was an agitated Valliere. Even a dot mage could do a lot of damage if they were creative, or stupid, and the danger only increased with the power of the mage. It was part of the Academy's job to teach young Nobles how to use their talents safely.

In order to do just that, the grounds immediately adjacent to the academy had been reserved a practice space. Providing an open space where the students could go at it with little risk of doing any permanent damage. With the ongoing break from classes, it had proven trivial for Professor Colbert to reserve one of these fields for use by Louise in her remedial lessons.

It had become clear after the first few days of tutoring that Louise possessed an excellent theoretical grounding in magic. She could recite all of the basic primers and had even proven able to deduce and show the derivation of the logical proofs on elemental affinity purely from first principles. If Louise had been anyone but 'the Zero' then she'd be a prodigy by grace of the effort she put into her studies. Thus, with some caution on the part of their instructor, they had moved from the classroom on to applied magic. Alas, in the realm of actually doing something with the knowledge she possessed, Louise proved far less successful.

"I just don't get it!" The pink haired girl spluttered and pointed at the small crater that had replaced the pebble she had been attempting to levitate. All about them the debris of the field's previous users lay scattered, patches of earth scorched to bedrock, mud filled craters, and the shattered remains of golems dotted the ground around them. "I perform the incantation, I channel with my wand, and then it doesn't work!"

"Your doing the chant right." Kirche agreed thoughtfully. "What do you think Tabitha?"

"Stand further back." The quiet girl replied without looking up from her book. Louise gave the petite blue haired girl a death glare.

"Helpful advice, but not what we're looking for I'm afraid." Guiche observed and then added. "But it's interesting how the explosion size changed. It isn't random, so that's certainly a sign that Valliere can at least control the size."

"Yeah." Kirche nodded, "That last one was something alright."

"Can control scale." Tabitha agreed. "Scale down."

"Kirche?" Louise asked, tapping her foot, voice impatient.

"She means, if you can make your explosions bigger, than you can also try making them smaller." Kirche explained, glancing over to Tabitha to check. The blue haired girl gave a quick nod.

"But I don't want to be making explosions in the first place!" Louise snapped angrily, throwing her arms up in the air. The girl's temper ignited at just about anything, Kirche thought, which was hilarious when trying to get a rise out of her, but made teaching an arduous activity.

"Small explosions are the next best thing to no explosions." Kirche answered calmly. "Besides, the whole point of this exercise is control. So we should start with what you can control and work from there."

Louise looked away with a huff. It was clear that she had been hoping for more progress by now. Kirche had too, if she was being totally honest with herself. It wasn't like she hated Louise. She didn't enjoy seeing the girl fail, especially when her answer to failure was simply to pick herself and try again, and again, and again. But at some point that determination moved from being inspiring to simply tragic. Well, it couldn't be helped. Louise had spent over half her life trying and failing to learn magic, if her problem was that simple, Kirche was confident that Louise would have figured it out by now.

She turned her head in the direction of the World Tree. The initial negotiations between the Fae and the Kingdom of Tristain would be wrapping up pretty soon and the delegates would be traveling to Tristania to make final arrangements and sign the treaty that would integrate the Faerie lands into the Kingdom. The school had been abuzz about the specifics for days, not that Kirche had payed that much attention, diplomacy bored her to tears.

It wouldn't be long before lessons resumed and school life returned to something resembling normal. Well, as normal as things could be now that the Academy neighbored a city of Faeries. Atleast things were bound to stay interesting.

"And why are you the only one giving me lessons? I thought Tabitha was supposed to be the best mage here?" Louise grumbled.

"Well." Kirche said, placing a hand to her cheek. "All of your failures have been explosions. That sounds like fire magic to me. So teaching you like a fire mage is as good a place to start as any. If nothing else we need to treat your magic with the respect we would a dot of fire."

"Fire magic." Tabitha agreed. "Not my field."

"Tabitha's affinities are air and water." Kirche explained. "She throws a pretty mean fireball if she has to, but why settle for a practitioner when you can have a master?"

"A master fire mage would be fantastic." Louise said, and then added. "I don't suppose you know where we can find one?"

"Low blow Valliere." Kirche smiled, "But there's non-better than a Zerbst when it comes to the mastery of the most passionate element."

Waving her wand languidly and tracing out a thin streamer of fire that rippled in the air. Louise didn't seem very impressed, but of course any fire mage could throw a fireball or conjure up an explosion, it took mastery of fire to make the flames dance to ones will.

"Fire takes a careful touch, you see." She explained. "It's quite like a man in that it has a mind of its own, a simple mind, filled with a desire to consume everything in its path. Its appetites must be sated, it must be directed by finesse more than force. Its only natural that those with experience in channeling and fanning their passions would make the best fire mages." Smirking, the Germanian added, "Maybe that's you're problem Valliere, your so straight laced, it's no surprise your spells would either gutter or burst." She brightened as if thinking of something, "I know! We should have you bedded. That should loosen things up!"

"W-what?!" Louise reddened, "G-germanian harlot!"

"Frigid Valliere!" Kirche replied merrily. "See? Isn't this fun, you've got some color in you! But seriously Louise, have you ever considered that you might really be too uptight? We need to get you to relax a little. Some fun would do you good."

"I wouldn't trust any fun invented by a Zerbst." Louise muttered.

"You'd be surprised Louise." Kirche laughed, "You know I have ways to unwind other than sex."

"I'm shocked." Louise replied dryly.

"Maybe I'll show you some time." Kirche said with a smile,"Oh, don't look like that! Its innocent fun." She winked, "Mostly." Her expression softened and lost its mischief, "But I am serious Louise, you get so wound up trying to cast. I wonder if that could be the problem."

Louise looked mystified by this and then shook her head. "Make sense, Zerbst!"

"What I'm saying is, it isn't unheard of for a mage to not be able to use their magic for one reason or another."

Louise's expression soured, "A mage losing their magic? That's preposterous!"

"I didn't say they lose it." Kirche said quickly, "I said they can't use it. There's a difference. Their affinity is still there, but they can't bring themselves to cast properly. Usually its only temporary, brought on by some trauma or accident. You see it in fire mages most often." Kirche's tone grew level and serious, so unlike her usual jest. "Fire is hard to control at the best of times, it can be dangerous if you're not careful and it has the potential to maim and kill horribly at the slightest error. Inexperienced fire mages especially, will find they can't gather the courage to call upon their own element."

The youngest Valliere looked suspicious at this claim. "So what do they do? You said it only lasts for a little while."

"Usually." Kirche agreed. "But some never recover. In that case, most mage's end up favoring other elements. It weakens them but it isn't like they can't perform magic and they can usually get by well enough. But in your case, something is keeping you from using any type of spell. We're thinking that its your technique, but what if something scared you so much that you can't bring yourself to do magic?"

"W-what?" Louise stammered, "I'm not afraid of using magic!" Her lips moved wordless, "If I could just cast, just prove I'm even a dot, that would be wonderful . . . I . . . I'm not afraid." Suddenly, Louise looked thoughtful.

Kirche perked up. "Louise?"

"Its just that, when you incant a spell, its supposed to resonate with something inside of you. That's the basis of elemental affinity. The stronger your affinity the stronger you can feel how to shape the spell. I can feel it too . . . But it always feels wrong. Even when I'm trying to perform common spells it's like there's this buzzing in my head that drowns out the chant. It never comes out right."

Tabitha and Guiche were both listening with clear interest. "Could that be the ailment you were describing?" Guiche asked Kirche.

"I can't really say." Kirche pursed her lips, "Louise, have you ever told anyone about this?"

The Valliere shook her head. "Mother says I'm letting myself get distracted, I should just shut it out, but the harder I try to ignore it, the harder it gets to ignore. It's like its trying to stop me from casting right." Louise suddenly looked angry, at the world, at herself. "Grrr! That's ridiculous, why would I sabotage myself like that?"

Kirche exchanged glances with Tabitha. "Well, if that's what's happening, then starting small might help."

Louise froze. "R-really?" She asked, eyes growing big.

Kirche smiled. "Yup. Usually when fire mages have this problem, they're retaught from the ground up to start with small simple spells so they can build up their confidence. So lets find out how small you can make your explosions and then we'll go from there."

Louise was unconvinced but was willing to try.

"Levitate." Louise said.

The -Pop- Was smaller than her first try.

"Levitate"

-pop!-

With each chant she managed to get the explosion smaller until the noise was barely more than a faint -pop- accompanied by a white puff of smoke.

"They're kind of cute like this." Kirche observed, getting an indignant harumph from Louise. It was an encouraging sign, even if Louise hadn't cast a spell, if she could control the size of her explosions then it meant she could practice much more safely. And the fact that she could control something about her magic gave them a starting point to work off of.

It was already approaching noon and as had become their tradition, the maid, Siesta, arrived with a picnic basket baring lunch. The field didn't offer many places to sit but that was easily rectified by Guiche who summoned up a raised platform of earth on which the maid threw down a blanket and set out their meal.

As they ate, the students spoke amongst themselves. Well, Louise, Kirche, and Guiche spoke, Tabitha monosyllabled.

"Zerbst, How did you know about all of this." Louise asked before biting into a roll of bread. "I've never heard anything about it, and mother was very thorough when she was training us."

Kirche shrugged, "It's really only a serious problem for fire mages. Wind, water, and earth spells are all fairly safe as long as you keep them small, but fire magic can still be dangerous even then. Fear of fire can become deeply ingrained upon the mind, so its only natural that a bad experience with flame magic can frighten off young practitioners."

"Mother always told me not to be afraid." Louise said, starring down at her tea cup. "She put me and my sisters through a lot of training when we were younger so we would all know what to do under pressure. She said we'd need to be able to do that much to protect ourselves."

That was true, Kirche thought, a mage needed to be able to remain composed even in the heat of battle, fire mages especially, learned to remain in control even under extreme stress. But applying that sort of training to someone who was already struggling to use their magic could be disastrous. Kirche had heard of mages who were ruined because of training like that. It was definitely something to bring up with Professor Colbert when he next came round to inspect their progress. The man was quite the bore, but his knowledge of fire magic was much greater than Kirche's own and his expertise as a teacher offered some hints to where they should focus.

That only left Kirche to wonder about one thing. What was she going to tell Kirito? The Spriggan boy came around every other day, usually delivering something to the headmaster's office or in the company of Lady Sakuya, after which he would inevitably track Kirche down and ask about any progress with Louise.

By now, news of the upcoming marriage between Germania and Tristain was public knowledge. The Zerbsts and Vallieres might be rivals, but pretty soon they would also be allies. That implied a lot of things, and one of them was not acting against the interests of Tristain and its rulers. Even in her self imposed role as the embarrassment of the Zerbst family, Kirche well understood that fact. If Louise really was the cause of all this, the spark that had set everything off, she didn't know what Kirito would do with the information. She didn't know what her fellow nobles would do with the information!

It was almost enough to make her wish she'd never spoken up in the headmasters office. So she had stalled, remaining as vague as she could while she and Tabitha did everything in their power to learn more about what could possibly be wrong with Louise and her magic.

They had scoured the library for any information on magical ailments matching Louise's condition, but had nothing to show for it but paper cuts. Still, the nagging persisted in Kirche's head. Louise had summoned the World Tree, that much she believed was true, it was impossible, but it was the only logical explanation. Chances were that whatever peculiarity existed within Louise to cause that, was also responsible for her magical misfires. The chance of the two occurrences being caused by two separate phenomena seemed so ridiculous as to be absurd. And yet . . . 'Giant Tree'. It had become Kirche's motto for accepting the ridiculous.

"It looks like a dandelion." Louise said suddenly. Kirche followed the pink haired girls gaze back to the spiraling bulk of the World Tree. With the clouds wrapping around its crest, it kind of did.

"It makes you feel kind of small, doesn't it?" Kirche observed. "I wonder if this is what the world looks like to an ant?"

"I wonder what's up there." Louise said absently.

"Kirito said that the Palace of the Faerie King is supposed to be at the top." Guiche said, well, it was good to know the fop could at least listen.

"F-Faerie King?" Louise looked surprised, "But then, shouldn't Princess Henrietta be talking to him instead of the Faerie Lords?"

"Probably." Kirche agreed, "But if he was brought along when the World Tree was summoned, don't you think he would have come down to investigate by now?"

"I suppose." Louise said and then paused. "Mother says the Faeries are getting ready for a battle, now that all the monsters are cleared out around the Academy and roadways, they say they need to deal with the ones inside the World Tree to keep Arrun safe. Lots of Faeries are coming from all over to fight."

Guiche nodded gravely, "That makes sense, they've been helping to keep the roads and towns secure, certainly they would want make sure their own cities stay safe as well."

Kirche quirked an eyebrow, the blonde boy actually looked serious for once. "So what gives Guiche? You don't seem afraid of Faeries anymore." She noted.

"Ah, well, that was all just a misunderstanding." The youngest Gramont son replied with a smile. "Why just yesterday my older brother's latest letter praised the work the Salamanders and Undines are doing with his patrols."

Kirche rolled her eyes, "Then it has nothing to do with Lady Sakuya and the other sylphs?" More than a few of the academy students had watched on with clear admiration whenever the Sylph Lord or one of her female attendants was nearby. The Faeries offered something new for the boys around the academy, something mysterious, and exotic, and exciting, and most importantly, something they couldn't have. Kirche would almost have felt jealous if tutoring Louise and speculating about the World Tree hadn't kept her so busy. By the Founder, she was becoming as bookish as Tabitha!

Guiche looked hurt. "I will admit that as a son of the Gramont line I am certainly an admirer of their beauty, but alas my heart belongs only to my beautiful Montmorency, especially in these troubled times." The boy raised his hands. "My motives are wholly practical, if the Fae are brought into Tristain then they will naturally join the ranks of the petty nobility, from there many will certainly serve in the army and navy. I will no doubt be asked to serve at their side when I begin my own service. It's only natural to be intrigued by my future comrades."

"That reminds me." Louise said, "Mother mentioned that the Queen and Cardinal Mazarin intend to form the Faerie lands into new counties."

"They'll be making the Faery Lords landed nobility?" Kirche asked.

Louise nodded, "That's what it sounds like." The girl screwed up her face. "I wonder what they'll be like, as Lords and Ladies. Mother doesn't know what to make of them, but the Princess seems to like them."

"They're certainly strange." Kirche agreed leaning back on the blanket and letting her eyes follow the trunk of the World Tree to its crest. Occasionally she could make out distant figures, Faeries on patrol or traveling to and from Arrun, and higher above them, a pair of Airships arriving from the direction of Tristania.

Kirche smiled, "Well, back to practice!"

"What? Now?"

"You're done eating aren't you? Though I suppose you could use a little more, maybe then that figure will start to fill out."

"Germanian milk cow!"

"Tristanian washboard!" Kirche chuckled.

* * *

Princess Henrietta de Tristain let out another soft low sigh as she observed the inner courtyard of the Tristain Academy of Magic from the vantage point of her borrowed room. She wondered absently what it would have been like to have attended here, but as the Crown Princess of Tristain it had never been an option for her. She had received both her basic and advanced education from tutors, some of the finest in Tristain, but in doing so, she suspected she had missed out on the sort of friendships and rivalries that others her age enjoyed. Not that she pined for those things, but at times they served as a reminder of how alone she was and the misfortune of her circumstances.

"Princess, are you well?" Viscount Wardes asked.

Henrietta brightened, "I'm quite alright Viscount, simply reminiscing." About a night beside a moonlit lake, she didn't say. "Tell me, have you had a chance to speak to Louise while you've been here? I understand that she and you are to be betrothed."

"Princess?"

"Louise is my dear childhood friend, though I have had little chance to speak to her these last few days. Naturally I would learn that you are set to wed her, surely you have taken the opportunity to speak with her."

"I apologize Princess." Wardes said. "Our marriage was arranged many years ago by our families. I do think fondly of Louise, but it has been a very long time since I have seen her." The man turned his head. "I cannot say that I feel anything but fondness towards her."

"Perhaps with time then." Henrietta suggested.

"Perhaps, as you say." The Viscount agreed cautiously.

"Still, you should speak with her while you have the opportunity. Though that is you personal business. I only wish for Louise's happiness."

"Is this why I was summoned, Princess?" Wardes asked.

Henrietta sighed once more. "No. There is a matter of marriage to discuss, but it is mine and not yours that we are here to speak about."

The influence offered by the Valliere family and the authority Henrietta wielded, though tenuously, on behalf of her mother the Queen, as well as the generally accommodating attitudes of the Faerie Lords outside of some very specific matters, had helped to hasten the preliminary negotiations to a close. What's more, a priority messenger had arrived by air only just today, bringing word from the Holy Father. The Pope admitted to ignorance to the exact situation in Tristain but offered his prayers and blessing to any peaceful resolution that upheld the Tenants of the Founder.

With that accomplished, Henrietta had felt a great sense of relief wash over her. Only for it to boil away as worries pushed aside for the past two weeks began to make themselves known once more. Lady Sakuya had probed quite extensively about her upcoming union to the King of Germania, specifically how it would effect their treaty with Tristain. Henrietta had spoken truthfully when she said that Germania would honor Tristain's internal laws. That was a condition of the union and one that they could not break without upsetting many of Tristain's established nobility.

Lady Sakuya had seemed unconvinced by Henrietta's assurances, a matter which saddened her. The Princess had found that she greatly admired the Lady of the Sylphs and when she spoke to her during the intermissions in the negotiations, Henrietta felt almost as if they could be friends given the opportunity. Though peculiar in outlook, Sakuya had proven to have a sharp wit and an admirable strength hidden beneath her normally serene outward appearance. In fact, it was for fear of missing the chance that Henrietta had accepted an offer from the Lady of the Sylphs to be received at her residence in Arrun before they both departed for Tristania. It seemed that reflecting on diplomatic affairs in a more informal atmosphere was a tradition shared between their two people.

But the reminder of the upcoming wedding had only brought her attention to another matter. She had a responsibility to the people of Tristain, the subjects of the crown, both those who had been born to Tristain, and these peculiar but no less good people who had found themselves summoned to Halkegenia by some force beyond the ken of either human or fae, to offer herself up for their sake. There was only one last matter that needed to be attended to before the wedding could take place. Both to safeguard Henrietta's marriage, and for the sake of closure.

"Viscount Wardes, there is a matter that I would wish for you to attend to." Henrietta had though long and hard about who to send. There were so few whose loyalty she could truly trust. Eventually, with the endorsement of both Cardinal Mazarin and the Duchess Valliere, she had settled on the Captain of her Gryphon Knights for this delicate mission.

"My Lady?"

"My marriage to the King of Germania will take place in just a few weeks time. Tristain will in turn be wed to Germania."

"And our Kingdom's future secured in the face of Reconquista's onslaught." Wardes agreed.

"Yes." She must always remember that this was for Tristain. "More than anything, Reconquista fears that they will lose their opportunity to establish a foothold on the continent and are no doubt desperately searching for any means to undo our union before it is even made."

"Indeed, Princess. But by the Founder's grace there is precious little chance of that." Wardes said. "Princess Henrietta?"

Henrietta shook her head, "Oh Founder, have mercy on this unfortunate Princess for her indiscretion. Viscout Wardes, there is one thing that Reconquista might yet use to avert the marriage. There is a letter."

"A letter, Princess?" Wardes asked carefully.

"A letter that I wrote some time ago. I cannot tell you of its contents, but let it be known that if it were to fall into Reconquista's hands, then they would surely deliver it to the Germanian Imperial Family. Tristain would never be forgiven if that happened."

"Then it should be destroyed with haste, Princess." Wardes said with certainty. "Where is the letter now that it has not already been dealt with?"

Henrietta sighed, "Alas, it is in Albion, in the possession of Prince Wales Tudor."

"The Prince Valiant." Wardes breathed softly.

Henrietta nodded. "News from Albion has it that Reconquista forces the Royalists back with every passing day. It is only a matter of time before the Prince is killed or captured. I've no doubt in my mind that he would destroy the letter before allowing it to fall into hands of Reconquista, but I fear that this matter is too delicate to risk any misfortune." The Princess turned to face the Captain of her Knights, who had already proven his courage and loyalty to her in battle. "Viscount Wardes, would you please help this luckless Princess by accepting the mission of retrieving the letter and returning it to me?"

The Viscount bowed deeply, "It would be my honor, Princess."

Henrietta let out a soft sigh of relief, for she had mustered the courage to do what must be done. 'Forgive me my Prince.' She was broken from her thoughts as a rustling came from the bushes bellow.

"What is that?" She wondered aloud.

Before she could lean out to examine further, Viscount Wardes had dashed past her and vaulted from the window. The Viscount's sword-wand flashed out as he cast in midair, shredding the bushes and very nearly the person hiding within.

"Viscount Wardes?" Henrietta asked.

Down bellow, the Viscout stood ominously over the eavesdropper. A blonde boy struggling to back away. He was nothing more than a student, Henrietta thought.

"It appears that we have a spy, Princess." Wardes announced, brandishing his sword-wand. "How much did you hear, boy? You were eavesdropping on the Princess, for that offense I could execute you."

"Viscount Wardes, that won't be necessary." Henrietta called down. "Please, bring the young man up here and we'll sort this all out." 'After I close this blasted window', Henrietta thought, kicking herself for her stupidity. The finest protective wards in all of Tristain, a full team of Gryphon Knights, and a squad of elite Musketeers, and a passing student had been able to eavesdrop by simply using his ears.

Wardes returned presently, the boy standing before him looking suitably chastised.

"Now then. You may explain yourself." Henrietta said gently. She very much doubted that the boy was any sort of spy.

Standing straight the boy bowed deeply. "Princess, I meant no disrespect, but when I saw you from afar I wished only to get a closer look."

"Which is why you snuck past a full squad of musketeers?" Viscout Wardes asked. "Execution is still very much an option."

"Please, I wish to offer my services!" The boy said. "By all means, Princess, allow me, Guiche de Gramont to be appointed to this mission in your service!"

"So you overheard everything?" Wardes grimaced. "Princess, your orders?"

Henrietta paused for a moment. "Gramont, as in General Gramont? Then you are a relation of his?"

"His fourth son, Princess." The boy replied solemnly. "Surely this mission is much too important to be entrusted to one as lowly as myself, but it would be my great honor and privilege to aid your Knight Captain and a boon for myself, of course."

"I would advise against this." Wardes said with a note of agitation.

Henrietta raised a hand. "No, Viscount Wardes. This is quite alright." She turned to the blonde haired boy. "Your father is a brave and noble man. I can see that his courageous blood flows in you, that you would so readily stand to aid such a luckless Princess." Indeed, with General Gramont's reputation, surely this was a sign. And if he was a son of the General, his loyalty could not be questioned. "I would be very grateful if a son of General Gramont would grant his aid."

The boy brightened immediately. "Thank you Princess, by my honor I will see this through!"

"I'm certain you will. Viscount Wardes, I'm sure you can find some way to make use of this brave young noble."

With a very mild look of disbelief, the Knight Captain looked from Henrietta to the son of General Gramont. "Certainly, he'll make a fine distraction."

* * *

Ayano Keiko, Silica, Dragon Tamer Silica, and now a Faerie of the Cait Syth race transported to the world of Halkegenia, reached the apex of her arc and with acrobatic grace, dispelled her wings and dropped lightly onto the parapet of Freelia Tower. It had been hard at first, but the time spent learning to use her wings had been worth it. The fear and vertigo that had first come with hurtling through the sky, replaced by a sense of freedom and abject joy that made her hungry for more. A moment later, a familiar weight settled onto her shoulder and gave a small shrill cry.

Silica affectionately stroked the neck of her pet feathery dragon, Pina, as she skipped along the parapet towards the archway that lead into the dragon stables. Along the way, the passing Cait Syth guards and tamers gave her appreciative waves and calls. The girl smiled back brightly, her reception here was so much different than it had been in Aincrad. In SAO she had been a mascot at best, but here, people trusted her, looked up to her, even though she was still young. The way she had stayed calm and collected when everyone else was on the verge of panic had earned her a degree of respect that she'd never experienced in her young life. As much as it felt good, it was a little scary, Silica thought. She really hadn't done anything special to deserve praise, and now people wanted to rely on her even more.

ALO and what had come after had really been a mix of ups and downs for her. When she had first heard about the Asuna Rescue Operation aka the Kirito Support Mission by private messaging on the forums, she'd been a little hesitant to reply. SAO had been a difficult experience for her, and after her return to the real world there had been so many things to relearn and adjust to. The changes to her family, and to herself. She'd finally finished her mandatory physical therapy and was settling back into her life. But something had made her read the whole message and post back. At which point she received an almost immediate reply, a set of instructions and a text file labeled Argo's ALO Primer: Don't Worry, It's Argo's Primer.

Still wary, Keiko had read the document from top to bottom. It was only ten pages long and jam packed with all sorts of information about the game ALfheim online. This was the place that Kirito had gone in order to rescue someone he cared about very deeply. Silica's heart had fluttered at the thought. Though her only real quest with Kirito had been to resurrect her beloved pet, she had seen him from time to time after that when he occasionally had business on the lower floors. For Silica, who had few real friends in Aincrad, knowing that there was someone in that world that she could trust had come as an incredible relief and she had rebelled at the thought of abandoning Kirito when he might need help.

After logging off of the forum for the night, she'd laid awake in bed for a long time. Slowly she had built up the resolve, and that next morning she had pleaded to her mother and father at the breakfast table to be allowed to buy an AMUsphere.

Her parent's had been shocked by the request, her mother wondering openly if she was feeling well and her father regarding his daughter with worry. At first they thought that it was some symptom from two years trapped in SAO, that being removed from the game was leaving her distressed. But Keiko had been insistent.

Luckily, she'd expected her parents to react like this and had presented them with a magazine article featuring the AMUsphere. She had been extremely careful not to point out its primary feature as a gaming device, instead emphasizing the safety features and all of the new educational and productivity software that had begun to fill the market as full dive technology continued to mature. Having lost two years in school, the ability to receive online tutoring and attend remedial lectures had sounded convincing to her parents and they had reluctantly agreed that it might be a good idea. Keiko had been pleased with how mature she had sounded.

All that had been left to do after that was to go buy one. She couldn't go to a game shop, not right away, since she didn't want her parents to worry. Instead they had gone to one of the big department stores and purchased the AMUsphere from a clean shaven man in the PC department along with all of the software Keiko had pointed out to her parents. Later that same day she'd bribed her older cousin to take her shopping and bought a copy of ALfheim online with her allowance money.

She'd un-boxed the AMUsphere at her cousin's apartment, removing the lightweight headset and peeling away the glossy plastic wrapping. Holding it in her hands, she had suddenly felt a sense of deep apprehension.

"Is something wrong?" Ayano Daikiichi asked. Seventeen years old and with posture and face like a thug, they'd received strange looks in the shopping district, cute Keiko followed closed behind by looming and ominous Daikiichi. But her cousin really wasn't a bad person. He'd even made cookies for her while she was recovering.

"I'm a little scared." Keiko admitted clutching at the pendant she wore around her neck. A silver chain threaded through a hoop in a black plastic rectangle no bigger than her thumb. Certainly, it wasn't the sort of thing that a young girl would wear as an accessory. But it was important to her because it was proof that the two year in SAO had happened, and proof that her friend Pina, the dragon Pina and not her real world cat, was still with her.

"That's a good luck charm right?" Daikiichi pointed to the memory card hung around her neck.

"Mmm. It's my Nerve Gear's internal memory. The Doctor's let me keep it. It's a little strange, but I think my Nerve Gear worked really hard these last two years. Its not its fault that SAO happened, so it seems sad it was thrown out."

Daikiichi looked thoughtful. "Well you know, the essence of a computer is its memory. Tell you what, I'll show you a trick that the old man at the bicycle shop taught me." He gestured for her to hand him the memory card and then picked the AMUsphere off of the table and flipped it over. Using a screwdriver he pried open a port located just above the left side earpeace and removed two tiny screws. Prodding with the tip of the screwdriver, something small and black popped out.

Daikiichi removed the AMUsphere memory card, and then, face solemn, announced, "I now transfer the spirit of this Nerve Gear into this AMUsphere." Before slotting the memory card in and sealing the AMUsphere back up. He returned it to Keiko.

"There you go. That Nerve Gear card only has about half as much storage space, but the formats are the same, I used that trick to port all my old game data over when my parents made me switch to an AMUsphere. Just be sure you select 'NO' when the prompt asks if you want to format the internal memory, otherwise you'll lose anything on the card."

Keiko looked down at her AMUsphere and then back to her cousin. She'd thanked him with a hug before packing her things away and hurrying home. Once back, she'd been made to sit down to dinner with her mother and father, eating as quickly as she dared without seeming impolite, before retreating to her room. She'd be late if she didn't hurry!

Plugging in the AMUsphere and inserting the flash installer for ALfheim Online, she'd changed into a sweater and sweatpants so that her real body would be comfortable before pulling the AMUsphere down over her head. "Link Start," she breathed. And suddenly her vision was filled with the multicolored rush of a full dive boot up.

"Welcome to ALfheim Online!" A soothing computer generated voice announced as Keiko found herself before a character creation interface not too dissimilar to the one in SAO. The game asked her to input her character name and then displayed the game's selection of races. After reading Argo's Primer and then looking the game up online, Keiko already had her heart set on playing a Cait Syth, the races natural affinities fitting her play style perfectly. She was just about to confirm her selection when she noticed a tiny tab at the bottom of the menu marked Character Customization.

Argo had told her about this feature of ALfheim. Like in SAO, it was possible to customize an avatar's appearance, but the game's operators charged money to do so. Still curious, Keiko had tapped the glyph to open the character customization window. The lean default Cait Syth avatar floating in front of her descended to stand before her, editing tools appearing to either side. Silica was just about to start playing around with the editor when a new window opened.

Existing Custom Avatar. Continue Editing?

Continue? Keiko wondered? Then with her curiosity piqued she selected Yes The Cait Syth in front of her vanished in a shower of polygons and what took its place almost made her jump back. A cute young girl stood before her in the starting clothes of a Cait Syth player, face downcast, cat ears drooped, and eyes closed as if in sleep.

Her heart had skipped. This was . . . It was her. Or more precisely, her SAO avatar, a near perfect likeness of her younger self, standing before her. Looking at the familiar face reminded her of how her real body had changed while she had slept. Silica was shorter, her face not yet begun to sharpen, her figure still entirely that of a child. How was this possible? She thought back to her cousin's actions earlier that day and thought she understood. Keiko felt a sense of nostalgia wash over her. It seemed her Nerve Gear, and Pina, were still trying to help her.

Keiko pressed ENTER and then accepted the charge that would be forwarded to her ALO account.

"You will now be transported to the Cait Syth Home Territory, good luck!"

And then Silica was falling through the air, for a moment she was scared, but then she realized that far from plummeting, her body seemed buoyed and she descended on a slow and easy path towards the center of an island far bellow. A city, built like a fantasy castle, spread out before her in the afternoon light, centered on a tall stone tower decorated with balconies, banners, and turrets. As she descended she caught sight of other players streaking through the sky on brilliant yellow wings and felt a rush of excitement. She couldn't wait to be doing that herself!

Finally her flight came to an end and she was deposited gingerly at the foot of the tower, one face among many in the crowded square. Every way she turned she caught sight of other players talking, laughing, and enjoying themselves. She took a breath, smelling the sea air and stretched her arms wide, and then let out of a shout of delight. She'd barely begun to look around when a shrill cry came from above.

Silica only had an instant to look up before she was dive bombed by something warm, and soft, and blue, a familiar weight crashing into her arms. So familiar in fact that she fell backwards in surprise. The object that had struck her, stretched its wings, fluttering down gently atop Silica.

And then she received her second surprise. "P-Pina?" Silica asked. As happy as she had been to return to the real world, she still been sad to think she would never see her friend again, but here she was before her now. Standing hunched forward on her hind legs, body no bigger than a cat, and regarding her master with ruby red eyes, the feathery dragon let out a shrill cry of confirmation.

"Pina!" Silica threw her arms around the dragon and squeezed her friend tightly against her chest, feeling tears of joy beginning to stream down her face. She didn't fully understand what had caused this miracle, and she didn't care. A few passing players paused to observe the scene but were too polite to say anything. All of her apprehension melted away, this had definitely been the right decision!

After checking that she could log out, Silica found another surprise. Checking her stats window, her game stats all seemed way too high and when she looked at her starting funds, she was pretty sure the number was exactly what she'd had in her wallet when she'd been logged out of SAO. Unfortunately, however, all of her items seemed to have become inaccessible junk. Still, Keiko was beginning to understand what must have happened. Thanks to her memory card, somehow, the Silica of SAO had been reborn in ALfheim. She considered summoning a GM to ask about it but decided against it, after all, they'd probably want an explanation, and she wasn't sure she could give them one. Besides, she wasn't going to complain about getting a head start. Instead, Silica sent a PM to Argo to ask if she knew anything about the memory card bug before setting out from the square. She had spent the next hour simply exploring her new home city and using some of her money to buy a dagger and proper outfit from the NPC vendors.

She was just about to leave town, Pina at her side, when things had started to go wrong, the world freezing and going white with pain.

On that first day after the transition, Silica had been as frightened and confused as everyone else, horrible memories of Aincrad had returned, of how her cry of fear had served to shatter the spell cast by Kayaba Akihiko, the first pebble in an avalanche of human panic. But there had been something else there this time, along with the fear, there had been something that stood against it, that bolstered her and didn't let her break down. Silica had only been a mid level player, but she had fought a thrived in the middle floors of Aincrad. And as people noticed the calm girl who was rushing around, checking that everyone was alright and reassuring them all, they found some of that courage in themselves, they began to pay attention and listen to what she was saying.

The Faction Leader hadn't been in Freelia at the time and it wasn't until evening that they learned that Arrun had been transported as well. Fortunately, Alicia Rue seemed to be a pretty good judge of character. Members of the Cait Syth Leader's personal staff had swung into action. They were all good people, and while they were as scared and at a loss for answers as everyone else, they had worked hard to keep order and make sure Freelia remained a safe place for all of the other players. And they had definitely had their hands full the last two weeks as people began to adjust.

More than this sudden new reality, than the sightings of that first Airship, or listening to announcements as they gradually learned about and began to believe what happened to them, Silica had been shocked by how people began to regard her. They didn't see a child, they saw an SAO survivor, someone who had survived in a dangerous situation and was able to remain calm in this one. Instead of pitying her, they took her advice and deferred to her judgment on important decisions. It was exciting, it was terrifying, she had to be careful not to get a big head and give advice she wasn't qualified to give.

"Welcome back Silica-chan!"

The greeting came from a huge Cait Syth with wild white and gray hair astride the back of a flying dragon, a Cait Syth dragoon setting out on patrol along the coast. After making peaceful contact with the Kingdom of Tristain, the Cait Syth's faction forces had been quickly volunteered to help thin the mobs that had appeared along Tristain's coastline. The task benefiting both the Kingdom of Tristain by securing the roadways, and the Cait Syth by offering fodder for their dragons.

"Good afternoon Isaac-san." Silica responded waving up to the man. On her shoulder, Pina hunched down, clinging tightly. The little dragon didn't care for her large brethren and disliked it when Silica had business in the stables. In fact, Silica had noticed other oddities about Pina over the past days, she suspected this was because the feathery dragon was now a physical existence rather than simply an AI algorithm.

"Seems you've finally got the hang of your wings. I knew you'd master them like a pro." The man, Isaac, laughed deeply. "So, what are you still doing in Freelia? I thought you were heading to Arrun as soon as you could fly?"

"Un, I still am." Silica nodded, she'd received a letter from Argo confirming that Kirito was in Arrun right now and then a second letter from Kirito himself. Kirito's letter had been short and strangely formal. It gave Silica the impression that he wasn't used to writing a proper correspondence and was trying hard to do it right, but she could read between the lines and see that he was concerned. Really, she was doing alright, there was so much that needed to be done . . . And she wasn't alone, she'd be fine. "Now that I can use my wings, I volunteered for courier duty." She explained, "So I'll be leaving later today."

While she was glad she'd been of help to everyone, Silica wanted to get to the World Tree before the clearing raid began. News had trickled down tha the Faerie lords intended to exterminate the Guardian's that protected the heart of the World Tree in order to ensure Arrun's safety. To do so, a massive raid force was being assembled to completely overwhelm the Guardian's and hopefully allow the former players to complete their mission safely. He hand't said anything in his letter, but Silica just knew Kirito would be participating. After all, Asuna, the person he loved, was at the top of the World Tree. She wanted to talk to him before then.

"Well, have a safe trip." The man spurred his mount back into motion and the dragon lurched forward, crawling from the shade of the stables out into the sunlight of Freelia Tower's landing platform.

Silica made her may though the stables and down several floors to the chambers that had been reserved for 'official' business. Now that they didn't have their player menus, the tasks necessary to organize an entity like a faction, or even a guild, took up lots of space. Luckily, lots of the former players had only been too happy to fill clerical roles rather than exposing themselves to danger with the patrol teams or dealing with the locals as couriers.

The offices that Silica entered were responsible for coordinating all of the patrol groups operating around Freelia. Bookish looking Cait Syth were making themselves busy over a map of Tristain's coast, marking off on thin vellum sheets the areas that had been reported clear of mob activity, while a more martial looking Cait Syth in military dress oversaw everything.

The man noticed Silica and turned to face her. "A messenger? Report!" The tawny haired Cait Syth was called Gaius and was one of the Cait Syths military leaders. Back when Alfheim had just been a game, his squads had been responsible for suppressing wild dragons so that they could be tamed for the faction.

Silica felt the urge to salute, even thought she didn't actually know how, instead she removed a letter from the pouch on her waist and offered it to the man. Accepting the message, the Cait Syth commander slit the envelope with one sharpened nail and then read through the contents.

"Far Northern Patrol group has reported sightings of a bahamut type field boss off the coast."

The Faeries standing around the table groaned, "We just confirmed that area as cleared."

"Well, un-confirm it. Check with the hunters, they can probably pin down which one it is. We'll have to alert the Tristainian garrisons and sortie flying dragons in support." Gaius said, folding the letter back up and giving Silica a small nod. "Thank you for reporting this promptly. If you'd wait just a moment I'd like to draft a response."

"Sure." Silica said. She needed to set out soon for Arrun, but she could always take the letter up to the dispatch office for another courier to deliver.

Leaving the patrol office, Silica was on her way to drop the letter off with one of the other couriers waiting atop Freelia tower when she noticed something odd. Standing beside his mount, gently stroking its scaly neck, the Dragoon Isaac was had yet to depart.

"Isaac-san? I thought you were going out on patrol?" Silica asked.

"I was." The man said, "But the courier master flagged me down. It sounds like they need a dragon to deliver a passenger to Arrun."

"A passenger?" Silica asked. It was true that about two thirds of Freelia's Cait Syth population were still learning, relearning, how to use their wings. But most anyone who'd be needed in Arrun would be among the more skilled players where voluntary flight was a minimum qualification.

"Yeah, nobody told me what's going on just that there's an urgent delivery to be made." The man grinned, "Why don't we fly out together? Its not like you need an escort but company's nice up in the air."

"Un." Silica nodded, she got along well with Isaac, so it wouldn't be a problem. Also, the Dragoon's dragon would be sure to make short work of any lingering mobs. Pina gave an indignant cry, Silica turned to her familiar, "Sorry Pina, but a full sized dragon is pretty helpful to have around."

They weren't left wondering about the mysterious passenger for much longer. A group of Cait Syth arrived along the perimeter of Arrun tower with a brown haired woman, a human woman, in tow. Silica recognized the scholarly Cait Syth at the lead as Alden, one of Alicia Rue's Lieutenants who had been managing Freelia in the faction leader's absence.

"Silica-san, its good to see you're here." Alden said.

"What's this about Alden-san?" Silica asked.

In reply the Cait Syth Lieutenant gestured to the woman beside him. The woman stepped forward looking to and fro, eyes filled with curiosity as they fell on every Cait Syth in her field of vision.

"This is Emily-san, she arrived aboard a cargo ship late last evening. I'm afraid it took a while for her to tell her story to us. She say's she has business with the Faction Leaders. It appears that some of the former players may have wound up in Albion during the transition."

"Albion?" Silica asked. She didn't know much about the Kingdom other than that it was a floating island in the sky and that there was currently a Civil war taking place. If what Emily had told Alden was true, she fervently hoped that the former players trapped on the isle were okay.

"Y-yes." The woman named Emily said. "They saved me from a group of mercenaries, and thanks to them I was able to find my way to a sympathetic ship's captain who smuggled me from the country. When I heard that other Faeries had appeared in Tristain, I thought that you must be their kin and hoped to enlist aid in rescuing them from the Isle." The woman closed her eyes. "If Reconquista were to capture them . . . I couldn't live with myself if I let that happen to Miss Asuna and the others."

Silica felt her pulse race. "Wait, that name, say it again!"

"What? Miss Asuna?" The woman asked, looking confused. "I do hope I'm pronouncing it correctly, she never said anything."

"Is there something wrong, Silica-san?" Alden asked.

"Emily-san? What did Asuna-san look like?" Silica had never met the Asuna the Flash in person, but she had known of her and seen her picture often in the Weekly Argo. "Did she have long chestnut hair?"

"Y-yes." Emily said. "And brown eyes, and . . ." Emily smiled shyly, "She is a very beautiful girl, and the others all respect her very much. Her and Sir Arguile."

Silica thought quickly. "Did Asuna-san ever tell you anything about a place called Aincrad?"

Emily nodded her head, "Yes, she said that she and the others were imprisoned there for two years before they found themselves in Albion."

"Aincrad?" Alden said. "You mean they're SAO survivors?"

Silica breathed, "Not just SAO survivors." Silica shook her head. "Emily-san, you said that there were others, how many?"

"The Knights of Blood number around three hundred, but only a handful are fighters."

The revelation that the group called themselves the Knights of Blood only served to confirm what Silica already knew. Mind racing she grabbed Emily's hand and pulled.

"Silica-san!" Alden shouted and then stopped when he saw the determined look in the girl's eyes.

"We have to get this person to Arrun right away!"


	29. Chapter 10 Part 2

Halkegenia Online- Chapter 10 – Part 2

It was the eve of the World Tree raid, and Kirigaya Kazuto, the swordsman Kirito, was restless. It had begun almost a week ago as the raid plans were drawn up and finalized, a slowly building pressure, a need to do something, to move, to act. He had to get to Asuna, needed it.

The raid force was assembled and equipped, the raid groups organized, and each member knew their role. There wasn't any reason left to wait. But the raid had been scheduled for tomorrow to give everyone time to rest and prepare themselves. Kirito took a deep breath and released it, trying to let the tension drain away, but it didn't seem to work. He was ready now.

"You okay, Kii-bou?" The information broker, the Cait Syth Argo, gave her old contact a concerned look. Though not participating in the raid, Argo had decided to attend the final raid meeting along with Kirito, claiming it was an opportunity to network among the other Fae.

Though her company was appreciated, Kirito almost wished Klein had been here. The Katana user's laid back attitude had always helped on the eve of a tough battle. At the same time, Kirito was glad that neither Klein nor Suguha were participating. Kirito had to rescue Asuna. For her, he would take any risk. But there were other people in this world that he had to protect. Suguha, and Yui. As long as Klein and the others were around, he could rest easy knowing that they would be taken care of no matter what else happened.

Kirito crossed his arms as he leaned against the curved wall of the reception chamber. "Its been two weeks." Kirito said without opening his eyes. "Tomorrow, I'm done waiting."

The information broker frowned slightly and her puffball ears drooped down. "Aa-chan will be okay, she's tough." Argo said.

"Asuna has been at the top of the World Tree for two weeks." Kirito replied. "We don't know what sort of . . . condition . . . she could be in." The nightmares had become worse in the past days too, last night, he'd found himself in a cold sweat having been shaken awake by a worried Suguha.

"Like I said, Aa-chan is tough." Argo repeated like a mantra, "She'll be okay. But you'll still have to fight through an army of Guardian Knights to get to her. Are you ready for that, Kii-bou?"

"Mortimer's plan is solid." Kirito replied, in fact he was trying to figure out why they were all still here, preparing to listen to it again, when they could be putting it into action. "This time, we'll definitely break through."

"You'll have your work cut out for you." Argo said. "The other Faeries in the assault team are some of the best there are, but they're not Aincrad's Front Line. I can't say how they'll react when the crunch comes."

"I know that." Kirito shot the Cait Syth an annoyed looked, she was acting like he was a rank amateur.

He was painfully aware of how little experience the other Faeries had in a life or death struggle. Fights in a full dive game could be terrifying, but with the exception of SAO, there was never any fear of death. Even the strongest of people could crack under the stress of battle, Kirito had seen it often in Aincrad.

"You're not acting like it, Kii-bou." Argo looked away from him.

"Oh? And what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, something about Aa-chan makes you stupid." The Cait Syth hissed under her breath. Kirito was just about to say something when Argo continued. "We need you in top form for this fight. You need you in top form for this fight! Tis about more than just you and Aa-chan."

Argo nodded her head to the surrounding room. The reception chamber at the top of Arrun Tower was filled with players . . . with Faeries. When the faction leaders had agreed to pool their resources for this raid, each had requested volunteers from among the strongest former players, now the strongest Fae. Over seven hundred Faeries had answered the call, and though not all of them were in attendance this evening, the chamber was already growing crowded with members of every race.

The Faeries mingled, though most stayed close to members of their own race. Many of the raid groups had been formed from the clearing groups of the different factions, and Mortimer had been loath to break up what he called Unit Cohesion just before an important battle.

Kirito's expression softened and his blood cooled just a little. He remembered how he had remained calm at first, there were other people with a stake in this. He could be patient for one more day. The gathered Faeries weren't doing this for him and Asuna. It would have been wrong to risk seven hundred lives for just one person, but that didn't mean he didn't appreciate the risk they were taking.

The official story was that the raid was meant to exterminate the Guardians in order to safeguard Arrun. This was strictly true. Arrun was an important Faerie settlement. As the largest settlement in ALfheim, Arrun's population was swelling as the city took in refugees, Faeries who had been caught in the neutral areas and who did not have homes in one of the Faction Capitols. Arrun's location near the heart of Tristain and proximity to major roadways and water routes also meant that, if a way home could not be found, Arrun would certainly develop into an important place as the displaced players made new lives for themselves.

With that in mind, any threat to Arrun could not be tolerated by the Faerie Lords. The dangerous mobs in the surrounding areas had been aggressively hunted down and exterminated with ruthless efficiency by the combined forces of the Sylphs, Cait Syth, and Salamanders, leaving only smaller threats on par with the local wildlife. This left only the Guardians to threaten Arrun.

There was no way to tell what the Transition had done to them, many mobs had demonstrated more erratic and complex behavior over the past days. Would the Guardians no longer spawn? Or would spawned Guardian's continue to roam indefinitely? Would they remain within the World Tree? Or would they spill out to attack the settlement?

The risk couldn't be taken, and so, regardless of other considerations, it had been agreed that a raid would be assembled for the purpose of general security. The main objective would be the destruction of the no longer invulnerable Guardian Gates from which the Guardians spawned, and the elimination of all active mobs. From the perspective of most of the participants, the rescue of any former players or GMs trapped at the World Tree summit was a secondary consideration, albeit one that added urgency to the situation.

Only the Faerie Lords and a select few others had been informed about the raid's third purpose. In addition to eliminating the Guardians and rescuing any survivors from the top of the Tree, the potential existence of a GM console someplace within the Tree's crest was a prize that was worth launching the raid all on its own. It had been decided to keep this secret from the general public to avoid spreading false hope.

Kirito's arms fell to his side as he took a breath. "You're right. Sorry."

A strange look flashed across Argo's face but was gone in a heartbeat. The girl perked up noticeably. "Hey now, why not take the opportunity to rub elbows a little, Kii-bou." Argo suggested. "After all, it's a rare opportunity to have so many high ranked fighters in one place, it might not happen again."

As if to underline this point, a voice called over the gathered crowds. "If it isn't the Spriggan bastard who beat me. Kirito!"

A huge, deeply tanned Salamander in high class body armor was parting the crowds like a ship at sea, making a beeline for the former beater. Kirito stood straight. The two Faeries, former opponents and now allies, bumped fists in casual greetings.

"I'd heard you'd been active around Arrun, its good to see Sakuya-san knows how to make use of your talents." The Salamander General rumbled with a hint of amusement.

"Oh? Has Kii-bou made a new friend?" Argo chided, receiving an annoyed looked.

General Eugene examined the diminutive Cait Syth for a time and then nodded to himself. "You must be Argo, I've heard about you."

"Depends," Argo looked up at the Salamander with a smirk on her face, "Is what you've heard good or bad?"

"Should I be charging you for that information?" The General joked as he stroked his chin, receiving an unladylike gesture from the information broker. "My brother thinks highly of you. He say's you've already proven more useful than the other brokers from ALfheim."

"Tis nothing." Argo responded. "Tell your brother that If that's the case, I'll be happy to take his repeat business."

"Excuse me, Eugene-san," Kirito interrupted, "I thought the Salamanders were busy keeping peace in Orlein. Is it okay for you to be here?"

The chaos that had broken out in the Puka and Undine Capitols after the transition had been closely followed by the Faeries of Arrun. Thankfully there had been few death, unfortunately, there had been a few deaths. Twenty seven in Cadenza, thirty in Orlein. The riots were not primarily at fault. The casualties had been mostly among those who had fled the cities unprepared and had faced surprise run ins with mobs. There had been a trickle of other deaths over the past days, thankfully nothing like in SAO, but there had been the inevitable accidents, errors in judgment, and mob run ins. The Faeries Lords had worked to keep people's attention off of the fatalities.

Eugene nodded seriously, "I was, but the Undines are finally getting their act together. A man called Thinker is taking charge of the situation for us."

Kirito perked up at the mention of the former Army Guild Leader. He hadn't had a chance to contact Thinker with the Chaos in Orlein, but it was a relief to know that he was safe and putting his experience to good use.

"I know him, he's a good man for the job." Kirito agreed. "Did Lord Mortimer recommend him for the position?"

"As a matter of fact, by the time our forces made it to Orlein, Thinker had already managed to restore order to about half the city. We hardly had to do anything to convince the people to listen to him. In the end we only had to crack a couple of heads. A few stubborn idiots thought we were there to invade them." Eugene said, face growing disgusted. "As if the game's divisions matter now."

"Then I guess we're lucky to have you leading the assault team." Kirito said. It was good to hear that the Salamanders at least weren't taking their old rivalries too seriously.

Eugene nodded seriously. "The last time the Salamander forces attempted an assault, we only made it about a quarter of the way up. But from what I hear, the Cait Syth and Sylphs almost managed to make it with your help." The Salamander field commander seemed to be weighing Kirito up as he spoke .

"It really wasn't anything that amazing." Kirito said, waving off the praise. "We only managed to carve a small hole in the Guardian formations."

"Still, an impressive accomplishment." Eugene said sagely, "Though this time, we'll be blowing ourselves a much bigger hole."

"Well . . . That's the plan." Kirito said hesitantly, the Salamander seemed to be enjoying the prospect a little too much.

"I have to say I'm impressed." From his vantage standing head and shoulders above most of the other Faeries, Eugene scanned the crowd. "Some of the top clearing guilds are here." The man stiffened and then grinned, "And her."

Her? Kirito wondered. He wasn't left wandering for long as the crowd dispersed before a striking woman. It wasn't entirely clear at first whether the other Faeries were parting out of admiration for her beauty, or fear of the massive spear which she carried easily over her right shoulder, the glossy obsidian blade glinting menacingly as she moved.

She was tall, with very western features and dark brown eyes. Her long black hair had been gathered in a thick braid that fell over her left shoulder, and she wore a sleeveless, backless, black dress decorated with white geometric symbols and slit up to thigh so as not to restrict her movement. As she neared, Kirito noted that she had accessorized with fingerless gloves and a pair of heavy combat boots.

Trailing behind her in a rough vee formation were over a dozen black clad Spriggans. Even more than the glamorous woman at their lead, the other Faeries gave these Spriggans a wide berth.

"Look, its the Kii-bou family reunion." Argo snickered softly.

"Who are they?" Kirito asked. Just looking at the Spriggans he could already tell they were something different. They reminded him a bit of the Furinkanzan guild, calm and easy going even on the eve of battle.

"The one at the lead is Morgiana, the Lady of the Spriggans." Eugene said. "And the Spriggans with her are the Mercenary Guild Kurotaka, the Spriggan elites. They've done work for the Salamanders before and have been leading the mob clearing efforts up North." The General's eyes hadn't left Morgiana.

Kirito followed his gaze, curious, he'd yet to meet his ostensible faction leader, but the other Spriggans he'd talked to all seemed to like her. The woman noticed Eugene almost immediately and a smile spread across her face as she came near.

"It's been a while, Gene-kun." Morgiana said, cradling her spear in the crook of her arm as she put hands on hips.

"Not that long. Morgi-chan." Eugene said with emphasis. "I see you're Lady of the Spriggans, again."

The woman shrugged, "I got bored being a mercenary, so sue me. Besides, would you rather have Valdi running the Spriggans at a time like this?"

"Point taken." Eugene replied.

Morgiana's dark eyes wondered to Kirito. "Hey, who's this? I'm pretty good with faces but I don't recognize you. I thought I knew all of the top ranked Spriggans by name."

"Oh, I'm Kirito." Kirito answered, dipping his head slightly in greeting. "We've never met before, Morgiana-sama."

"Kirito?" Morgiana looked curious, "Kirito." The woman's lips suddenly curved up in an evil grin. "Now I remember, you're the one who beat Gene-kun and saved the Cait Syth and Sylphs. Not too shabby kid, but I bet you didn't charge Sakuya-chan nearly enough for pulling her ass out of the fire."

He smiled. "Well, I wasn't doing it for money, it was more like I was helping out a friend." Kirito admitted.

Morgiana nodded sagely. "Must be one hell of a friend you have. Though, there's still one little problem."

"Oh?" Kirito asked.

The Spriggan Leader placed one arm languidly around Kirito's shoulder. "From what Mort-kun tells me, you ran your mouth about a Spriggan-Undine alliance. That was a pretty good bluff by the way, it almost had Mort-kun fooled." Morgiana's arm constricted, drawing Kirito closer. "But next time, check in with Big Sis before you go and do something like that. Otherwise, I might have to cut you in half for putting words in my mouth." Though speaking warmly, Kirito was suddenly acutely aware that beneath that pale, smooth skin, the muscles in the Spriggan Lord's arm were as hard as steel.

"I'll keep it in mind." Kirito said, smiling nervously. Morgiana's smile widened further to reveal a hint of white teeth as she ruffed his hair before letting him go.

"Good boy. You were helping a friend, so its alright. Just remember to listen to Big Sis and we won't have any problems." Morgiana turned back to Eugene. "Still, Gene-kun, it's been a while since we've been on a raid together, at least I'll know someone has my back out there."

"Likewise." Eugene answered, "You still owe me for all of the Salamanders you gave the death penalty."

"Still mad about that?" Morgiana quirked an eyebrow.

Before Eugene could answer, a bell was rung at the center of the chamber to announce the beginning of the raid meeting.

"We'll have to continue this later." Eugene said to Morgiana. "Kirito, you'll also be joining the assault force, correct?"

"Un." Kirito nodded. "My skills are needed most there. Your brother offered me command of one of the assault groups." Kirito smiled sheepishly. "But I'm not really cut out to be a commander."

"Then I wish us both good luck tomorrow. We'll celebrate afterwords." Eugene began making his way towards the center of the chamber, as the assault force commander, he would be expected to speak during the raid meeting.

"I should be going too." Morgiana sighed, "How boring, but I'm expected to show the flag. Lets all do our best tomorrow, Kirito-kun." The Spriggan leader departed after General Eugene, the other Spriggans falling in around her. Kirito's eyes didn't leave her until Argo spoke up.

"So that's Morgiana."

"You know about her?" Kirito asked and then shook his head, "How much?"

"Public info." Argo replied, in other words, she wouldn't charge for it, "Morgiana has some history with General Eugene. About six months ago she camped out on the Salamanders' Northern border and for eight hours PK'd every salamander who came out."

"She was solo Pking?" Kirito asked.

"Mmm, against whole parties. She had a group of Spriggans with her, but they only supplied heals and buffs between fights." Argo explained. "Eventually, Lord Mortimer got fed up with the EXP loss she was causing with all of the death penalties and sent Eugene to deal with her."

Kirito winced, "And how'd that end?"

Argo shrugged, "With Morgiana's avatar sliced in two. Someone recorded it and posted the battle online, it was one of the longest duels in the history of ALfheim." Kirito remembered what Lord Mortimer had said about his brother being addicted to combat and had to wonder about the familiarity between the Salamander General and Spriggan Lord.

"Wait . . . They aren't . . ." Kirito trailed off.

Argo grinned and extended a hand in request for payment.

"I would like to have everyone's attention. Everyone's attention please." Lord Mortimer called from an elevated platform at the center of the chamber. Behind him, a large blackboard, salvaged from someplace in Arrun, or perhaps borrowed from the Academy, had been set up to act as visual aid. Beside the Salamander Lord, the other Faerie Leaders stood in silence, their presence an unspoken vote of confidence.

"Good evening everyone, I thank you all for your attendance at this, our final strategy meeting." Mortimer continued. "Tomorrow morning, we will be conducting a raid on the World Tree with the intention of exterminating the Guardians and ensuring the safety of Arrun. This is a first for all of us. The largest operation ever coordinated by our forces."

"Operation? You make this sound like we're in the army." An Imp mage standing near the front of the crowd said. "Last I heard, this wasn't the JSDF."

The Imp's look of amusement vanished as soon as Mortimer fixed him with a bloody eyed stare. "Make no mistake, I did not misspeak when I used the world Operation rather than raid. We are used to raids. We all have experience with forming raid groups and conducting dungeon and boss raids. But a raid implies that this is still a game. It is not. We cannot afford to make that assumption. This is a military operation, the scale is an order of magnitude larger than any raid in the history of ALfheim. It will require that you each perform your part precisely. I want you all to understand that right now."

The atmosphere within the chamber, which had begun so jovially, suddenly grew solemn. People had known, but had chosen not to dwell on the reality. Mortimer's words brought out unpleasant truths, but it was better that they be faced here rather then come up only after the raid, the _operation_, had commenced.

Mortimer swept the crowd with his gaze before continuing. "The operation plans were drawn up with an emphasis on building a safety margin. So long as everyone follows their part, the risk will be greatly reduced. But if you cannot tolerate the chance of death, I suggest that you leave now. No one will think less of you if you aren't ready for this."

There were glances exchanged by the Faeries but to Kirito's relief, nobody broke from the crowd.

"Now then. As you have all seen in the previous strategy meetings, the basic plan for this operation follows the structure of a standard raid but built on a much larger scale." Mortimer gestured to the blackboard at his side, using his cane as a pointer. "The main divisions will be the assault team composed of three groups of seven squads each. The support team, which will itself consist of an additional six groups of seven squads each. And finally the defense team, composed of six groups of seven squads each, which will protect the support group and catch and destroy any Guardians that attempt to leave the World Tree."

"I have some concerns about the plan." A Gnome raised a hand. "The strategy seems sound, but we'll be shuffling fifteen different groups. A normal raid can get confusing enough as it is."

"A good point." Mortimer agreed. "This is part of the reason why each team will be be lead separately by a hand picked commander and subordinate sub commanders. Each group will have only a single task which they must see to. Groups will also be rotated throughout the operation to allow time for spell cool down and mana regeneration. At any one time only one assault group, two support groups, and two defense groups will be on the the line while the others are recovering." Mortimer pointed to a series of simple cycle diagrams that showed the group rotations. "Teams will switch asynchronously to minimize any gaps in our defenses. Does this answer your question?"

The Gnome nodded, "Thank you, and yes, I retract my concerns."

"Moving on." Mortimer said. "The operation will begin at the base of the World Tree and move upwards level by level. While the assault team occupies the Guardians in front line combat with the assistance of the support team, one group of the defense and support teams will be tasked with destroying the guardian spawn gates. As these are no longer protected by the system as they were in ALfheim, destroying them should prevent further Guardian spawns. Starting from the first level of gates, it should take around one hour to reach the summit gateway. That means each group should see around twenty minutes of sustained combat. The advantage of this plan is that it requires only a relatively small number of front line fighters to serve in the assault team. The support and defense teams need only follow their orders."

Mortimer began to go into detail about the exact responsibilities of each group, explaining how responsibility for buffs, debuffs, and offensive magic would be divided among support groups and addressing further concerns as they arose. Kirito heard himself answering each question in his own head as it was asked. He had worked closely with the Salamander Lord during the plans inception, offering his experience from the Aincrad raids to supplement Mortimer's own strategic brilliance. As Mortimer had already said, the plan had placed an emphasis on minimizing the number of assault members so that there would be enough Faeries with 'real' combat experience, such as Kirito himself and Fae who had participated in patrols and mob elimination, to fill all of the assault team slots.

The Salamander Lord was just getting to how the Cait Syth Dragoon would be integrated into the support team when Kirito noticed Lady Sakuya's assistant, Novair, speaking quietly to the Sylph Leader at the edge of the platform. Sakuya's expression grew concerned, and without excusing herself, she quietly slipped away, leaving the other Lords sans Mortimer looking mildly confused.

Kirito frowned inwardly, what could take Sakuya away at a time like this? Had something happened? If it was urgent, Sakuya would have called a halt to the raid meeting, but that might also mean she was investigating. Kirito mulled it over, he couldn't afford anything that might delay the World Tree raid.

"Kii-bou?" Argo had also noticed Sakuya's disappearance from the stage.

"I'm just going to go check it out. Besides, I've heard all of this before." Kirito had been standing near the back of the crowd, his eyesight and hearing were good enough that it hadn't been a problem, so it was easy to slip away without causing a disturbance. He noticed Argo trailing close behind. No doubt if he had been suspicious, The Rat's carefully trained nose had also picked up on something.

In the curved hallway that sided the reception chamber, Kirito caught sight of Lady Sakuya speaking with a pair of Cait Syth and a young woman, a local judging by her ears. One of the Cait Syth was a big, broad shouldered man built more like a Salamander with wild white and gray hair. The other was small, almost childish, though he couldn't see her face from this angle. A familiar blue, feathery dragon clung to the girl's head, he was almost certain it was Pina. Was that Silica? He wondered.

"In Albion? How is that possible?" Lady Sakuya was asking. "The one thing we know for sure about the transition is that people and places appeared relative to the World Tree. There shouldn't be any way for them to have been transported to a place like that."

"They said they started here, at the World Tree, and used something called the Chalice of Rebirth to transport themselves. I don't think they intended to end up in Albion." The woman beside Sakuya explained. "I didn't really understand it. But please, their lives are in danger as long at they stay in Albion, I was separated from Miss Caramella while I was in York, the Rebels mistook her for an Elf and tried to kill her. I've no doubt that Reconquista will execute them as Elves if they are captured."

"I understand." Sakuya closed her eyes thoughtfully. "I'll have to speak with the other Leaders to see what can be done." She said, placing a reassuring hand on the woman's shoulder.

"Please, I owe them a great deal, Miss Asuna and her Knights of Blood . . ."

The woman was still speaking, but the rest of the sentence was drowned out in the sudden hammering of Kirito's own pulse in his ears. Miss Asuna? Asuna. He stopped dead in his tracks. "Asuna." He whispered and then felt something break. Kirito's breathing grew labored.

"Kirito." Argo turned to face him, realization dawning only a half second later.

Asuna, in Albion. There was no logic to this! His mind raced. No, that wasn't right, it couldn't be, Asuna was at the top of the World Tree, Yui had confirmed it. Had he misunderstood? Was there another ALfheim player with that handle? But the woman had mentioned the Knights of Blood, that couldn't be a coincidence. What had he missed? What hadn't he known? That was why he had been waiting these two weeks, that was why he couldn't go to her. If she was anyplace else, he would have flown to her side in an instant.

The Sylph Leader turned at the noise. "Kirito?!" Sakuya said, eyes going wide as she saw the expression on his face.

"Kirito-kun!" The small Cait Syth said, having turned to face him, the feathery dragon on her head taking flight, a small part of his mind registered that it really was Silica.

Kirito barely noticed as he shouldered past Sakuya and took hold of the brown haired woman. "Where did you hear that name?!"

"I . . . I . . . That is . . ." The Woman stuttered. She looked frightened.

"Please, I need to know!" Kirito shouted.

"Kirito!" He felt a hand clamping down on his shoulder, soft but firm. Kirito looked up, wild eyed, a grave expression graced the face of the Sylph Leader and her tone carried the weight of an order. "Pull yourself together, Kirito-kun. Scaring this poor woman won't help anything."

He wanted to run right now, to rush out onto Arrun Tower's landing deck and fly straight for Albion. He didn't care if the Isle was over the ocean, he'd swim. He didn't care it might be too high to reach, he'd stow away on a ship. But Sakuya's hand on his shoulder, and the leader's cool gaze reminded him that he wasn't going to get anyplace if he just ran off. Tremendous forces fought against one another within him, the need to do tempered by the need to think. One of them finally won out. Kirito gritted his teeth, it took all of his will to let go of the woman and take a step back.

When he spoke, he was surprised by how tired he sounded. "Please, tell me where you heard that name. You said Albion. But that isn't possible."

"Be that as it may, that is where I met Miss Asuna." The woman said. "She saved me from wondering mercenaries, her and the Knights of Blood. I came here on their behalf to seek aid from their kin in rescuing them from the White Isle. Please I beg your help, they are in danger so long as they remain in reach of Reconquista."

"The Knights of Blood?" Lady Sakuya asked.

"They're an Aincrad Clearing Guild. Asuna was their vice commander." Kirito explained. Asuna must not have been the only one at the top of the World Tree. Others from the three hundred players who hadn't been logged out.

"Kirito-kun, are you okay?" Silica, who he had barely noticed a moment earlier in his rush to confront the brown haired woman, was suddenly close at his side, ears pressed flat against her head.

"I . . . I'm fine." Kirito said slowly his expression softening. He reached over and patted Silica on the head. "What are you doing here?"

"When Emily-san showed up in Freelia, I overheard her story. When I heard that she knew about Asuna-san, Isaac-san and I brought her here as fast as we could. And it doesn't sound like its just Asuna-san, I think it might be all of the three hundred SAO players who didn't wake up."

"Three hundred." Lady Sakuya whispered to herself thoughtfully.

"I see." Kirito said slowly. "Thank you, Silica, you've helped out a lot." The girl smiled shyly at the praise. Turning back to Lady Sakuya he said, "Sakuya-sama, this changes things. I'm sorry, but I can't participate in the raid tomorrow."

The Sylph leader appeared displeased, but nodded slowly. "I understand." Sakuya said, "It will be a loss to our forces, but I don't blame you. Though, if we know there is no longer anyone at the top of the World Tree, that does mean that the raid is no longer so urgent. We can reschedule and devote more time to training and preparation. I'll speak with Lord Mortimer and the others. I expect you will want to find a way to reach Albion."

Kirito nodded. "As soon as possible."

"That's going to be a problem." Argo spoke up, all eyes turned to the information broker. "Its over the ocean and too far to fly. Albion is a war zone right now, not just the Island, but its local airspace as well. Only approved ships are being allowed past the blockade. And then once you get there, you'll have to find Aa-chan and the others and a way to get them out. Its not going to be easy Kii-bou."

"I believe they will be in the company of Prince Wales, the leader of the Royalists." The woman, Emily, said. "At least, when last I was with them, the Prince was going to their aid."

"That's all very well." Sakuya said. "But it doesn't tell us how we will do any of this." The Sylph leader's lips had set into a thin line as she meditated on the situation. "Kirito, I'd be happy to release funds to charter a ship. If three hundred lives are on the line and we can help, we must do something. But that won't help with the blockade in place."

"Then just send me for now." Kirito said quickly, "Send me and I'll find Asuna and the others. If all else fails, Alicia knows me, so we can use moonlight mirror to communicate. We can figure something out from there."

"And what about once you're on Albion?" Argo asked, her tone growing angry. "You don't know anyone there, you don't know the land, and from the sounds of it the locals have decided that Faeries make great stand ins for Elves."

"I'll just have to deal with it when I get there." Kirito replied. "Sakuya-sama, I appreciate any help you can give me, but I'm going no matter what."

Sakuya nodded. "I know there's no convincing you otherwise. But can I ask for just a few hours of your time. I think the Tristanians might be able to help us with this. The Princess at least might be open to offering a guide or passage to Albion, and Tristain has the means to make retrieving Asuna and the others a reality."

"A few hours?" Kirito asked. A few minutes was too long to wait. He'd been willing to wait until the next morning not ten minutes ago. Now he had to fight not to bolt.

"We'll depart as soon as I can speak to Mortimer and the others." Lady Sakuya assured softly. "Please Kirito, we want to help you. Just give us this chance."

"I would like to go with you. To speak to the Princess." Emily spoke up. "She may not remember me, but we met as children and our families have had some fondness for one another in the past. It may mean nothing now, but I might be able to convince her to help." Emily turned to Kirito. "You're him, aren't you?"

Kirito blinked, "Excuse me?"

"The one that Miss Asuna loves." Emily said. "I can tell. It's like in my novels! I want to help you in return for the help she has given me. I wouldn't be alive now if it weren't for Miss Asuna and the others. So I'll help in whatever way I can."

"Jeez, Kii-bou. If you're set on running off to get yourself killed, you can at least go well informed. I'll dig up my notes on Albion." Argo said. "There might be something useful buried in the rumors I've been hearing."

"Isaac-san and I can take Emily straight to the academy. If Sakuya-sama writes a letter, I'm sure we can reserve an audience with the Princess." Silica suggested. The feathered dragon, Pina, let out a shrill cry as she landed once more on her master's head. "Oh, and Pina will help too!"

Kirito sagged visibly, looking to each of the people around him, some of who he barely knew, he whispered something under his breath.

"What was that Kirito-kun?" Lady Sakuya asked.

"I said, Thank you."


	30. Chapter 10 Part 3

Halkgenia Online – Chapter 10 – Part 3

It had been a long time since Henrietta De Tristain had been given the opportunity to indulge herself, least of all like this.

"Four Crowns beats a Queen's hand." Henrietta announced as she placed her cards down on the table.

"What! But you were betting so low!" Louise Valliere cried in disbelief. Cardinal Mazarin was a good hand at Crown, but he wasn't nearly so much fun to play against as Louise, also, not nearly as profitable. The man could smell a bluff from a mile away. And the rest of her retainers would never dream of playing such a vulgar game with the Princess. They would do so if ordered, but that took the fun out of it.

If holding the negotiation at the academy had offered any unexpected advantages, having an opportunity to reconnect with her childhood friend was one of them. Louise had been formal at first, almost as if she thought Henrietta would have forgotten all of their childhood adventures and time spent as playmates. But over the days, with warm insistence from Henrietta, some of the sisterly affection from their childhood had returned.

"That's diplomatic training for you." Henrietta said as she raked in her prize, the tiny custard pastries that the Academy kitchen was famous for. They'd each started off with a roughly equal pile, but between Louise's inability to bluff and frequent snacking on the part of both girls, the over all pot had been greatly diminished over the course of the evening.

"So, Louise, how are your studies going?" Henrietta asked. Having been trained by tutors since a young age, Henrietta had never experienced the academic setting for herself, and she was curious to hear about it from Louise.

"M-My classes?" Louise asked, suddenly sounding tense. "My grades in history and etiquette are excellent, so are my marks in magical theory." Louise fidgeted. "But I've been . . . Struggling with practicals."

Henrietta smiled gently, she already knew all about that from the Headmaster and the Duchess De Le Valliere. "That's not what I meant Louise, I meant, how are you enjoying your classes. Is there anything you like about what you're learning? My tutors always made it so dry and boring, I think it would have been a lot more fun if I had people to talk with about the subjects."

"Oh!" Louise looked surprised and then perked up. "The theory classes are always interesting." Louise said, "And we're discussing the Romalian Schism right now in history. Etiquette class is boring, its all easy stuff we learned when we were little. I guess the other students weren't trained when they were younger."

"And your practical lessons? Have you made any more progress." Henrietta asked. Henrietta knew how much her friend's trouble with magic weighed on her, she was as curious as Louise to see if the special lessons she was receiving would make any difference.

"Well, the classes are going the same as normal." Louise said, "I can't cast anything properly. But . . ." She smiled a little.

"But?" Henrietta asked.

"Well, today during my special lessons, when I tried to cast levitate, it still didn't work, but before the pebble burst, it wobbled a little. I got it to happen ten times in a row, and on the tenth time it bounced before it exploded!"

"Louise, that's wonderful news!" Henrietta smiled genuinely. It was still a failure by any normal standard, but for a struggling mage like Louise, it was a sign that she might yet master her magic. "So, what brought this on? Was it something the Headmaster taught you?"

Louise's face soured, "The Headmaster just comes by to observe now and then, I thought maybe he'd teach me some secret technique, but he always says he needs to do more research. No, this is something that . . . that one of my tutors taught me." Louise looked flustered.

"Is something wrong?" Henrietta asked.

"What? No! Nothing like that." Louise waved her hands quickly and grabbed one of her few remaining pastries, popping the confection into her mouth to buy herself time as she chewed. "Well, it's just that, they aren't what I thought they were is all." Louise admitted.

"Oh?" Henrietta asked. "What do you mean?" Gathering up the cards she began to shuffle, "Want to play another hand?"

"Of course." Louise said before meditating on the original question. "I guess, I don't know them very well, and now I'm finding out there's more to them than I thought. For instance, I thought one of them was just a harlot, but she's really good at fire magic." Louise frowned, "I can't even dislike her for it because I know she had to work hard to get that good. And they've all been trying to help me." Louise shook her head. "I just don't get it! Why can't people just be what you expect them to be?"

"Because people are complicated, Louise". Henrietta said. "That's something that took me a long time to figure out. Even people you hate might have things about them that you admire, and even people you admire might have flaws you dislike." That was something she learned from Cardinal Mazarin.

"Well, we fight a lot, so its probably the former." Louise decided as Henrietta began to deal. "But you know, its kind of fun."

"I envy you Louise, it sounds like you've made a friend." Henrietta said.

"What! Me and the Zerbst?" Louise nearly jumped out of her seat. "We are not friends!" The girls expression changed. "Maybe. I don't think so."

Henrietta was amused, Louise had always been like this, the world had to be simple and organized in her mind. Things had be filed and ordered, right or wrong. Meanwhile, Henrietta had been slowly learning that everything was really just gray in the end. She was glad that Louise hadn't become like that.

"You should have invited her."

"Invite Kirche Von Zerbst?" Louise asked, "She'd have been making raunchy comments as soon as she entered the room. She's an unrefined Germanian barbarian woman who can make a double entendre out of the world entendre."

"She sounds like quite a lot of fun." Henrietta said and laughed at the exaggerated look of horror that made its way across Louise's face.

"I think your mother the Queen would have me executed if she found out that I invited a Zerbst to play cards with the Princess." Louise lamented. "Please Princess, offer a stay of execution on your humble servant."

"I'll consider it once I've taken you for all your worth." Henrietta laughed as she discarded her first card. A knock came from he chamber door. "Enter." Henrietta called.

"Princess." One of her musketeers saluted, "A messenger has arrived from Lady Sakuya of the Sylphs. She is requesting an urgent audience with you immediately."

Henrietta held her cards close to her chest and frowned. She hadn't known Sakuya long, but she didn't think the Sylph Lord would frivolously demand an urgent audience. "Tell Lady Sakuya's messenger that I'll be happy to receive her when she arrives."

"Yes Princess." The musketeer stepped back into the hallway, closing the door.

"Is there something wrong Louise?"

Louise shook her head. "No, you just seem so confident these days."

"Really?" Henrietta asked, "I don't feel very confident." Henrietta confessed, "Actually I've had a lot of doubts recently."

"But you've been negotiating so well with the Faeries." Louise observed. She discarded a card, and after selecting a new one from the deck, quickly raised her bet.

"Its more like I've just agreed with what the Duchess has suggested." Henrietta sighed, even now she was more of a symbol, something to be paraded about, than a real authority figure. She felt she had only the smallest voice in things.

Louise shook her head. "No, Mother says you've been making good decisions. I know Mother would tell you if she thought something was a bad idea." She insisted.

"Thank you for the vote of confidence Louise." Henrietta said, "But the Duchess and the others have done much more than me. Now then, let us change to a happier subject. Ask about anything else."

"Actually." Louise said, voice cautious as if unsure if the subject was permitted, "After practice today, we started talking about the Faerie Lords. And just now you looked happy to receive Lady Sakuya. If you don't mind me asking, Princess, what is Lady Sakuya like?"

Henrietta gave the question some thought before answering. The more she talked with the Lady of the Sylphs, the more she found that she very much enjoyed the woman's company. Her manner was so peculiar, conscientious, kind, and strong. She was like what a noble was supposed to be, Henrietta thought. There was a sense of confidence and worthiness that just came naturally to the Sylph Lord, but there was none of the arrogance and pomposity that colored the worst excesses of the nobility. Instead, Sakuya seemed to treat everyone as if they were worth as much as herself, even showing consideration for the commoner servants.

"Truthfully, I think I believe her when she says she isn't really a noble woman." Henrietta decided.

"Not really a noble woman?" Louise sounded surprised. "But isn't she the Lady of the Sylphs?"

"Exactly." Henrietta said. "But its sound like it was all meant to be make believe. She was elected to play her role. Only now, everyone rallies around her because they don't know what else to do. Thankfully, she's doing a very good job of it. Talking to her, I rather think she's some sort of scholar. She seems very interested in history." Henrietta thought a bit more and then smiled, "Also she's a bit of swordswoman."

"A swordswoman?" Louise asked.

"Yes, I thought it strange too." Henrietta said. "But she carries a sword with her like a noble officer."

"Surely it's just for show." Louise said.

Henrietta shook her head. "I asked and she told me that during her school days in her homeland, she represented her school in dueling tournaments. Can you imagine young noble girls learning to wield swords?" Henrietta almost giggled, it was such a silly notion.

Of course, the idea of a swordswoman wasn't completely unheard of. Henrietta's own Musketeers included many women skilled in swordplay. And at least one of Lady Sakuya's retainers was a nimble swordswoman of some skill. Still, it was strange to think of a woman of status, even a Faerie, a scholar and mage no less, being accomplished with a blade.

Louise's face went blank for a moment, and then she chuckled nervously. "Yes, I suppose a young girl learning to sword fight would be silly. Silly, silly, silly."

"Are you alright Louise?" Henrietta asked and then smiled, "Are you hiding something!"

"What? No! I'm fine, fine, I'm fine! Better than fine! So you said she's a swordswoman?"

Henrietta rested her chin in her hand. "I wonder how hard it would be to learn fencing?" Henrietta thought out loud.

"Princess?" Louise asked.

"Oh, it's nothing." Henrietta laughed, "Just idle speculation. Now then, are you going to throw in or fold?"

Louise looked down at her cards and then back at the pot. Sighing, the small pink haired girl tossed down her hand, three knights and a prince, a weak face hand. "I fold. I'd rather keep the rest of my custards."

"That's a relief." Henrietta sighed, "I only had two Prince's."

"W-what!" Louise stuttered. "But you were betting so high this time!"

"Diplomacy." Henrietta giggled. Louise crossed her arms and looked away, brow twitching furiously.

The two girls spent the next hour catching up, chatting and fondly reminiscing about their shared childhood. Things had been so much simpler back then, for both of them. There had been times lately that Henrietta didn't know what to think, but at least she knew she had one friend in this world who would listen to her worries as Henrietta rather than the Princess of Tristain.

The musketeer guard from earlier returned to announce the arrival of Lady Sakuya and Lady Alicia Rue. The guard frowned, "There is also a young noble woman in their company who claims she urgently must speak with you."

"Oh?" Henrietta said. "Well, we best not keep them waiting." Henrietta turned back to Louise, "It's been wonderful seeing you again Louise, truly." She gave her childhood friend a pained smile. "Actually I'm glad to see you now of all times. You've heard about the wedding."

"Your wedding to the King of Germania." Louise looked down. "I've heard." Did Louise suspect how she really felt about the marriage? She'd barely mentioned it around her. No, that was nonsense, of course she didn't suspect anything.

"Everything has been finalized." Henrietta continued. "I know that your school work comes first, but I would be grateful if you would attend along with your mother and father."

Louise bowed deeply, "I would be honored!"

Henrietta's smile, while still forced, grew easier as she stepped forward and hugged her oldest friend tightly. "Oh Louise, I'm so happy to have seen you again. Good luck with your studies."

With that the Princess parted company with Louise and followed her escort to the Academy Tower. It was already early evening and in the direction of the World Tree, a faint glow rose from the city at the Tree's base. The countless Ore Lights of Arrun that collected sunlight during the day and released it after dark to light the city, its homes, and streets.

Lady Sakuya and the others were waiting when she arrived at the Academy tower, along with the Duchess. "Duchess Valliere." Henrietta greeted as she entered the small speaking room that had been set aside for private conversations during the negotiations. The room was filled nearly to capacity. Lady Sakuya, and Lady Alicia Rue taking up one sofa while their attendants stood behind them, the Sylph Novair, and the Spriggan swordsman Kirito. Everyone looked quite sober this evening, even Lady Alicia seemed subdued. So, as she had suspected, this wasn't a simple social visit.

"Princess." The older woman replied politely. "It appears that we might have a complication on our hands."

"A complication?" Henrietta blinked, she'd heard the euphemism from Cardinal Mazarin in the past. She had determined that it was a polite way for a diplomatic person to utter an obscenity. The Duchess nodded to the Faeries in attendance.

"Princess." Lady Sakuya stood, gathering the sleeves of her robes before her, she was followed by Lady Alicia Rue and a brown haired woman who looked vaguely familiar to Henrietta. The Sylph Leader's expression made Henrietta pause, she had not seen Sakuya so grave before. "Less than an hour ago, we learned that a group of our Faeries may have ended up in Albion during the transition.

"What? In Albion?" Henrietta asked.

Sakyuya nodded. "We believe they number around three hundred."

"How? And how did you learn of this?"

Little arrived from the White Isle these days save rumors and speculation. It was known that the Royalists were badly pressed, and that the situation in much of the country was dire. But so much remained hidden even now. Even Tristain's spy masters had been unable to fully piece together what was happening, so what hope could the Faeries, recently arrived, have of doing the same?

"That would be because of me." The brown haired woman said shyly, she was a mousy thing, pretty in an unremarkable way. "Princess Henrietta, my name is Emily Florence Windsor. I'm the daughter of Count Windsor . . ." The woman looked down. "Well, his successor now. I don't know if you remember me. My family accompanied Albion's Royal family a few years back on a visit to Tristain. Thought I suppose I might not have left a strong impression since I just kept to myself and read."

"I remember." Henrietta said softly, recognition dawning. Emily Florence Windsor, four years her senior, yet so shy she'd been swept up in the games played by the children. "Yes, I remember. You read romance novels the whole time. I'm happy to see that you were not caught in Albion."

"I very nearly was." Emily replied quickly, "If not for the help of the Fae I would be dead now. They saved me and brought me to York, where I was able to find passage to Tristain. The ship's captain took me to Freelia, and from there I was able to travel here to speak with the Faeries."

The word of a Noble confirmed it, and Emily had no reason to lie. "How did this happen?"

"We think that the three hundred Faeries in Albion were trapped at the top of the World Tree. Reportedly, they used an artifact in the Tree's crest to transport themselves." Sakuya explained. "They couldn't have known it would send them to Albion."

"An artifact?" Henrietta wondered, but shook her head, that was a matter for another time.

"Does it matter?" The Duchess Valliere asked. "Miss Windsor has already informed us that Reconquista has taken to calling the Fae as Elves. The very Fae that Tristain is now entering into relations with. They will not hesitate to use this as pretense."

"They hardly need it." Henrietta said, masking the bitterness she felt. Nobody at the Palace believed Reconquista's intentions were anything but total conquest of Halkgenia, with Tristain as their foothold on the continent.

"Nevertheless it will be a useful tool with which to whip their own people into a frenzy." The Duchess said. "And also, useful propaganda abroad." Henrietta had to agree. Gallia remained indifferent to the situation in Albion, Joseph, the Mad King, seeming happy to sell arms to the Rebels and their benefactors. Meanwhile, Romalia was in no position to offer direct aid. That left only Germania as an ally to Tristain, anything that might cast a shadow on their coming union had to be regarded with grave concern.

"That is why we would like to remove them from Albion as soon as possible." Lady Sakuya said. "The sooner they are off the Isle, the less chance Albion has to run them to ground and use their presence against you." Sakuya bowed her head respectfully, "Also, we feel some responsibility for their lives. They are our countrymen. It would not be right for us to abandon them."

"A noble sentiment." The Duchess Valliere said, "But I fear quite impossible given the circumstances. If it were but a few Faeries it might be possible for a team of Dragon Knights to slip in and remove them from the Isle under cover of darkness. But for so many, you would need a ship. The Rebels control the skies around Albion. No merchantman will be willing to risk it, and a Tristanian flagged ship would invite an immediate attack now that the Royalists are hemmed in at Newcastle."

"A ship might be arranged in Albion." Emily spoke up. "When last I saw them, Prince Wales was on his way to offer assistance to the Faeries. If the Royalists have any ships left, they might be convinced to run the blockade and bring them to safety."

"Wales?" Henrietta struggled to keep the feeling from her voice. "Then the Prince Valiant is in the company of Faeries?" She murmured softly. Henrietta took a breath. 'Founder, is this a sign?'

Lady Sakuya and Lady Alicia glanced to one another before Lady Sakuya spoke. "We've discussed this with the other three Lords. We would like to be permitted to send an agent to make contact with our people, and help to find a way to bring them safely to Tristain."

"An agent?" The Duchess asked, "I don't see what a single Faerie could do on their own."

"It isn't what they can do." Lady Alicia suddenly spoke up. "It's what they can tell us."

"Alicia is a practitioner of Dark magic." Lady Sakuy explained. "The spell Moonlight Mirror allows her and other mages to communicate instantaneously over long distances. We haven't done any thorough testing but we think that the range is around one hundred miles at night."

"A hundred miles in an instant?" The Duchess asked, there was a glint of interest in the woman's eyes, "If you have such a spell, why don't you use it to contact your lost Faeries? The distance may be too great, but a ship could be chartered to sail just outside of Albion's border."

"It's not that easy." Lady Alicia said, ears sinking down, "The spell is more limited here than it was in ALfheim. I can only open the mirror to people who I already know and its pretty exhausting to keep it up for more than a few minutes at a time."

"That's why we need to send an agent. Someone who can find and make contact with the lost Fae, and work to coordinate their extraction." Lady Sakuya finished and then shook her head softly, "Forgive me, now I'm sounding like Mortimer. Once we've made contact, we have some ideas of how to get them out, having a view of the problem from the inside should help us devise a plan."

"A possibility." The Duchess agreed, tone remaining neutral. "And one Faerie would be deniable. Certainly no worse then the three hundred that are already in Albion. Do you have an idea of who you would send?"

The Faeries all looked to the lone Spriggan standing at the rear of their group. "Kirito is one of our best fighters, and a veteran of . . . The Aincrad Crusade." The Spriggan gave the Faerie Lord an odd look at the comment but said nothing. Lady Sakuya fixed eyes with the Duchess De La Valliere. "I can think of no one better to send."

The Duchess appraised the youth critically. "You've seen battle."

The swordsman hesitated before replying. "Un." The boy said, dark eyes meeting the Duchess' own gaze, "Though, probably not like you."

What did that mean? Henrietta wondered. Noticing the way the Duchess's eyes had widened for just an instant. Did the Duchess have experience in battle? Her mother had never mentioned that. She would have to ask, later.

"I was under the impression that you were all actors of a sort, playing out a masquerade." The Duchess observed.

"Kirito is a little different from the rest of us." Lady Sakuya said, stepping forward, "I wouldn't call him a soldier, but he's more familiar than most of us with the hazards of battle." The Duchess looked unconvinced.

"Please." The boy said quietly, bowing his head to Henrietta. "I know this is selfish, but someone very important to me is among the three hundred Faeries on Albion. I can't afford to fail." There was a faint trembling at the end of the last word.

"Excuse me, Mister Kirito." Henrietta spoke up. "But may I ask who this important person is?"

The youth smiled sadly, "She's . . ." He took a breath, "She's my wife." The room went silent, the Duchess looked on disapprovingly while Lady Sakuya placed a reassuring hand on the young swordsman's shoulder.

"I see." Henrietta said. That was what she had sensed when he had first spoken. Sympathy welled up within the Princess.

"Understand Princess, I have to go to her no matter what. I have to do everything I can to keep her safe." Looking into the boys eyes, Henrietta saw that his words were not a threat, nor an ultimatum, but a simple promise.

"You have not even a passing familiarity with Albion" The Duchess observed, "Or much of Halkegenia for that matter. As Miss Windsor has said, you may be able to enlist aid from the Prince Valiant, but your agent would first need to reach Newcastle by traveling across Albion. A country that you have no knowledge of, while being unable to blend in."

"Like the Duchess said, you don't know the land." Henrietta said. "You'll need a guide." All eyes turned to the Princess and for a moment she hesitated, Louise thought the Duchess was letting her make decisions, it was time to see if that was true. "There are affairs in Albion that must be settled. We are sending our own trusted people to the Isle soon to make contact with Prince Wales. I would not be against you accompanying them."

"Princess, I would advise against that." The Duchess Valliere warned. "A Faerie traveling with Viscount Wardes will only introduce another element of risk into the mission. The chance of detection is too great."

"Miss Asuna and the others were able to get by with hooded cloaks." Emily said and then shook her head, "But when I left York, the city watch was demanding that everyone submit for inspection. I think a cloak or hat will draw suspicion now."

"The Viscounts mission will be departing from La Rochel in Gallia." The Duchess added. "We have been receiving reports that the Gallian border patrols have been keeping a close watch for any Fae attempting to cross the border. And then there will be the time spent aboard ship. Each is an opportunity for detection. The mission is much too sensitive."

"Excuse me." Kirito said, drawing the Duchess's attention back to himself. "So the problem is my appearance?"

"If you are truly willing to dedicate yourself to this mission, I imagine a water mage could pair your ears down into something resembling human shape." The Duchess suggested, clinically.

Kirito blanched, "Actually, I . . . I might be able to do something about that for myself." The boy scratched at the side of his face, looking strangely unhappy.

* * *

Guiche De Gramont, Fourth son of General Gramont, and a proud wielder of his noble father's own affinity, was woken Early by a member of the maid staff. The boy rolled over once, twice, and then fell from his bed with an "oof". He hadn't hit the floor fortunately, instead, the bulk of his beautiful giant mole, Verdandi, had broken his fall. Verdandi let out a soft snort of surprise.

"What is this?" The boy asked groggily. His eyes turning to his bedroom window, the sky was still dark, the stars only just beginning to fade. "Why are you waking me at such an ungodly hour?" The young Gramont son asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes. There was something important, he remembered that.

"This is the time that you asked to be roused, Master Gramont." The maid said politely. "You were quite insistent about it last night."

"Last night?" Guiche thought back, last night, yes he had made a request that he be woken before dawn this morning before retiring to his room. He'd . . . He'd celebrated last night with a bottle of wine. Which explained the hammering in his head. Celebrated his assignment to the mission. The mission!

Guiche was suddenly staggering to his feet, head on a swivel. Yes, last night, he'd told the servants to wake him early. He couldn't tell any of his friends about the sensitive mission he had been assigned to, so he had been forced to celebrate alone. Alas. But a mark of Royal service on his record would be reward enough. Even if the mission remained a secret, their would be an acknowledgment of sorts. Something to show father and his brothers. Something to be proud of.

Truthfully, he hadn't expected such a boon to simply fall into his lap the way it had. Yesterday, when he had parted company with Kirche and the others, he had fully intended to return to his dormitory, however, having spied the beautiful Princess Henrietta, he had been unable to resist a closer look. There were naturally Guards all over the area surrounding the Tower of Water, but Guiche was familiar with the lay of the Academy, both from two years as a student, and two years of courting many beautiful young noble girls.

The Gryphon Knights probably had an earth mage among their party, so simply tunneling under wasn't an option. But Guiche had known about the old underground passages still used by the servants, the ones that connected the Academy tower to the surrounding dormitory towers. From there, it had been easy enough to widen a ventilation shaft at the base of the tower of water, and crawl out into the bushes beneath the Princess's window. He had never intended to spy, only to admire.

What had come next had been both terrifying and defining for him. Caught by one of the Princess's Gryphon Knights, having overheard word of a top secret mission, it had only been natural that a Son of General Gramont would demand the right to participate. Guiche's heart had leaped when the Princess had graciously accepted his offer. This would be his opportunity to move out of the shadows cast by his elder brothers, and come into his own. The first step towards becoming a Mage Officer, perhaps even a Knight. Though being dubbed a Chevalier would be only a low title, to earn it at such a young age would speak highly of his ability.

Guiche dressed quickly, tossing aside his nightgown and pulling clothes from his dresser. He opted for a rugged set of travel clothes, garb that had been advised by his second eldest brother for long journeys, rather than his Academy uniform. This was to be a covert mission after all, and while not unique, the Academy uniform certainly wasn't appropriate for something like this. Shoes came next, sturdy boots that he usually only wore during the summer when father was trying to toughen him up. Verdandi sniffed curiously at the mud cake along the bottom of the boots.

Finally, the youngest Gramont son took inventory of what was left, his purse, he'd collected up a few Romalian silver coins as they were accepted most anywhere, his wand, both is rose wand and a less flamboyant focus that he kept as a spare, and finally a sturdy cloak, good for rough weather and serviceable as a blanket. Everything else was to be provided for during the journey.

Looking around his room one last time, he shut and locked the door before descending the stairs. There was a small box near the tower entrance where students could leave messages, instructions for the servants or notes to be delivered across the Academy. He dropped a short missive to his beloved Montmorency, sweet Monmon, so tolerant and understanding, letting her know that he would be departing for a short while, his services demanded elsewhere in the name of fair Tristain, and that she should fear not for he would certainly return successful. With that done he departed in the direction of the stables, Verdandi trailing at his side.

Viscount Wardes was already waiting beside his Gryphon when he arrived, hoisting a large bucket filled with something dark and bloody. As Guiche watched, the viscount reached down with one gloved hand, extracting what appeared to be a skinned lambs leg and tossing it to his mount. The gryphon snapped down on the offered morsel, slicing meat and shattering bone before swallowing whole.

"Guiche De Gramont, reporting as ordered!" Guiche stood stock straight.

The Viscount gave him a peculiar look and shrugged. "It's good to have you with us, Mister Gramont. Have you made ready?"

The boy nodded eagerly. "When do we depart?" Verdandi had waddled over to sniff at the content of the bucket, but retreated fearfully when the Viscounts Gryphon gave an angered squawk.

"We're waiting for one more." Wardes said, "A last minute addition who will be journeying with us to Newcastle."

"Then he's not part of our mission?" Guiche asked.

"Not as I understand it." The Viscount said, tossing another hunk of meat to his Gryphon. "Which is why you are not to speak a word of it to him. As with our own mission, his will be a secret to us."

"Understood, Sir." Guiche said, compartmentalization to maintain secrecy, a sensible policy.

"Well, it would appear we won't be waiting much longer. The Princess is coming to see us off it seems." Wardes observed.

Guiche's head swiveled around until he caught sight of the Princess. Even in the early morning light, Princess Henrietta was as radiant as ever as she approached, clutching a shawl around herself in the chill morning air. She was in the company of the Duchess De Le Valliere and a smaller hooded figure.

"Viscount Wardes." Henrietta nodded, "Mister Gramont," She smiled. "Are you both prepared?"

"Yes, Princess." Wardes replied as he stripped the gloves from his hands and left them in the feed bucket, a servant would be along to collect them after they departed. "Is this our traveling companion?" He nodded to the cloaked figure.

"Yes." Henrietta said. "Allow me to introduce you. This is Viscount Wardes, Captain of my Gryphon Knights"

"How do you do?" Wardes greeted.

The hooded figure gave a small nod.

"And this young man is Guiche De Gramont, son of General Gramont. Captain Wardes and Mister Gramont will be seeing to their own mission after you part ways in Newcastle."

"It's a ple . . . eas . . . ure . . ." Guiche trailed.

The figure pulled down its cloak, and Guiche felt himself swallow. She was delicate, she was exotic. Skin so pale it was almost translucent, contrasted against jet black hair that spilled down to the middle of her back. Dark golden eyes, strangely shaped but alluring nonetheless, were set into a delicate face with thin crimson lips. Her beauty was enough to make his mind forget to question the peculiarity of such a young woman carrying what seemed to be a sword strapped to her back, or the top of a metal breastplate that peaked out from the collar of her cloak.

"I'm honored to meet you both. My name is Midori, I'll be accompanying you to Newcastle." The girl said in a voice that perfectly matched her delicate features.

Viscount Wardes looked to the Duchess Valliere, quirking a brow. The Duchess simply closed her eyes and gave a small nod.

"Midori is an agent in service to the Crown just as you two are. You are to offer each other whatever aid possible on the way to Newcastle." Henrietta announced. "Is this understood."

"As you will, Princess." The viscount said.

"As you will . . . Princess" Guiche said distractedly.

"Understood." Midori said softly, receiving strange looks from her traveling companions.


	31. Chapter 10 Part 4

Halkegenia Online-Chapter 10-Part 4

In the bathhouse of an Inn with a fragrant Olive Tree in its garden, Kirigaya Suguha, Leafa, soaked quietly, eyes looking beyond the walls of the bath, mind contemplating the events of the day.

Her brother's departure had been so sudden, there had hardly been anytime to say goodbye. And like a cut that had been made quickly, though it hadn't hurt at first, it was starting to sting now.

Kirito had returned late in the evening, much later than Suguha had expected. Mari had stayed up with her and Yui, keeping the dining room open until Kirito arrived. When her brother had stepped through the front door, Suguha had rushed to greet him, only to pause when she saw the look on his face. The dull ache in her chest had blossomed anew. She could tell something had happened, and knew almost at once that she was about to be left behind again.

Mari, watching from the kitchen door, had brought out leftover bread and soup from dinner and set a table for them. Kirito had explained everything as they ate, about the report of the Faeries in Albion, and that Asuna was among them, and that he had volunteered to go as an agent in the service of Tristain to bring them all back. He didn't know how long he would be gone, hopefully not more than a couple of weeks. If all went well, he'd return with Asuna and they could start looking for a way to get home.

Suguha had listened carefully. Her brother was going off to do something incredibly dangerous, maybe even more dangerous than the World Tree Raid, but there wasn't even a shred of hesitation in his voice. So she had accepted it, and put on a brave face.

Her brother had seen through her of course. His look of remorse had almost caused her own mask to crack. Kirito might have been awkward and a bit oblivious, but he wasn't stupid, and she knew he cared about her. That night, her brother had stayed at her bedside until she had fallen asleep.

The next morning had come too soon, waking before dawn so that she could see her brother off, she had found Klein and Argo, and another person, a young Cait Syth girl with a blue feathery dragon clinging to her shoulder, waiting in the front room of the inn. Kirito had stood before all of them dipping his head in apology for leaving on such short notice and thanking all of them for their help over the past days.

"Klein, I have a favor to ask, I'll be back soon, but drop in and keep an eye on Sugu and Yui for me."

The Salamander had nodded seriously. "You can count on me, Kirito-kun. Bring her back so we can all celebrate."

"We still have to find a way home." Kirito said and then smiled. "But one thing at a time, right?"

"Right." Klein agreed.

The next to speak was Argo. The Cait Syth had stopped forward with a small satchel, handing it to Kirito. "There's a map of Albion and copies of all of my notes. One of the academy servants helped me to translate the town and city names. I was also able to get Novair to release some supplies from the Sylph stockpiles. There's some healing potions and other useful items in their. I wrote up a summary and labeled everything. I sure hope you don't need it."

"Thanks, Argo."

"Tis nothing." The girl looked away. "Just be sure you bring Aa-chan and the others back. You bring them back with you, Kii-bou."

Kirito had turned next to the young Cait Syth girl at Argo's side. "Silica, I haven't had the chance to tell you this. But I'm sorry that you got caught up in this. It wasn't fair. It shouldn't have happened."

"Mmm,mmm." The girl shook her head. "That's silly Kirito-kun." The Silica looked up at him. I'm here because of choices I made. Nobody could have known this would happen. Its nobodies fault. Go get Asuna-san back." The feathery dragon on the girl's shoulder let out a shrill cry as if in agreement.

Kirito smiled and stroked the diminutive dragon on its head. "You watch after her, okay Pina?" The dragon let out another shrill cry.

Finally, it had come Suguha's turn. Her brother stepped up to her and smiled. "Sugu, before I go, I think I owe you an explanation for some things. I'm coming back soon, but I don't want to leave this unsettled."

"Onii-chan?" Suguha breathed.

Her brother's expression grew pained. "Sugu, I've been really selfish, even now. I know this has been hard for you but I can't do anything but stay focused on Asuna. But not just that, there's a lot of things I have to make up for, most of all how I've treated you these last few years. I let a lot of childish worries get between us that made me forget what you were to me, and I'm still trying to figure out what mean to me now, but there's one thing I'm sure about." Kirito looked into her eyes, face serious. "Sugu, I'm sorry I took your big brother away from you for all of these years."

Suguha squeezed her eyes shut to stop the tears. She wasn't going to cry in front of him. "Idiot. What am I supposed to say to that?" She forced a smile, "Klein-san is right, Onii-chan, you really are dumb sometimes."

"Well you don't have to be so hurtful about it." Kirito replied softly, but he smiled, before looking down to his pocket. "Yui."

There was no response save for a faint rustling.

"Yui." Kirito repeated gently before reaching into his pocket and carefully extracting the navigation pixie, lifting her by the tips of her wings before depositing her in the palm of his free hand. Yui's eyes were downcast and Suguha though she could see tears cutting tracks down her tiny cheeks.

"Please, let me come with you." Yui said.

"It's much too dangerous." Kirito said gently. "This isn't like ALfheim or even Aincrad, I know you want to see Mama just as badly as I do. But I couldn't live with myself if I put you in danger. And neither could Asuna. So please, Yui, wait here and let me bring her to you."

Yui stood up in the palm of Kirito's hand, placing her arms behind her, she didn't meet Kirito's gaze at first, but then, finally, she looked up and gesture for Kirito to bring her closer. The Pixie extended her wings and gently place her hands against Kirito's brow, giving her Papa a small kiss on the forehead.

"Promise you'll stay safe?"

"I promise." Kirito said solemnly, "And no matter what, I won't let that promise be broken." Yui drifted back, taking hold of the tip of Kirito's index finger as she came to rest on Suguha's shoulder. "Be a good girl Yui, and watch out for Sugu while I'm gone. After all, she has a habit of flying into trouble."

Yui nodded seriously as Kirito stepped back. "Well, I'm going to be late if I don't go now."

"Ki – Onii-chan." Suguha said, reaching out.

"Un?"

Suguha searched for the right words, she needed to say something, but she thought if she said the wrong thing, something bad might happen. So instead, she settled on, "Good luck."

"Un. Thanks, Sugu." And then he had turned and departed. The last Suguha had seen of her brother was his form silhouetted against the streetside ore lamps.

Having risen so early, the day had quickly grown long for Suguha and she'd found it hard to concentrate. She and Yui spent most of the morning in a daze as they helped with odd jobs around Arrun tower. The 'clerical staff' had finally settled in and were busily transforming the heart of Arrun into a real administrative hub. Another sign of their new reality, Faeries becoming stuffy bureaucrats.

The whole city was abuzz with the news that the Grand World Tree Raid was being temporarily postponed to allow time for additional training. Rumors were already spreading about what exactly had cause the sudden change. Sakuya and the other Faerie Lords had yet to release an official statement in the interest of security.

Even during lessons, Suguha had found she couldn't quite concentrate. She usually took her job as an instructor very seriously, but for once she'd just let herself coast through the class. KoKo had been worried and taken her aside to ask what was wrong.

"I heard that Kirito-kun got assigned to some special mission." KoKo said. "Is that what's bothering you?"

Suguha looked away, as much as she might want to, she couldn't tell the hunter anything specific, Kirito had made that clear. "It's not a problem. I'm just letting it get to me is all."

"Leafa-chan, if you're letting it bother you, then it is a problem." KoKo advised. "Why don't you and Yui come stay with me tonight?" The hunter suggested. "My place isn't too big, but I can always lay out another mattress."

"Thank you KoKo-san. But I'd rather stay in the room we share with Papa." Yui said as she floated next to Suguha.

Suguha shook her head, "Yui-chan is right, we'll be fine, but thanks for the offer. Hey, Emroi! What are you doing?!" Leafa was suddenly shouting after one of her students.

Most of the Faeries had steadily improved over the last week, but that only made teaching them all the more difficult. Once they convinced themselves that they could fly they had a tendency to stop listening and get it in their heads that the rest would be easy. So far, most could manage level flight and even some simple acrobatic maneuvers. But they still hadn't learned to fully trust their senses or keep good spatial awareness.

For instance, the Leprechaun, Emroi, was proving to be a very good solo flier, but he didn't pay attention to his surroundings and had nearly crashed into a trio of Sylphs who were practicing hovering in the breeze above the lake.

Leafa had stormed after the Leprechaun, catching up with him and forcing him to come to a full midair stop by yanking on one of his pointed ears. For a little while Suguha's worries were cast aside as Leafa gave her student a brutal dressing down. When Emroi finally looked suitably chastised she let him go before returning to KoKo's side.

"Powerful as ever, neh?" The Cait Syth laughed.

"Don't put it like that, I just want them all to stay safe." Leafa said, "It might not be much, but this is what I can do for right now."

KoKo gave her an appraising look, "I know you don't want to take patrol duty because of your brother and Yui, but why don't you go up to the dispatch office at Arrun tower. They're always looking for couriers and they usually have some other odd jobs. Lady Sakuya and Lady Alicia both like you, so I'm sure they'd trust you to handle some of those."

"Wouldn't that take me away from Arrun, though?" Leafa asked. She didn't like to admit it, but the land beyond the Academy was still a wild and alien place to her. It was like another world, in fact, it was another world.

"Well most of these guys are getting good enough for self practice, so don't worry too much." The Cait Syth advised. "You're a good instructor, way better than me, our group is way ahead of the curve." KoKo smiled. "Actually, I've heard Lord Mortimer is looking for instructors to teach advanced aerial maneuvers to the skirmisher squads. A few jobs under your belt wouldn't hurt to pad your resume."

"Well then. I guess I can think about it." Leafa supplied, feeling unsure.

When class was finally dismissed for the day, Suguha had been bone tired and made her way back to Arrun at a leisurely pace. Klein had joined her for dinner that night, claiming that the food in the barracks was pretty awful. Suguha had been a little grateful. She was starting to see why her brother thought of the man as a friend, despite his face, loud voice, and course attitude. The Salamander vice squad commander had become a fixture, something that Suguha could latch onto, frequently visiting in on her and Kirito over the past days.

They'd talked as they'd eaten, Klein offering comments about his work in the mob hunting units. "Now that the roads and fields are clear. They want us to scale back patrols, so that's good." Klein said.

"What, why?" Leafa asked.

"One of the squads near Freelia found a terrorantula nest in the forest, about a million baby terrorantula's, little white spiders the size of your thumb. I guess now that they're real, the mobs are breeding." Klein explained. "The Cait Syth want to keep some of them around to harvest and tame."

"I see." Suguha said and then frowned. "But wait, won't the mobs mess up the local ecosystem?" Suguha remembered lessons about that from school. It had been a real problem in Australia and the Americas and even in Japan.

"The ecosystem is already whacked." Klein replied. "We might be able to kill all the big mobs, but there's no way we can get all the little ones, not if they're breeding now."

"The nobles must be pretty angry about that." Suguha thought.

Klein chuckled, "I hear its a mixed story. Yeah, they're mad that dagger dogs and terrorantula's are eating all of the foxes and boar, but the mobs are a lot more territorial, so they don't wander out of the forests as much. More importantly the mobs in the deep forest have been going after the local Orc bands."

Suguha wrinkled her nose. She'd heard about Orcs, they sounded like pretty vile creatures. In the news sheets posted in the square near the Fragrant Olive Inn, it was reported that the Tristanian government was requesting that the Faeries assist in hunting down and eliminating Orc bands in the back country regions. It was felt that the Fae ability to fly and cover ground quickly would greatly help in hunting down the monsters. While it wasn't strictly a Faerie problem, if the Orcs were as bad as they sounded, Suguha for one couldn't fault the Faerie Lords if they agreed.

"The mobs might become an even bigger problem though." Suguha observed.

"Right. Their behavior is changing." Klein agreed. "That nearly got one of my squad injured yesterday, a group of dagger dogs we were fighting closed ranks to protect an injured comrade. That wasn't part of the original attack algorithm. I guess it'll be touch and go for a while." The salamander sighed. "Man, we've got to get these newbies trained up in fighting Aincrad front line style. Back then, we didn't go a week without running into something new."

"Un." Suguha said absently, thinking about the suddenly 'real' mobs had reminded her of something. "Yui?"

"Hmm?" The pixie girl was in the middle of munching on a cracker and tilted her head curiously. She'd seemed almost back to her normal self after Kirito had left, but Suguha suspected that like herself, Yui was putting on a brave face.

"Yui-chan, you're a physical existence now, right? Has that caused any problem for you?"

The pixie girl tilted her head, seeming to think hard about the question. "Not really." She decided. "Fatigue is a new feeling but I'm already used to my efficacy diminishing due to prolonged operation and spending about a third of my time in sleep mode, I haven't had access to sufficient processor resources to archive data in real time since I was the SAO mental support AI. Other than that, I don't like getting hungry or thirsty, but I already eat and drink whenever Papa does so that hasn't been a problem. Pain isn't good either, but as long as I'm careful I don't have to feel that."

Klein suddenly gave a strange look and leaned in conspiratorially. "What about the other stuff?"

"Other stuff?" Yui asked.

"You know, eating and drinking, what comes after . . ." The salamander said awkwardly.

"Klein!" Suguha spluttered, had he really just asked that? He'd just asked that!

Yui just gave the question some thought and shrugged. "It's a little inconvenient but I guess its not a problem."

"Eh?" Suguha said, stopping her attack on Klein. "Yui-chan, you're not embarrassed?"

"Why would I be embarrassed?" Yui asked, looking genuinely confused, "It's just biology after all. Any system needs to collect fuel and dispose of waste. In a computer those are electricity and heat, in a biological system they're food and biological waste."

"I . . . See . . ." Suguha said giving Klein a glare before re-seating herself.

"Honestly, a physical body is a little inconvenient, but its worth it to live in the same world as Mama and Papa." The pixie girl smiled sincerely and Suguha felt her heart melt. "Really, I'm more bothered by my lack of network access. If I want to learn something now, I have to read it from a book or have someone tell me about it."

"Didn't you say that you were still able to detect Cardinal?" Leafa asked.

"Un. But its different now." Yui said, looking unsure. "I don't know what happened to Cardinal in the transition. I think its like me and was changed into a physical existence of some sort."

"Maybe the World Tree?" Klein suggested, "That fits, right?"

"That's a possibility." Yui agreed, looking unhappy, "It's what Papa and Sakuya-san think, but I don't have enough data to be sure." Suguha frowned, she hated seeing Yui so frustrated and especially after all the hard work she'd put in.

For the last several days, the navigation Pixie had spent each evening sitting before the GM access card, seemingly in deep meditation. When Suguha had asked what she was doing, like Kirito, Yui had remained vague. She had only replied that she was studying the card. Since Yui had scanned the GM card before the transition, she said that she hoped that she could learn something based on how the card has been altered.

But so far, all that Yui had been able to confirm was that the card was indeed some sort of magical artifact, and that it was powerless on its own. Yui suspected that the GM card needed a connection to Cardinal to do anything. With this in mind, Kirito had left the card in Suguha's possession for safe keeping.

Klein departed a little later begging night patrol. "Leafa-san, you going to be alright tonight?" Klein asked.

"I'm fine. I'm just a little tired is all, so I think I'll turn in early." Suguha said.

The advantage to that was that Suguha was able to cut to the head of the line on the bath rotation. The Inn possessed a small bath located in its own outbuilding. A blessing as far as Suguha was concerned. Unlike Alfheim, a day spent flying, and working was going to make you dirty, sweaty, and smelly. She'd washed herself with soap and lukewarm water and rinsed thoroughly before sinking into the bath. Closing her eyes, she could almost pretend she was back home.

There came a splash in the water at Suguha's shoulder and a tiny dress floated to the surface, Yui bobbed up a moment later using her wings like oars to backstroke. For the pixie the tub probably seemed like a full sized swimming pool. The thought made Suguha giggle.

Yui smiled, "I'm glad your happy Leafa-chan. You haven't really smiled all day."

"I'm sorry." Suguha said. "Have I worried you?"

Yui nodded. "Its normal to feel anxiety, I'm worried about Papa and Mama too. But it's not healthy to think about it all the time."

"What about you, Yui-chan? How are you handling it."

The girl became quiet. "I hate it." She said, suddenly coming to a stop in the water. "I hate not being with Papa and Mama. I wish Papa would have let me go. I could have helped." The girl's face was scrunched up in frustration.

Suguha's expression softened, "No, Onii-chan was right, it's really dangerous and what if somebody had seen you?" Not just that, Yui was so tiny, there were so many things that could hurt her, kill her even! Should she even be allowed to fly outside? There were hawks and other predatory birds in Tristain that weren't native to ALfheim. Would she be safe? Kirito had made Suguha responsible for Yui, her well being was important to him, Yui's well being was important to her!

Yui gave her a defiant look and taking a breath, dove under the water.

"Yui-chan?" A wash of light spread across the surface of the water and suddenly the water level rose, spilling over the rim of the tub. With a much larger splash, Yui's head burst from the surface, but instead of her tiny form as a navigation pixie, she was now the size of human child.

"Y-yui-chan?" Suguha asked, surprised. With her long black hair clinging wetly to her head and back, leaning forward towards Suguha, Yui gave her temporary guardian a troubled look. The tub was only meant for one person, but Yui was small enough that it wasn't a problem, except for where she had placed her hands to balance herself.

"See, I could have helped." The girl repeated, she tilted her head to show her completely human ears. "I could have gone as Papa's little sister."

Suguha blinked a few time and then shook her head, "Yui, how long have you been able to do that?"

"Do what?" The girl asked, as if she didn't realize what she had just done. She certainly still hadn't realized what she was leaning on, Suguha thought, at least buoyed by the water she wasn't too heavy.

"Change!" Suguha said.

Yui finally shifted, sinking back into the tub opposite Suguha. "I've always been able to do that. This is my default form." Yui's default form? Suguha wondered, she really didn't look any different as a human child than as a Faery save for the lack of wings and pointed ears. Actually, now that she was properly sized, Suguha could definitely see the resemblance to Kirito and to Asuna. Was that a coincidence or had Yui chosen to look like this?

"Does Kirito know about this?" Suguha asked.

Yui nodded and then looked at her hands through the water. "It was something we tested when Papa was learning transformation magic. But we decided it was better I stay as a navigation pixie. It would cause fewer questions, and also, it would be painful for some people if they saw me like this."

Suguha suddenly understood. Lots of ALO players were parents who played for the social aspect, reconnecting with friends they didn't have time to meet up with in real life. Likewise, there were relatively few small children who were permitted to play full dive games and the ones that did were likely to use a more mature avatar. In fact, Suguha didn't even know if an ALO avatar could be generated to appear as young as Yui. The sight of a human child might be a painful reminder of something that many people weren't ready to face."

"Leafa-chan . . . Papa and Mama are both really strong. They'll be okay, right?" Yui asked suddenly. Leafa had never seen this uncertainty in Yui before.

Suguha looked at Yui carefully, how to answer? Yui was smart. Much smarter than a human child in a lot of ways, while still being nothing but a little girl in others. Suguha wasn't sure what that might mean for Yui's development, but she thought it must be very chaotic. Yui could think so quickly, all the horrible "what ifs" stacking up and churning around inside of her, and being only a child she didn't know how to sort them out. She was all jumbled up. She had to answer Yui's question, but she couldn't just answer, she had to make herself believe, Yui would be able to tell if she was lying.

Suguha smiled. "Onii-chan is amazing, you know. He always manages to do something impossible." Yui nodded in agreement as Suguha went on. "He figured out that our mom and dad were really his aunt and uncle when he was only ten. And then he managed to survive and beat SAO. I can't imagine how hard that must have been. And he also met Asuna, and he met you, and he came back to me." Suguha looked at Yui and with all the confidence and faith she could muster she smiled. "So I know he'll come back again, even if its impossible."

Yui's eyes widened, she could tell that Suguha meant it, and with that feeling came a sort of relief. The girl relaxed just a little, and Suguha could believe that Yui wasn't just wearing a brave face.

"Now then. If we soak too long, people will start to complain. Want to get out?"

"Un."

Suguha helped Yui to dry her hair, long hair was always so much trouble, she'd been thinking about cutting her own, but something had held her back so far. While Yui sat wrapped in a towel, Suguha got dressed in her night clothes. When she was done, something occurred to her and she smiled. "Wait here Yui-chan, I'll be right back."

Suguha returned a few minutes later with Kirito's sleep shirt and shorts. Yui could always switch back to her pixy form, but it seemed like a shame to waste this opportunity. Even with her brother's slim build, the shirt covered Yui like a tent and it took Suguha some work to pull the drawstring on the shorts tight enough to prevent them from sliding off. When she was done, Yui stood before her, examining herself in the bathroom mirror.

"How is it, comfy?" Suguha asked.

Yui hugged herself tightly and smiled, "It smells like Papa."

They snuck their way back up stairs quickly, people at the inn might recognize Yui, and like the girl had said, there was a small chance that it would raise some questions. When they were safely back in the room they both shared with Kirito, Suguha flopped down on her bed with a sigh. What a long day it had been.

"Feeling better now?" Suguha turned to Yui who gave a small nod. The girl was standing beside the bed, her hands behind her back.

Suguha sat up. "Is there something wrong?"

Yui shook her head. "Leafa-chan . . . Uhm . . . I've been wondering . . . Papa's your cousin, but you were raised as brother and sister, right?"

Suguha winced internally, it was painful, but true, and no matter how she might hope otherwise she had come to accept that Kirito would never look at her in any other way. "Un, that's right." She said.

"Leafa-chan . . . Suguha-san . . ." For the first time, Yui looked nervous, anxious. It was so normal that Suguha almost had to blush in sympathy.

"What is it Yui-chan?"

"Are you . . . Obasan?"

Suguha blinked a few times completely stunned by the question. Yui watched expectantly, waiting for her answer. She sat up and looked at Yui. She was such a sweet girl, and over the past days she found that she really had started to think of her as another sibling. The little sister she'd never had. And in that time Suguha had also seen the little ways that she was like her brother, the mannerisms and attitudes that they shared, and also how she was different. 'She really is Onii-chan's daughter, then she really must be Asuna's daughter too.' That thought made her both happy and strangely sad. It didn't make sense, but that was okay.

"Un." Suguha nodded and enjoyed the look of wide eyes joy that crossed Yui's face. The older girl reached up and grabbed hold of her 'niece' to pull her into a hug. "But you have to call me Aunt Sugu!"

"Un." Yui agreed, burying her head in Suguha's shoulder.

"Lets both do our best to smile until your Mama and Papa get back. That way we'll only have happy tears to show them. Okay?"

"Un." Yui said again.

Things were going to be alright, Suguha thought. No matter what happened, they would make it all turn out okay in the end.

"Ready for bed?"

Yui rubbed sleepily at her eyes and nodded. "I didn't finish clearing my buffer last night." The girl yawned.

Suguha pulled Yui down onto the bed and brought the covers up over both of them. Yui watched with drowsy eyes as she dimmed the bedside ore light and made herself comfortable with a second smaller body in the bed. "Goodnight, Yui chan."

"Goodnight . . . Obasan . . . " Yui mumbled as she nestled down against her pillow. The girl shifted, one, twice, and then went still.

Was she already asleep? Suguha wondered. She prodded one cheek experimentally, receiving only a small twitch in reply. Goodness, she must have been exhausted.

Suguha watched the girl for little while longer and then, feeling her own eyes growing heavy, she pulled the blankets all the way up and wrapped an arm protectively over Yui.

That night, there were no bad dreams.

End of Chapter


	32. Interlude 2 ALfheim Bestiary

Well. Some people are going to be happy. First the good news! The Reunion of Asuna and Kirito has already been written. The bad news its still a ways away. The good news, the next three updates will be done three at a time to get through the Tarbes Quest

In preparation for this quest I present the ALfheim bestiary.

Encyclopedia Albionia- AKA Bestiary of ALfheim: Don't Worry its Argo's Bestiary as a bonus to today's update.

**Draconic**

Archeopterror  
Appearance- General body shape resembles a cross between the common barn owl and an emu. (Techincally classified as an Avian/Draconic cross, they are differentiated from common dragons and serpentine dragons by possessing only four limbs. - Argo)  
Type-Large Ambush Hunter  
Height- 1.8 m (Avg)  
Wingspan- 8 meters  
Weight- 120 kilograms (Avg)  
Diet- Carnivorous, favor fresh meat but will eat carrion.  
Reproduction- Egg Laying, Clutches of two to three.  
Intelligence- Low, solitary save for during mating season or when caring for young.  
Behavior-Highly Aggressive (You don't even have to try to agro these things. - Argo)

Spell List-  
Unknown

Ability List-  
Sonic Scream

Common Varieties-  
Down Archeopterror - Baby  
Lesser Archeopterror - Common Variety, male and female.  
Greater Archeopterror - Common Field Boss Type, much larger and much more intelligent. (We haven't had any confirmed sightings since the transitions but rumors have been going around about a 'Giant Talking Owl' peacefully interacting with the isolated mountain villages in Northern Tristain. Any corroborating reports would be appreciated. -Argo)

A common land and air predator in Northern ALfheim/Tristain. The Archeopterror is an extreme threat on the ground against inexperienced Faeries and commoner foot soldiers. Its ability to travel swiftly across land and fly at reasonable speeds also makes it a threat to airborne Faeries.

This mob has been spotted frequently making its nest at the edge of its forest hunting grounds. Though solitary at most times, mated pairs of Archeopterrors have already been spotted tending to the first clutches of eggs. (Lady Alicia would like it very much if some of these eggs could be retrieved for study and possible taming - Argo)

The Archeopterror's preferred hunting grounds are forests and adjacent fields. In the forests, the Archeopterror will generally hunt by stalking prey along the forest floor or climb through tree tops until it finds a good ambush position along an animal trail from which it can drop down to dispatch its target swiftly. If noticed by its prey, the Archeopterror's high running speed, strong beak, and razor like wing tips allow it to pursue and dispatch humans, lesser mobs, and even Faeries with ease.

In the open fields this mob hunts much more conventionally, circling high in search of unaware animals before swooping in for a swift kill. (Farmers in the Northern Regions have lodged complaints about the loss of livestock. This needs to be addressed! -KoKo)

On the ground the Archeopterror shows a predisposition for slashing attacks with its wings and biting attacks with its beak. Once airborne the attack pattern tends to emphasize the talons in order to avoid damaging the wings in mid flight.

By warned, the Archeopterror is known to have a powerful sonic attack. While not known to do physical damage, this attack extends in a wide AOE and is known to disorient and daze humans and Fae alike. (Because of our hearing, Sylphs are especially vulnerable, so stay on guard! - Leafa)

Though powerful, the Archeopterror is classified as only a medium threat mob. With low overall intelligence and relatively simple behavior, its is fairly easy to Kite the Archeopterror into prepared ambushes and if not caught by surprise, most Faeries can out fly this mob with little difficulty. (Just be careful, their low intelligence and high aggression means they can't be driven off like smarter predators. If you agro them, they'll almost always pursue you until they're dead. My advice is to hit this type of mob with several people, the Archeopterror almost always goes after the last person to hit it, so it can be kept confused that way. -Recon) (Jk. Is this something learned from experience? -Argo)

Feathery Dragon  
Appearance- Small feathered dragon, basic body type is of the traditional European variety. Feathers seen in a variety of colors. Most commonly white, blue, or orange. More rarely, black.  
Type-Support  
Length- 40-50 cm (Avg)  
Weight- 4 kilograms (Avg)  
Diet- Omnivorous, insects, small mammals, fruit, and nuts. (Advice. They're very fond of Peanuts. -Silica)  
Reproduction-Live Birth, Litters of one or two.  
Intelligence-Medium/High, social with other feathery dragons, matriarchal social groups. (Suggestion. Since they're so much like cats, lets call these Prides, okay? -KoKo)  
Behavior-Mildly Aggressive.

Spell List-  
unknown

Ability List-  
Paralysis Breath  
Healing Breath

Common Varieties-  
Down Dragon-Baby  
Feathery Dragon-Standard  
Feathery Dragon Male-Either solitary hunters or protectors of the nest.  
Feathery Dragon Matriarch-Elder Feathery Dragon with more powerful breath abilities.

A semi common mob found throughout the Sylph, Cait Syth, and Puca territories. These are among the smallest breeds of dragon, however, they should not be underestimated. Though they will generally take flight if attacked, Feathery Dragons are fiercely loyal to one another and will attack with almost suicidal tenacity if their nests or young are threatened.

Feathery dragons usually form small social groups around a single Matriarch and several additional females who gather together to raise their young. Most frequently, males are solitary unless they have been adopted into a group. There is usually only one dominant male in the group at a time, though other males will often be accepted into the group in an ad hoc role. (Jk. So, Kii-bou's life story? -Argo.)

Feathery dragons have no known casting ability, but they do posses innate magic in the properties of their salivary glands. These dragons are known to be able to secret additives to their saliva that promote healing or cause a mild paralysis effect. Other than this, they have very sharp teeth and claws which they will use to aggressively attack. (Note. Mages have been seen hunting Feathery dragons to harvest them for reagents, please don't participate in this practice! -Silica)

As social animals, Feathery dragons are extremely intelligent. (We're pegging them as at least as smart as Parrots, minimum, but more research is needed. -Argo) Domesticated Feathery Dragons have been confirmed to be able to understand many spoken commands and seem to possess a high level of sociability with humans, easily learning to understand and replicate human social cues. (Seriously, has anyone else seen Pina's Gunbuster pose? -Argo)

The sociability, loyalty, and intelligence of these dragons makes them an good choice for young Cait Syth tamers honing their Taming and Familiar Communication abilities. The Down Dragon variety is usually very easy to tame and will closely bond with its master. It should also be noted that Feathery Dragons crave social interaction and will sometimes 'allow' themselves to be domesticated in order to form a new 'Pride'. There have been confirmed sightings of these dragons nesting in many human and Faerie settlements where they keep watch at night and hunt pests.

Lhamthanc the Steel Toothed  
Appearance- Two forms.  
1st Form- Giant Serpent, pale white scales, conical head, six large green eyes.  
2nd Form- Feathered serpent (Correction, Quetzalcoatl!- KoKo), large wings protrude from body approximately one quarter body length from head.  
Type- Legendary Beast  
Length- 40 m  
Wingspan- 80 meters  
Weight- 50 tons  
Diet- Carnivorous, requires tremendous amounts of food and thus spends much of its time dormant.  
Reproduction- Unknown (We hope not! - Argo)  
Intelligence- Low?  
Behavior- Hyper Aggressive. This mob will go after anything that moves and knows no fear.

Spell List-  
Grand Tornado

Ability List-  
Poison Spit  
Corrosive Breath  
Hibernation

Common Varieties-  
(Just the one, but we think it might be related to the lesser serpent species or maybe the legendary Quest Boss Jormungand -Argo)

A legendary serpentine Dragon originally from Northern Alfheim. This mob is classified as a highest priority threat. (Though believed to be a unique named boss, any sighting of another Lhamthanc type has highest priority for Fae and Tristanian joint force deployment. -Dragoon Commander Gaius, 3rd Provisional Dragon Cavalry)

Lhamthanc is notable for having both a ground based and aerial form reflecting its former existence as a multistage boss. The trigger for this change is unknown at this time but believe to be related to the availability of food or to result from sustained attacks weakening the outer carcass. (Basically, we're helping it to transform? This just gets better and better. -Klein)

In its ground stage, Lhamthanc's preferred habitats are deep forests where it will rest in a dormant state until mob density reaches a level sufficient to feed. (This is believed to be triggered by some sort of seismic sense. - Argo)

Upon awakening, Lhamthanc will make best speed towards the nearest concentration of prey, usually a heard of native animals or mobs which it will then swallow whole. Observation of Lhamthanc in this stage confirm that it is capable of tremendous land speeds for its size. Estimates clock the serpent as having a cruising speed of 60 kph with brief bursts to over twice this speed. (No wonder it has to remain dormant most of the time, Lhamthanc must expend a tremendous amount of energy per unit of time. -KoKo)

In this form, Lhamthancs attack patterns are fairly simple, approaching and attempting to consume anything within its reach. The boss has a limited poison spit attack which allows it to defend itself from aerial threats, but its primary defense in this stage is its amazing resilience. Lhamthanc's scales are impervious to all but the most powerful magic and conventional attacks. (Tests with a dropped scale against cannon fire have yielded impressive results. -Argo) The only known weak points in this form are the eyes and inside of the mouth. (Good Luck - KoKo)

In its second stage, Lhamthanc reveals itself as an aerial serpent (Quetzalcoatl - KoKo) shedding its outer carapace and taking to the skies with a pair of large wings. In this form Lhamthanc is still quite resilient to magical attacks and gains wide area poison breath and wind attacks. (Samples of this poison have been difficult to obtain due to its tendency to corrode anything but high purity glassware. -Argo) Lhamthanc's aerial speed and maneuverability is also considerably greater, approaching the unladen speed of an average Fae. (Considering the amount of food such a creature would require, Lhamthanc class Mobs would need very large ranges to hunt in their aerial form. This renders them a danger to all of Tristain. -Gaius)

Little is known about Lhamthanc's intelligence, but for its size it appears to possess a very small brain. (It's dumber than a sack of rocks. -Klein) However this has not been confirmed given its use of wind magic. What is known is that Lhamthanc possesses a fairly high level of threat prioritization and will consistently attack whichever immediate threat poses the greatest risk to its survival, pursuing it to destruction.

As a former boss it should be noted that the components of Lhamthanc's body are highly prized for crafting and reagents. Chiefly the poison glands (Handle these with extreme care! -KoKo), scales, feathers, and teeth. ('Steel Toothed' isn't a joke, Kofu and I wore out a grinding stone trying to shape one of these things! -Lisbeth)

**Humanoid**

Wild Pixie  
Appearance- Small humanoid female.  
Type-Support  
Height-10 cm (Avg)  
Weight-10 grams (Avg)  
Diet- Omnivorous, plants, fruits, and insect meat.  
Reproduction-Symbiotic with Yggdrasil  
Intelligence-Extremely High, Communal, Advanced Tool Users.  
Behavior-Normally Passive or Friendly, Extremely Aggressive if Threatened.

Spell List-  
-DEF Enhance  
-AGI Enhance  
-ATK Enhance  
-DEF Debuff  
-AGI Debuff  
-ATK Debuff  
-Light Stun (3 second Duration)  
-Light Heal (10 second Duration, Single Target)  
-Light Shield (5 second duration)  
-Light Fire Ball (1/3 strength)  
-Light Wind Shrike (1/3 strength)

Common Varieties-  
Wild Pixie-Standard  
Pixie Shaman-Enhanced Buffs/Debuffs  
Vespid Knight-Enhanced Attack Magic, buffs to 'mounts'.

A related subspecies to the domestic navigation pixies seen around Arrun and the other settlements. Former game fluff claims that they are the 'wild' born variant of domestic nav pixies. Wild Pixies are among the smallest and most intelligent of the humanoid type mobs. Lacking significant physical abilities, the Wild Pixies belong to the "support" mob variety, assisting allied mobs with magic based 'buffs' and 'debuffs' as well as limited offensive magic.

As "support" type mobs, pixies are allied with several other common mob groups including small mammal, small avian, small draconic, and medium and large insect type mobs, with which they have a symbiotic relationship with. Medium mammal, medium and large draconic, and large avian mobs are neutral towards pixies. Wild Pixies are harassed and hunted by small insect, medium avian, and small and medium lizard type mobs. All other humanoid type mobs, except golems, are actively aggressive to wild pixies. (But that doesn't mean you should be! -Silica)

Wild Pixies are highly social and will collect into tribal or hive groups centered around a communally tended garden. Tribes can be quite large possibly consisting of dozens of members, usually lead by a Vespid Knight or Shaman. (Much larger groups have been spotted after the transition to Halkegenia, probably because they're not limited by processor resources, we need to check this out -Argo) Be advised, agroing any pixie in a hive will cause the other pixies to become agroed in short order. (Advice. If you haven't made them too angry, giving them something sweet, like honey, will usually calm them down -Silica)

Wild Pixies are found around the Yggdrasil Shoots found all over Tristain. The pixies maintain a symbiotic relationship with the Yggdrasil Shoots by means of the Yggdrasil Blossoms. Yggdrasil Blossoms will sprout only in close proximity to Yggdrasil Shoots and it is from these blossoms that new pixies are occasionally born. The Wild Pixies tend to the Yggdrasil Shoots and blossoms and in return the shoot nourishes the blossom seedlings. (Speculation. I wonder if this relationship implies some sort of deeper connection between the Pixies and the World Tree. -Argo)

As mentioned previously, Wild Pixies are usually neutral or friendly. Though distrustful of strangers, they've been known to approach people who frequent their forest, though they will grow aggressive if their gardens are threatened. (Note. Pixies usually won't be agroed if players only defend themselves against their allied mobs but will agro if their allies are attacked first. Unconfirmed. Pixies will ally with humans and Faeries against enemy mobs. -Argo)

**Insectoid**

Terrorantula  
Appearance- Large mottled tarantula with black and bone white facial markings. Notably large lensed eyes in a configuration similar to a jumping spiders. (Possible binocular vision? - Argo)  
Type- Medium Insect, Ambush Predator.  
Length- 1.2 m (Measured from forward to rear leg tips.)  
Weight- 2-3 kg  
Diet- Carnivorous, preys on small to large insects. Nests of multiple Terrorantulas are capable of working together to subdue larger pray, including Faeries.  
Reproduction- Lays an egg pouch containing several thousand eggs, only a handful will reach maturity.  
Intelligence- Low.  
Behavior- Passive except when food is snared. Will only actively attack small pray. Lives either alone or in a social nest with others.

Spell List-  
Unknown

Ability List-  
Toxic Venom  
Silk Spinning

Common Varieties-  
Widowkin- Immature, seen with soft white carapace, unable to spit venom.  
Garden Terror- Common Variety  
Black Widowmaker- Larger and more often solitary. The web spun by this species is laced with a powerful paralysis agent.

One of the more common mobs found throughout the temperate regions. The Terrorantula is a common ambush predator in dense forests where it uses its incredibly strong and nearly invisible silk to weave traps for passing animals.

Though preferring small prey when hunting alone, in large packs Terrorantulas are more than capable of using their webs to subdue humans and Faeries. Once pray is snared, the Terrorantulas will work together to completely cocoon the target, asphyxiating the prey before injecting their digestive juices. (A word to the wise, read the attached victim reports on an empty stomach. -Argo)

Highly territorial, but generally passive unless threatened, Terrorantuala's are usually only a threat to those traveling in the deep forests and will opt not to attack larger pray that is not already caught in their web. However, their tendency to string their webs across roadways has made them an ongoing nuisance for travelers and Royal Army Foot Patrols. (Elimination of Terrorantula nests that move outside of the deep forest is considered a medium priority at this time. Faeries volunteering for Self Defense Force training must complete a mandatory shift on 'Spider Watch' -Mortimer)

Regardless of the exact type. When traveling through areas infested by these mobs it is advised to move cautiously and travel in groups of at least three or four, maintaining good separation and traveling in a straight path. If a group member is snared, do not panic and be ready to use ranged spells to drive off the mobs before cutting them loose. Remember, these mobs can also string their webs high up in the trees, flight is not advised below tree top level and take offs and landings should be performed from wide open clearings.

Terrorantula silk is highly prized as a crafting material for both tools and clothing. (This stuff makes great rope! -KoKo) At this time the Cait Syth have begun a breeding and taming program in an attempt to domesticate some of these spiders for harvesting purposes. (The domesticated ones are sort of cute once they're defanged. -Silica) (Does this make them Terror-Ranch-Ulas? -Alicia).

Willow Wasp  
Appearance- A large insect resembling a bloated wasp with an abdomen roughly the size of a basketball. Body is striped in danger colors, usually yellows, reds, and blacks.  
Type- Hive Insect  
Length- 0.5 meters  
Wingspan-1.2 meters  
Weight- 5-6 kg  
Diet- Omnivorous, prefers rotting meat, fruit, and starches.  
Reproduction- Form small hive groups, generally one fertile female and six or seven sterile drones.  
Intelligence- Low, Social Insect.  
Behavior- Semi-passive. Grow agitated when the nest is approached.

Spell List-  
Unknown

Ability List-  
Venomous Sting

Common Varieties-  
Willow Larva- Flightless Baby Grub  
Yellow Jacket- Common Worker  
Black Jacket- A more powerful worker bread by mature nests. Black and red markings.  
Drone- A male roughly the same size as a Black Jacket with more decorative facial markings.  
Queen- A flightless mob about twice the size of the drones. Trades flight for enhanced digging ability and much more robust carapace.

Found in almost all of the Forest of Tristain after the Transition. The Willow Wasp is a common ALfheim mob and formerly one of the most frequently encountered flying type mobs for beginner players. (Which now makes them one of the most common types of mobs fought by newbies in the mob patrols -Argo.)

Communal insects, Willow Wasp groups care for a queen who digs and maintains an underground nest and also lays and cares for the young. The other Wasps will lay down their lives to defend the queen and can often be seen traveling far afield, foraging. (They're pretty passive when they're away from the nest. Me and Pina found one sunning herself next to the lake and she was perfectly fine as long as we left her a little space. Unless they've infested some place and need to be removed, please don't hurt these mobs! -Silica)

When Agroed, Willow Wasps will attempt to attack in a group using their large stingers to drive away threats or to hunt small animals. These stingers are usually no more than 5-7 cm in length, however, they contain a powerful venom that can cause debilitating fever and even death. (I know it's gross, but if you kill any of these, bring them back to the nearest settlement so we can harvest the venom. The anti-venom for this species is very potent and works against the venom of all varieties. -KoKo)

In combat, don't let these insects surround you. They aren't very smart but they know enough to take advantage of any openings and will usually try to feint to the front while launching a surprise attack from behind.

The common nature of the Willow Wasp, combined with its generally passive temperament makes them the most common mounts for the so called 'Vespid Knight' type pixies. (Wonder where they got _that _name - Argo)

**Mammalian**  
Dagger Dog

Appearance- Large sleek blue or gray furred canine with narrow, pointed muzzle.  
Type-Pack Hunter  
Length- 1.5 m (Avg)  
Weight- 50 kilograms (Avg)  
Diet- Omnivorous but favor carrion. Have been seen to use plants and herbs to medicate themselves. (The term is Zoophamacognosy - Arrun Library Head Librarian Bishop)  
Reproduction- Live young, litters of three to five. Tended in small pack groups.  
Intelligence- Medium high. Pack animals and highly social. (With some taming I bet they'd make good pets. -KoKo) Known to attracted to metallic objects.  
Behavior-Moderately Aggressive. Usually shy away from areas of human or Faerie habitation.

Spell List-  
Unknown

Ability List-  
Dagger Handling  
Sword Handling

Common Varieties-  
Dagger Pup - Baby  
Dagger Dog - Common Male  
Dagger Dog Matron - Common Female  
Dagger Dog Patriarch/Matriarch - Elder, stronger version of the previous two.  
Dagger Wolf - Highly aggressive and large variety, frequently seen wielding stole short swords.

A medium rarity mob. Dagger dogs are a species of land based pack hunters most often found in the forest areas. Distinguishing characteristics of this species of canine are a large, wolf like physique, pointed ears, and surprisingly muscular and dexterous lips which combined with their high bite strength and a set of specially flattened molars near the rear of the mouth, allow them to wield simple tools such as knives and daggers with impressive precision. (Hence the name - Argo)

The intelligence of this mob species is very high, consistently demonstrating the ability to reason at a near human level. Notably, the group reasoning ability of this species is exceptional. Dagger Dogs have been seen to teach each other new skills, orchestrate complex and dynamic hunting strategies, and self organize to accomplish complex tasks. (Seriously, if we can start a breeding program and train them from pups, I think the Tristanian farmers would love these guys. -KoKo)

Extreme caution is advised in battle. Though Dagger Dogs lack any ranged ability (Unless Mortimer's plan to train them to use specially modified pistols goes through . . . -Argo) and are a land bound mob, their speed and pack tactics make them more than capable of chasing down a grounded and unprepared Faerie. Notably, Dagger dogs appear to grow more intelligent and motivated in groups. (A high pitched clicking and wining has been reported when fighting packs. This may be some artifact of ALfheim. The Dagger Dog's mob AI possessed a director AI function to coordinate multiple mobs. This could be some sort of pseudo hive mind! - Argo) It is advised these mobs be treated for purposes of battle as an melee enemy of near human intelligence.

The threat posed by these mobs aside, other than their lack of flight ability they make excellent pets for first time Cait Syth tamers. Sociability when raised from infancy is similar to that of domesticated canines and intelligence allows them to be trusted with complex tasks mostly unsupervised. (Though some aggressive tendencies have been reported if the tamer isn't strict! -Silica)


	33. Chapter 11 Part 1 : Tarbes Quest

Well, here it is, the beginning of the first fully complete and self contained Arc. This ended up inflating massively because of how much fun I and others were having with the World Building. Also it introduces a rather essential group of ALfheim inhabitants. I know everyone is probably going to be pissed that I'm cutting away from Kirito and Asuna, to make up for it. I will be Posting these snips three at a time.

Also, mind the spelling errors, I could really use a beta reader to go through and clean this up chapter by chapter.

-Sincerely, the Author.

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 11 - Part 1

There were times, Old Osmond thought as he read over his mail, that he deeply wished the collective Noble heads of Tristain would do the world a favor and shout that Brimir was an impotent bastard within earshot of the Romalian Inquisition. Sighing as he tossed down the pile of missives, he leaned back in his chair and took a draw from his pipe. Honestly he rather more enjoyed playing diplomat with the Faeries. Lady Alicia and Lady Sakuya were altogether more pleasant people to be around than half of Tristain's nobility, both in personality and appearance.

Ah yes he recalled fondly as he took another puff of his pipe. The Lady of the Sylphs was certainly a sight for sore eyes, and of course, mint green, such a lovely choice.

"Headmaster?" Miss Longueville asked, adjusting her glasses with some annoyance. "Those letter are awaiting a reply. You've put them off for two days now."

"What now?" Osmond asked, "Speak up dear, I'm afraid these old ears aren't what they used to be. What letters might you be talking about? Perhaps you could read them to me, these old eyes aren't what they use to be either." Osmond glanced to the chair beside his desk where his loyal familiar was already strategically positioned. Miss Longueville just needed to move a little more to the left.

"I know your familiar is under the chair." Longueville said with a straight face, "You should know that I know, because you tried it last week. Really headmaster, you need to stop acting so childish."

Osmond froze for a second and then fell back on his old standby. "What is that now. A familiar you say? Why yes, I'm quite familiar with the academy lunch schedule, today is salmon and applesauce."

The secretary gritted her teeth, "First, the kitchen serves couscous with its salmon, and second that's not what's on the menu today."

"Oh? Isn't it?" Osmond said, dropping the act with a sigh of disappointment, "And I was looking forward to salmon."

"Headmaster." Longueville said, brow twitching.

For a thief, she was remarkably straight laced, Old Osmond thought. "Oh fine! If they need an answer we can tell them that she's staying at my pleasure as the Headmaster, and remind them that this favor has been extended in turn throughout the years. This institution has remained unfettered by ties to the nobility for centuries. It is a place for all students to learn equally. I don't answer to any of them and they know it." All of this trouble over one student. Though not just any student, a Valliere, and there lay the problem.

The decision to keep Miss Valliere among the student body had been a difficult one. There was always the chance, the very real chance, that it was all coincidence. Correlation did not always equal causation after all. Still, in the Headmaster's experience, correlation was at least worthy of investigation. And so Louise had been allowed to stay, brought on as a special student and several of her classmates assigned as tutors. This rather elegantly killed two birds with one stone as it allowed the two suspicious foreign elements, Miss Zerbst of Germania, and Miss Charlotte of Gallia, to be grouped closely with Louise, thus preventing any undo suspicion on the part of either.

Unfortunately there was a cost to every elegant solution. In this case, the trouble raised by every noble family with a bone to pick with the Vallieres, and there were quite a few, even with the Duke and Duchess remaining highly diplomatic in their dealings. Gossip certainly traveled quickly, the headmaster thought, goodness some of these families didn't even have children attending the academy!

"I suppose the best thing to do would be to send Miss Valliere on holiday to allow this all to settle down." Osmond said out loud. "At least, if she isn't at the academy we can work to alleviate some of the worst offenses."

"Very Diplomatic, Headmaster" Miss Longueville said politely.

"Why thank you my dear Miss Longueville, I do try." He took a puff on his pipe.

"Still, it would be a shame to simply send her off. I do think the Vallieres would disapprove after losing face to keep her here. Perhaps something could be arranged to occupy her and her friends. Something with some prestige. A task perhaps?" Do exactly as asked, and only as asked. That would show that lot to try and order around the Academy. "I shall have to speak to the Princess before she departs, I do believe there was a matter near Tarbes that needed seeing to. A trifling thing, but a Valliere could lend some weight to its conclusion I believe. In the mean time, we should get to drafting those responses."

"Very Good, Headmaster." Miss Longueville replied, returning to her desk and laying out pen and paper to dictate.

The Headmaster took the opportunity to observe Miss Longueville carefully. She wasn't what he had expected from the famous Fouquet of the Crumbling Earth. Much younger than he had thought. Also rather more female. He wondered why she hadn't made her move yet. The Faeries obviously. But this would be an opportunity to move on to a mark someplace else in Tristain. In the chaos, it would be child's play for a thief of such skill to make off with any number of treasures. Well, so long as she was playing this charade and provided him something nice to look at all day, there was no reason to force her hand.

"Ready, Headmaster." Miss Longueville announced.

"Very good then." Osmond said leaning back once more in his chair. "To whom it may concern . . ."

_

For the first time in a long time, Kirigaya Suguha woke to the feeling of someone snuggled into bed beside her. Instinctively, she curled herself around the smaller body, feeling strangely at peace. Cracking her eyes open against the morning light, all that could be seen above the covers was the top of a dark head of hair.

Suguha sat up, still sleepy, and rubbed at her eyes. Too bright! Too bright! This room was always much too bright in the morning! Even with the curtains drawn, the light that got past was still painful to her darkness adjusted eyes They should have taken a room facing the other direction so they wouldn't get the morning sun. Looking back down, Yui had the right idea, Suguha thought, stay buried under the covers where the sun couldn't get to you. But wasn't she hot under there?

Stretching, Suguha climbed out of bed and began her morning rituals. Washing her face with a hand towel, brushing her hair, and getting dressed. She'd done this enough times now that it had become familiar, and therefore comforting. To see the face of Leafa looking back at her from the mirror no longer seemed strange. Only two weeks . . . What else had changed? Suguha wondered.

Suguha returned to the bedside and gently nudged Yui. The blankets shrank down as the girl curled up tightly beneath them. "Yui-chan." Suguha said, "It's time to get up Yui-chan."

Yui's head popped above the covers, and a balled fist rubbed at one eye as she let out a big yawn. "Good . . . morning." The girl said, blinking the sleep from her eyes.

Suguha smiled, "Did you sleep well."

"Un." Yui yawned again and began to crawl out of bed. As a Pixie, Yui seemed so alive in the mornings, a tightly packed bundle of energy, but somehow, having taken human size it seemed that energy had been likewise diffused. Suguha couldn't help but draw parallels with her brother.

"Get ready and we'll go down and eat." Suguha said.

As she sheathed her sword, she heard a soft rustling and turned to see Kirito's borrowed clothes fallen to the floor in a pile and Yui, returned to her form as a Navigation Pixie, already poking her head out of the collar of her doll sized dress.

They ate quickly that morning, both of them wanting to get an early start on the day. The dining room was filled with early morning chatter. People discussing the news they had read in the town square or else simply joking around before heading off to work. It put Suguha in good spirits as she finished her eggs and toast and departed, Yui safely nestled in a pouch on her waist for the flight up to Arrun tower.

Upon arrival, the heart of the city was abuzz with activity. Lady Sakuya and the other leaders would be departing for Tristania, the Capitol of Tristain, by the end of the day and there was lots to get done before then. A small staff of Faeries would be accompanying them, guards and secretaries, but also former players with legal expertise to review the Treaty that would be signed with Tristain. If all went well, the matter of the Fae's legal standing within Tristain would be finalized within the week, for better or for worse.

Suguha didn't like it, even thought her brother had explained to her why it was necessary. Finding a way home wouldn't be easy. The GM console at the top of the World Tree was only a hope and nothing was guaranteed. In the meantime, they couldn't afford to antagonize the people of Tristain. Even so, this all felt too permanent to her.

Setting down atop Arrun tower, Leafa was met by the familiar faces of KoKo, and the Salamander tank, Carmond.

"Morning Leafa, just the person we wanted to see." KoKo waved. The Cait Syth woman was looking chipper as ever this morning, her spotted golden hair shining in the morning sun.

"Good morning." Suguha replied looking between the two Faeries. "Is something wrong?"

KoKo shook her head. "Not really wrong, but there is something. Lady Sakuya wants to talk to you before she leaves." The hunter crossed her arms knowingly, "You know how you've wanted some more responsibility?"

Suguha nodded hesitantly. Teaching had been a blessing for her, offering her a productive outlet to occupy her time. But what about when her students had all graduated to solo flying? She might take up the offer of teaching advanced lessons, but that probably wouldn't be a full time job as the skirmisher squads would have their own missions to attend to. What then?

"I already said I can't take up patrol duty." Suguha apologized. "Especially with Kirito off on a mission. I have to keep an eye on Yui."

KoKo looked sympathetic, but Carmond gave her an odd look. The big Salamander was friendly enough, but he hadn't spent as much time around Yui and so had a tendency to still think of the girl as a 'Nav Pixie'.

"Well, it's nothing like that." Carmond rumbled. "In fact it should be a bit of milk run from what I hear. But Lady Sakuya wants to send along someone she trusts."

"Oh?" Suguha asked, she was honored that the Sakuya thought so highly of her, even now. But what could it be? Yui and Suguha exchanged glances. Yui certainly looked curious. "Well, it wouldn't hurt to hear her out." Suguha decided.

KoKo perked up. "That's what I was hoping to hear."

The inside of Arrun Tower was a beehive of activity, last minute preparations, assistants running everywhere, asking last minute questions so that they could manage things in the absence of their leaders. There were still a million little details that needed to be seen to and decided upon every day. Most had been delegated to lower authorities, the countless committees and 'civil councils' that had sprung up to give busy bodies things to do in the evenings and the illusion of a say in things. But that still left so many problems needing solutions. It hardly seemed like Arrun could manage without its Leaders at a time like this.

Carmond made a path for the two smaller Faeries, the Salamander's huge frame pushing others gently aside so that Leafa and KoKo could follow in his wake. They found Lady Sakuya at the heart of the chaos, being assailed on all sides.

"Novair, have the instructions been relayed to Sylvain?" Sakuya asked her assistant.

"Yes, Lady Sakuya." Novair replied coolly, the man seemed as calm as ever in the onslaught.

"And are our legal staff ready to depart?"

"Yes, Lady Sakuya." Novair hesitated, "But two of them aren't very good fliers."

"Then they can ride with the Dragoons." The Lady of the Sylphs instructed.

"Lady Sakuya, what about resource allocation meeting tonight?" A Leprechaun spoke up from the crowd.

"I've already left my instructions. They're filed in my office." Sakuya said, voice growing exacerbated. "You would know that if you payed attention last night." The Sylph leader caught sight of Leafa and KoKo and her mood seemed to improve noticeably. "Novair, would you please finish here, I have something to attend to."

Sakuya squirmed out of the center of the crowd which immediately rushed in on her unfortunate assistant. "Leafa, Yui-chan, it's good to see you both." Sakuya greeted kindly, the smile on her face seemed genuine, as did the worry in her eyes. "How have you two been holding up?"

"We've been okay." Suguha admitted. She hadn't expected Sakuya to show her so much concern. "Though, I've felt a little useless lately." She shook her head. "KoKo-san said there was something you wanted to talk to me about?"

Lady Sakuya nodded, the smile vanishing from her face. "If you'll come with me for a moment."

Suguha followed, unsure. They didn't return to Sakuya's office, but rather, a smaller room located on the interior of the tower at the end of a side corridor. As soon as they entered, Suguha felt like she'd stepped into a conspiracy movie. Someone had set up a cork board along one wall and covered it in notes and sketches. Spider diagrams covered page after page of paper, and maps of Tristain and Albion cluttered the coffee table and desk. Everywhere she looked, tea mugs had been left in varying states of emptiness, used to hold down papers or in one case, simply stacked to form a pyramid.

"Glad you could join us." A loud voice greeted. Leafa looked over to a heavily stuffed chair in the corner to see it occupied by nobody other than the Salamander Klein.

"Klein-san?" Suguha asked.

"So Leafa-san is coming too?" The chair opposite Klein was taken up by the small Cait Syth girl from the day before, Silica. Seated in her lap was the blue feathered dragon that Suguha recalled her brother calling Pina. The dragon cocked its head curiously, observing her with bright red eyes.

"Well, I'm hoping she'll fill out our merry band." Suguha felt a hand patting her on the shoulder.

Suguha spun around. "KoKo?!" She felt strangely betrayed by her friend and coworker.

The Cait Syth hunter smiled apologetically. "Well, you've been saying that you wanted to do something to make yourself useful. And then this came up, so it seemed perfect for you and Yui-chan. Honestly it's better than you moping around. Just hear us out."

"If everyone's done with introductions . . ." A pair of puffball ears rose above a stack of books, followed by the rest of the information broker Argo. As Argo walked out from behind her desk, Suguha blinked, she'd wondered a few times what the other girl wore under her cloak, but she hadn't expected a black t-shirt and hot pants.

"Something wrong?" Argo asked.

"Uh uh." Suguha shook her head. "Uhm, what is this all about?"

"A diplomatic incident has occurred in North Western Tristain." Lady Sakuya said, voice growing agitated.

"An incident?" Suguha asked.

Sakuya bit her lip, "I'm finding that I'm using that word much too often recently. I feel like it's becoming an obscenity."

"So, what do you know about wild pixies?" Argo asked Suguha and KoKo in a conversational tone as she leaned against the corner of her desk.

"Wild Pixie's?" On Suguha's shoulder, Yui tilted her head curiously. "I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that term Argo-san."

"Me either." Suguha raised her hands. Though a skilled player, Suguha had stuck mostly to PvP in her time playing ALfheim. The dream of one day completing the Grand Quest and attaining the power of unlimited flight for the Sylphs preventing her from running off to explore. So there were lots of side quests and areas of ALfheim she wasn't familiar with.

"They're support type mobs indigenous to all of ALfheim." KoKo explained knowledgeably. As a 'hunter', KoKo had focused on PvM and boss raids, the exact opposite of Suguha's specialty. Unsurprisingly, she knew lots about the different mobs and bosses. "You usually find them around the base of the World Tree or near Yggdrasil shoots. They're non aggressive. Kind of cute actually. But don't make them angry."

"I've never fought any mobs like that." Suguha admitted, though now that she thought about it, she did recall hearing about a pixie type humanoid mob while browsing the ALO forums.

"They're not very common." There's a few colonies around the base of the World Tree. They're usually harmless enough. Usually."

"Just recently, word has been received from the Village of Tarbes in North Western Tristain." Sakuya said. The Sylph Leader seemed to be recalling something unpleasant. "They've been suffering mob raids over the past days."

"Mob raids? The mobs are attacking the town?" Leafa asked, suddenly she was on edge.

This wasn't good, mob behavior had been changing, but at very least the mobs, even field bosses, had been shying away from all but the smallest settlements and roadways. Actually, this was terrible! The Tristanians already blamed the Faeries for the trouble caused by the mobs. If the mobs had started going after towns, it would damage the negotiations.

"Mostly insect and small and medium mammal types." Sakuya confirmed, looking unhappy. "What is concerning is that the people of Tarbes have reported seeing small people riding atop the backs of some of the mobs." The Sylph leader grimaced. "Pixies are allied with most of the small mob types and can direct them in battle."

"So you think the Pixies are agitating the other mobs to attack." Suguha reasoned and then shook her head, "But that doesn't make any sense. Pixies are mobs too. What could change their behavior so quickly?"

"I have some theories." Argo said and glanced to her desk where a small brown haired nav pixie in a yellow sundress was watching quietly. "Sa-chan and I have been talking about this, and 'tis something that needs to be investigated." The Cait Syth began to pace the room. "We've all heard about mob behavior changing. The mobs are getting smarter, acting like actual animals. It has to be a side effect of the Transition. Whatever brought us here did a good job of trying to make everything in ALfheim real. That raises lots of questions. We need answers."

"Pixies in ALfheim possessed very sophisticate AI. If they are now displaying a level of true intelligence, it could shed light on what is happening to the other mobs." Sakuya said. "In either case, this matter must be dealt with swiftly to ensure good relations with Tristain. We finally have the situation in Cadenza under control, we can't afford to further agitate the locals. Princess Henrietta has requested that we send a consultant to Tarbes to investigate. The Princess will also be sending her own representatives to observe and offer assistance. I would be very grateful if you agreed to go, Leafa. It is a delicate matter, so we would like to send people we know are reliable."

Suguha found herself speechless. She looked down, "I appreciate the offer. I'm honored you thought of me. But like I told KoKo, I have to take care of Yui while Kirito-kun is gone. And also, I have my students to think about. They'll only improve with constant practice."

Argo and Lady Sakuya exchanged looks. "It isn't expected to be too dangerous." Sakuya offered. "In fact, given your brothers concerns, that's why I thought of you."

"If we can help. We should go!" Yui said, looking up at Suguha.

"Yui?" Suguha asked.

"You want to help out. And so do I!" The girl said, a determined expression crossing her face. "Please, lets see if we can help!"

"But what about classes?" Suguha insisted.

"Carmond will take over our practice group while we're gone." KoKo said. "Maybe Emroi will finally listen with a drill instructor breathing down his neck."

"I'm not that bad." The Salamander grumbled, scratching at his cheek. "Am I?"

"Your smile made your niece cry, sweety" KoKo said and gave the Salmander a consolatory pat on the back.

Suguha looked from Yui to the others in the room. Lady Sakuya gave her a reassuring nod while KoKo gave her a small thumbs up. Yui was looking up at her, face pleading. Suguha let out a sigh. "Honestly." Leafa shook her head in disbelief, "When do we leave?"

Argo grinned, "We just got word that the Princess has selected the representatives she'll be sending. You be depart in a couple of hours. Expect to be gone for a few days so pack accordingly."

"You aren't coming along?" Leafa asked the information broker.

"I'd love to go. But 'tis not in the cards I'm afraid." Argo said with a shake of her head. "I've been invited to accompany the leaders to Tristania. Keeping up good intel during the negotiations is essential. Especially with everything that's developing right now."

"We'll write you a ten page report when we get back." Klein offered as he stood up and stretched.

The Cait Syth grinned, "Good, actually that's exactly what I wanted you to do." Klein winced. "But make it twenty." Argo added. "I want to know everything that's going on up there."

"Don't worry, we'll find out what has the mobs acting up." Silica hopped up from her seat, Pina briefly taking flight to land on her head.

Lady Sakuya looked pleased. "I thank you all for volunteering." The Sylph Leaders expression turned serious. "Just remember that this is also a diplomatic mission. Please remain on your best behavior."

The gathered Faeries bowed. "Yes, Lady Sakuya."

How hard could that be? Leafa wondered.

_

"A mission?" Louise sat up straight in her chair. The Princess was asking her to participate in a mission? On behalf of the Crown!

It was after dinner. Louise had been invited to dine with her Mother, the Princess, and the Headmaster. The Duchess would be departing with Henrietta for the Capitol where she and the Duke would continue to advise the Princess and offer the support of the Valliere family.

"Yes." Henrietta said, smiling to her oldest friend. "It's a matter that has come to our attention near Tarbes. Some of the monsters from ALfheim have been harassing the local villagers. I've been told that the small ones usually shy away from settlements and this seems to be the case elsewhere." Henrietta looked troubled. "It's quite strange. So we would like someone to investigate."

"Forgive me Princess." Louise said, "But isn't that a job for the Faeries?" The Fae had caused this whole mess with their giant tree, so they should have to be responsible for cleaning it up.

"The Faeries are sending investigators to determine the cause of the attacks." Her mother, the Duchess De Le Valliere, said coolly. "Naturally, as the Fae are still Foreigners until the treaty is signed, they will require a noble escort to conduct official duties. The headmaster put forward your name for this task, daughter."

"M-me!?" Louise stuttered and turned to the headmaster.

Old Osmond nodded sagely. "Indeed Miss Valliere. This seems like an excellent opportunity to break from your studies. I have been reviewing your progress, but until the Royal Archives release the tomes I have requested, I fear I will be of little use in further examining your condition." The headmaster stroked his beard, "Fear not. Your tutors will be traveling with you, so you may continue your lessons during this mission."

"Zerbst and Tabitha?" Louise asked, And where had that useless Fop Gramont gotten himself off to?

"Kirche Von Zerbst is of Germania, and as our Kingdoms will soon be one, it is natural that their nobility should be involved in dealings with the Faeries." The Duchess said, betraying only the slightest hint of tension at conceding anything to a Zerbst.

"And Miss Tabitha is superbly qualified to act as an escort." Old Osmond continued, "She is, I believe, a highly qualified Chevalier, and her dragon will allow you to keep up with the Fae on your way to Tarbes."

"Wait, Tabitha's a knight!" Louise's eyes widened, why hadn't she know about this?

"Indeed a Knight of Gallia and with an impressive reputation if rumor is to be believed." The headmaster confirmed. "I suggested you three because I believe you are ideal candidates for this mission. Miss Valliere, you have the appropriate social standing to act as an agent of the Crown, Miss Zerbst is of a respected Germanian family, and Miss Tabitha is a skilled Knight. What's more, you've worked closely with both these last two weeks. Surely I can think of no one at the academy better suited to this task."

Louise looked to her mother for some sort of sign. The Duchess simply nodded her head, an affirmation. "Louise, I trust that you will represent our family in this matter?" Louise was fixed by her mother's eyes, the Duchess awaiting a response.

Louise swallowed, was her Mother . . . Entrusting her with this task? "Y-yes. I mean . . . Yes, Mother. I will gladly take responsibility on behalf of our family."

Henrietta smiled with relief, "Oh, thank you, Louise. I feel I can rest easier knowing that someone I can trust is seeing to this personally."

Louise barely heard her friend's thanks as she watched her mother for a moment longer. The Duchess nodded her head once more. "Daughter, I know you will act with the diplomacy and discretion expected of a Valliere."

"O-of course!" Louise stammered, feeling a hint of pride at the almost acknowledgment by her mother.

"Then, I believe there are still a few tasks to attend to before I depart. Headmaster, I would like to make use of the school messenger birds." The Duchess said.

"By all means." The Headmaster said calmly.

"Then if you'll excuse me. Headmaster, Princess, Louise." The Duchess stood and departed from the private dining room located off of the main Alvis hall.

"I fear I should probably turn in early tonight." Henrietta observed. "But before that." The Princess stood, prompting Louise to stand as well. "This isn't expected to be a dangerous mission but it is important to show that the Nobility and the Fae can cooperate. I know you'll do your best Louise. But stay safe too."

Louise smiled bravely. "I wont disappoint you, Princess. I'm just grateful I can help."

Henrietta raised a hand to hide a small smile. "Louise, you have always helped me. More then you'd ever believe." She said with a hint of amusement entering her voice. "Please, when you've finished your mission, stop by the Capitol on your way back. I would love to hear everything about your adventure."

"I'll do that." Louise promised.

"Good." Henrietta said. "I'm sorry this is on such short notice. But as your friend I really do want to see you off tomorrow. Goodnight Louise."

"Goodnight, Princess." Louise replied.

Only as Henrietta disappeared from view and Louise took a moment to think, did she fully realize what she'd just agreed to. She was going on a mission on behalf of the Crown . . . With Faeries! Founder! What had she just gotten herself into? She shot up straight and started tugging on her hair, strangling an inarticulate cry.

"Are you alright, Miss Valliere?" The Headmaster asked, one thick eyebrow lifting.

"F-fine, I'm fine, fine!" Louise slapped her cheeks. "So, this mission, we'll be gone for a few days then?" She hadn't even though to ask before accepting!

"It shouldn't take more than a week at the most." The Headmaster said. "Though dare I say, you might take the time for some sightseeing." The headmaster seemed to be recalling something fondly before returning to the present.

Right, she could do this. This was her chance to prove that even as a sub dot, she was still a Noble and Valliere. "When do we depart?" Louise asked.

"I do believe the Faeries will be arriving the morning." The headmaster observed. "Miss Tabitha and Miss Zerbst have already agreed to the mission and are readying themselves now. You may meet in the Vestri Courtyard when you are prepared. I dare say, pack lightly and for travel."

Louise nodded quickly and then turned on her heel to rush back to her room. She froze halfway to the doorway and turned back to the Headmaster. Louise bowed deeply. "Thank you for putting my name forward, Headmaster." She was genuinely grateful. And here she'd thought the Headmaster was just an old pervert.

"It's quite alright Miss Valliere. This may not be a vital mission but it is still important and does carry some prestige. I know you won't disappoint." The headmaster removed a pipe from the folds of his robe and lit the tip with a cantrip. "Now, off with you child, tardiness is never the way to start a task."

Louise ran all the the way back to her room, storming up the stairs past staff and students. A sense of purpose had been planted within her, and Louise carried herself with a presence she rarely projected. She found Siesta departing the bottom floor of the dormitory tower and politely asked the young woman to help her pack. Siesta had hurried after her upon hearing that Louise would be departing for Tarbes.

Travel clothes and boots were dug out of her wardrobe, as well as a small satchel in which she deposited spare undergarments and a change of clothes. Would she need anything else? Surely they would be able to stay at an inn near the village, so food shouldn't be needed. Though they would be up on a dragon. Louise wondered if she still had the goggles that Cattleya had sent her.

When she had been preparing for her familiar summoning neither she nor her older sister had known what to expect. But Cattleya had always been optimistic and had sent her various items both in preparation for her summoning and as tokens of good luck.

"Found it!" Louise said triumphantly, digging up the goggles with their leather strap. What had they been doing in with all of her stationary?

"Thank you for your help Siesta." Louise said quickly as she finished laying out her travel clothes for the next morning. They weren't terribly flattering garb, but they weren't supposed to be. However, they were very well made. Her mother had impressed on Louise the importance of durability and comfort in what few pieces of travel attire she owned.

"It's quite alright." The maid said, sounding distracted.

"Really, you've been quite a lot of help recently." Louise said, looking to the older girl. "I know you've been going out of the way to help out."

Delivering lunches to the practice fields almost certainly wasn't in Siesta's job description, nor bringing them snacks late at night, nor was helping Tabitha, Louise, and Kirche return books to the library after a day of studying. Louise had in fact been shocked to learn that the maid was literate. Siesta claimed her grandfather had insisted his children and grandchildren all learn to read.

"Oh, its nothing." Siesta said politely. "That's the job of the serving staff. Though . . ." Siesta paused, "If I may . . . There is something I would like to request. A small favor, Miss Louise." Siesta stopped, going red faced, it seemed she'd used up all of her courage saying that much.

"What is it?" Louise asked

"You said you're going to Tarbes. It's my home, you see. I've been hearing terrible rumors, and I'm worried about my family. I've been meaning to send a letter when next I had the chance." The maid stopped, casting her eyes to the floor. "No, that would be rude of me to ask."

"We can deliver it." Louise said. It wasn't really an unfair request. Siesta was a hard worker, and was worried about her family, Louise could do that much in return for all the help she'd been.

Siesta looked up, "Truly? You would do that?"

"It's just a letter." Louise began, and nearly fell over as the maid through her arms around her.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" Siesta repeated over and over. It took a full half minute before the maid realized what she was doing and leaped back, apologizing almost as fervently.

"It's alright." Louise said, straightening her clothes. "Just hurry to the Vestri Courtyard tomorrow morning with your letter. I suppose it should be simple enough once I get to Tarbes?"

"Oh yes. Just find the village head's home and leave it there. And if it isn't too much, if they write back . . ."

Louise gave the maid a reassuring smile, "I'll bring your their reply." The older girl looked relieved and continue to thank Louise even as she departed for the night.

Louise was barely able to sleep that evening. And in fact found herself impatiently waiting for the sun to rise. She was excited. More than that. She was curious. Other than her brief run in with the Spriggan Kirito, she had yet to meet a Faerie. She wanted to meet the people that had her mother so much at a loss and the Princess so enamored. What would they be like? At some point, Louise drifted off to sleep only to wake as the first rays of the sun struck her face.

Getting quickly dressed, Louise set out, her satchel swinging over her shoulder. She found Kirche and Tabitha had already arrived in the Vestri Courtyard along with Tabitha's wind dragon.

"Good morning Louise, ready for a big adventure?" Kirche called. The Zerbst had also had the sense to change into traveling clothes, though somewhat more flattering than Louise's own. Riding on a dragon could get uncomfortable, and cold, without the appropriate apparel.

"I would be more ready if someone had told me before last night!" Louise said. She wasn't particularly angry, but it was against all of her principals not to yell at Kirche.

"But we just found out from the headmaster yesterday afternoon!" Kirche pouted. "I had to cancel my evening engagements for this Valliere. I hope you appreciate the sacrifice I'm making for our friendship."

"We're not friends Kirche!" Louise gritted. 'They weren't, were they?'

"Okay." Kirche said. "The sacrifices I'm making for our ongoing hot and cold rivalry."

"And you!" Louise shot at Tabitha, "Why didn't you tell me you were a knight!"

Tabitha looked up from her book. "Didn't ask."

"Didn't ask? Of course I wouldn't ask!" Louise spluttered. "Who would expect you to be a knight?!"

Tabitha turned a page in her book. "Exactly."

Louise was left without a comeback. Tabitha's monosyllabic replies didn't leave much room for a comeback. Instead, with a final huff, Louise settled in to await the arrival of the Faeries and Princess Henrietta.

Slowly the academy began to come to life as the sun rose over the walls and began to illuminate the courtyard. It was still too early to eat in the dining hall but Tabitha offered Louise a piece of pork jerky which she greedily tore into as she waited.

At last, Henrietta arrived in the company of one of her Musketeers, Louise looked for any sign of her mother, but no doubt the Duchess had others tasks she was attending to. She'd mentioned using the academy messenger birds the night before. She was probably sending word back to Father. The Duke had informed them in his last letter that the Vallieres were now neighbors to the Gnomes. Earth aligned Faeries with great skill at mining. At last word he had seemed to be greatly enjoying the chance to haggle with a Gnomish merchant.

"Good morning Louise." Henrietta said.

"I see you and your friends chose to rise early."

"Its no problem at all." Louise insisted.

"So you must be Miss Zerbst and Miss Tabitha. Louise has told me so much about you." Henrietta looked to the Germanian and Gallian girls.

Tabitha looked up from her book. "Honored, Princess."

"Has she now?" Kirche asked, eyes promising mischief. "And what exactly has she told you?" Louise felt herself pale.

"Why, she told me that you were an exceptional fire mage who works very hard at her element, and that she was very grateful to have you as her tutor." Henrietta said, smiling the whole time.

Kirche blinked owlishly. The Zerbst could handle insults, but a genuine compliment seemed to be a change of pace for the Germanian. "I . . . I see. Well, I do try, Princess." She smiled, "Thought, I could use some help loosening her up, Louise is still much too tight lace to let her passions flow naturally."

Henrietta brightened. "Oh, perhaps I can find a way to help with that! I've asked Louise to stop by the palace on her return from Tarbes. I do hope you two will come along, I think it would be ever so much fun." Louise felt her jaw clench down so tightly she was sure her teeth were about to shatter.

The sun rose further and the first students began to make their way from their dormitories towards the dining hall. It was during this time, while scanning the sky, that Louise caught sight of the Faeries. Four small figures that slowly resolved into winged people, flying and then descending over the Academy wall. They settled down a distance away and began walking towards the gathered Nobles.

"Princess?" Louise asked.

"Yes Louise?"

The youngest Valliere daughter frowned. "Do you know much about the Faeries that Lady Sakuya is sending with us?"

The Princess smiled, "Actually, I've met two of them before on different occasions. One is an attendant of Lady Alica, a skilled huntress, she's very knowledgeable about the plants and animals of ALfheim. I think you'd like her if you get to know her. The other is one of Lord Mortimer's soldiers. He's a coarse man, but I think very pleasant in his own way. All I know about the other two is that they are attendants of Lady Sakuya and Lady Alicia, but I have heard one of them is a veteran fighter."

As the Faeries neared Louise began to make out details.

The first, Louise was shocked to see, was barely more than a child. Garbed in a dark blue coat and skirt, and wearing a light metal breastplate. A dagger hung from a scabbard at her back. She looked like a first year girl who had readied herself for battle. Only the large, triangular, cat like ears that protruded from the top of her head, and the tail that swished about beneath her coat marked her as anything but a human girl. A Cait Syth, Louise Thought, their home was on the coast, not too far from Tarbes in fact. It made sense that they would be represented on this mission. But would they really send someone so young? Then again, Louise glanced to Tabitha. If even someone as small and harmless looking as Tabitha could be a Chevalier, not that Louise believed it, then who was to say a Faeries couldn't be the same?

Next, Louise found her attention drawn to the animal on the girl's shoulder. Only as the girl grew nearer did Louise realize it was a dragon. In miniature. Actually, it only vaguely resembled a proper dragon. Though the basic body plan was the same, with two arms, two legs, and two wings. Its head was narrow with a pointed muzzle, more resembling that of a fox or other small mammal than the more reptilian skull of a dragon, and its body was covered in soft, pale blue feathers. Bright red eyes watched Louise curiously, glinting with a benign intelligence.

After the girl came a red haired man in bright red robes and khaki pants. Everything from his uncouth face, to his slouching stance marked him as a commoner. No doubt some sort of mercenary like the Spriggans her mother had spoken of. Though his red hair and clothing seemed to be that of a Salamander, the fire aligned Faeries. The Faerie Lords must be short on retainers to send such a man as hired muscle.

The last two Faerie were approaching now. Both were women, and both were exceedingly strange. The first was a slender woman wearing lightweight body armor and khaki clothing. The sight of a woman in pants was peculiar to Louise, but not completely alien. Her mother, after all, still trained regularly, and Cattleya would ware trousers when tending to some of her larger animals. An impressive looking knife was sheathed at the woman's side, and a bow and quiver of arrows were carried on her back. Her cat like ears marked her as another Cait Syth.

The second woman was, Louise thought, a Sylph. Her eyes fell on the long blonde hair and delicately pointed ears. The resemblance to an Elf was certainly uncanny. But one detail stood out much more clearly to Louise. 'By the founder, she's as big as Zerbst!' Louise thought, eying the girl's generous bossom. And her clothing seemed designed to draw attention to that fact, emphasizing her chest, and hips . . . And the rest of her. While not overly revealing, Louise was willing to call the garb barely decent, and that was being generous. She almost didn't notice the longsword that hung at the woman's waist.

Again, Louise noticed something riding on the woman's shoulder. At first Louise thought that it was some sort of large insect or small bird. But as she looked closer, Louise's eyes widened. It was girl. A tiny girl no bigger than a child's doll. Wearing a white dress and with a pair of miniature Faerie's wings.

"Oy, Princess Henrietta!" The red haired man waved as he approached.

Louise grit her teeth, what did that dog think he was doing addressing the Princess like so? But Henrietta didn't seem to mind overly much and simply smiled and waved back. 'Remember Louise, be diplomatic, diplomatic. You must be diplomatic!'

"It's good to see you again Mister Klein." Henrietta greeted. "So you were selected for this mission?"

"Yeah, Lord Mortimer detached me from my squad for this." The Salamander stroked his chin. Louise noticed that almost as soon as the man had recognized Henrietta he'd stood up a little straighter and taken on a bit more a swagger. Her eye twitched, just what did he think he was doing?"

"We're fortunate to have a skilled swordsman such as yourself on this mission." Henrietta added.

"Are these your people?" Klein nodded to Louise, Tabitha, and Kirche.

"Yes. Allow me to make introductions." Henrietta gestured to Louise. "This is Louise Francois Le Blanc De La Valliere, third daughter of the Valliere family and a close friend of mine. I'm entrusting this mission to her on the advice of the Headmaster of the Academy."

"So, a friend of the Princess." The man commented in a loud voice. "A pleasure to meet you."

"The young woman over there is Miss Kirche Von Zerbst, a member of the Germanian nobility who has volunteered for this mission. She's a skilled fire mage." Henrietta said.

"A fire mage, eh? Good to have you on board." The Salamander said, as he rested his hands on his hips.

"Aren't Salamander's naturally aligned with flames?" Kirche asked, she smiled as she looked the man over. "I think you and I will got along famously Mister Klein."

"Finally, is Miss Tabitha. She's a Gallian Chevalier of considerable ability." Henrietta's countenance grew severe, "If disaster strikes, don't hesitate to trust her in battle."

For a moment, Louise thought she saw a wariness in the man's eyes as he exchanged glances with Tabitha. A small nod passed between them. Or at least, Louise thought it did. It was all over before she could be sure of what she'd seen.

"Well, a Knight is a bit like a Samurai, I can respect that. Anyways, it's our turn, I guess. I'm Klein. A Salamander. Twenty three years old. I specialize in swords." The man rubbed at the back of his head. "You can rely on me in a fight." He finished lamely.

Next the young girl that Louise had first scene stepped forward. "Excuse me. How do you do?" The girl said. "My name is Silica. I'm with the Cait Syth. It's a pleasure so meet you all!" Up close, Louise could make out the subtle, cat like features in the girl's face and the way that her ears twitched and pivoted slightly as if listening to everything. Coupled with the girls small stature and innocently curious expression. She . . . she was adorable! It was like one of Cattleya's kittens had suddenly decided it was going to be a person. Louise wanted to just wrap the girl up in a big hug. But that wouldn't be diplomatic.

The tiny dragon on the girl's shoulder gave a small cry. Was it a familiar? Lousie wondered, feeling a pang of jealousy. Silica was clearly so young. "Oh, and this is Pina." Silica added. "She says it's a pleasure to meet you too."

"I see." Louise said, feeling one eyebrow twitching in confusion.

From the corner of her eye she saw Tabitha peaking her head above the cover of her book before ducking back down. What was that about?

"Well, it's nice to meet you too Silica." Kirche said with a kind smile devoid of her usual mischief, even the Zerbst couldn't resist the girl's natural charm.

"A . . . Pleasure." Tabitha said, lifting her book to completely cover her face.

Silica looked up at Tabitha's dragon, and Sylphied looked back. The wind drake's large green eyes fixed on the miniature dragon that clung to Silica's shoulder. Suddenly the girl grew pensive, her ears sinking down.

"Is something wrong?" Henrietta asked with some concern.

"Uhm. Maybe I should stand back a bit. Pina doesn't get along well with other dragons."

"Kyuii!" Sylphied cried softly.

Suddenly, the feathered dragon sat up on its master's shoulder. "Kya!" All eyes turned to the smaller dragon as it called back.

"Kyuii!" And then back to Sylphied.

"Kya!" And back to Pina.

"Kyuii!" And back to Sylphied.

The feathered dragon took flight from Silica's shoulder and came gliding down atop Sylphied's head. Turning about a few times, Pina found purchase on Sylphied's scaly hide and hunched down.

A bemused expression crossed Kirche's face. "They seem to get along well enough to me."

Silica nodded slowly "I think you're right."

"I'm KoKo, it's nice to meet you all." The grown Cait Syth woman said easily. "I'll be coming along to help identify the mobs that are harassing Tarbes. So you can count on me."

"Thank you miss KoKo." Henrietta said. "We'll be relying on your skill on this mission."

"My name's Leafa." The Sylpha woman said, arms crossed.. "I'm one of Lady Sakuya's attendants. I won't let you down Princess."

"I'm sure you won't." Henrietta agreed. "And who might you be?" Henrietta gestured to the miniature Faerie on Leafa's shoulder.

Without further prompting the tiny girl spread her wings and flitted into the air. The girl gave a small curtsey to Henrietta. "My name is Yui. It's an honor to meet you Princess."

"You're a navigation pixie, aren't you?" Henrietta asked, offering her hand for the pixie to stand upon.

"A navigation pixie?" Louise asked.

"The Fae use them as messengers and secretaries. I've only seen them a few times before. They have amazing memories and powers of perception." Henrietta said as she took a close look at Yui. On close inspection the girl was beautiful, and in human terms would appear to be perhaps ten years of age.

"Miss Yui, please help everyone in any way you can." Henrietta asked politely.

The girl clasped her hands before herself and smiled. "Of course I will Princess!"

"Now then." Henrietta said looking to the gathered Fae and Mages. "I know this mission is very sudden and it may only be a small thing. You are being sent to assist but a single village. But it is very important that this matter be dealt with swiftly and conclusively for the sake of both humans and Faeries. If peaceful relations are to continue we must show that we can solve our problems together. Is that understood?"

"Understood, Princess." Everyone murmured.

Henrietta sighed. "Then there is nothing more to say but this. While this mission is important, it is not worth anyone's life. If in your investigation you uncover something dangerous, do not hesitate to send for help." The Princess clasped her hands together. "More than anything, please stay safe."

"We'll be using Tabitha's dragon to keep up with you." Kirche said, gesturing Sylphied.

"That should work." Klein agreed. "We should be able to make it to Tarbes in a couple of hours if we follow the roadways. We'll have to land a few times to recharge our wings."

There wasn't anything more to be said. With help from Kirche, Louise climbied up on Sylphied while Tabitha seemed to be having a . . . Conversation? With the Cait Syth girl.

"Come one Tabitha, we need to get going." Kirche said. "The sooner we solve Tarbes's problem the sooner we an head to Tristania and solve Louise's problem."

"Not today Zerbst. Please. At least not until we're in the air." Louise grumbled.

"Miss Louise!" Louise looked down to see Siesta running from the front entrance to the Academy Tower. In her hand she clutched an envelope.

"Here!" The girl gasped. "I'm sorry I was late. I got held up with cleaning duties this morning. Please, deliver this to Tarbes for me."

"I'll make sure it gets there." Louise promised, receiving odd looks from Kirche and Tabitha.

"It's a letter to her family." Louise explained.

"That's pretty sweet of you Louise." Kirche said, "And I'm not even teasing. So your family lives in Tarbes?" Kirche asked Siesta.

"Y-yes." The girl had finally caught her breath.

"I'll check in on them while we're their." Kirche assured.

"Zerbst?" Louise bit off. Actually, no, that was a marvelously sincere thing for her to do. Louise honestly couldn't find fault with it.

"Well, a Zerbst has to be superior to a Valliere in every way. So naturally I have to be more generous."

"And just when I think I might be starting to like you, Zerbst." Louise grumbled. "Well, I suppose you are generous."

"Of course!"

"And generously proportioned."

"Naturally."

"Some would say over proportioned."

"Exa- wait what?" Kirche was caught off guard and then chuckled, "Okay, nice shot Valliere. Three points"

Louise sat back and made herself comfortable, content to accept her small victory as Tabitha took her place in front of her. Down the ground, the Faeries summoned their wings and kicked off.

"We'll head along the Northern running highway and then follow its branch North West." Klein called to Tabitha.

"Understood." The girl said softly, and then waved to confirm that she had heard. "Time to go, Sylphied."

Sylphied shifted, the wind dragon's lanky body rising up as her wings stretched.

"Hey Valliere, what are those for?" Kirche asked as Louise adjusted the goggles over her eyes.

"Mounts can get windy in flight." Louise said. "Don't you know that?

"I've never seen Tabitha use something like that." Kirche frowned.

"Wind Shield." Tabitha answer.

Before Kirche could say anything further, Sylphieds Wings beat down and the dragon bounded forward, once, twice, and then took to the air. Two dragons and four faeries raced into the sky.


	34. Chapter 11 Part 2 : Arrival

Halkegenia Online-Chapter 11-Part 2

Riding upon Sylphied's back, Louise was grateful for the goggles that Cattleya had sent her. The wind stream that whipped around Tabitha, shielded by a weak air spell, struck her full force. By now, her hair was almost beyond salvage, and her cheeks were numb from the cold wind stream. Still, she thought with a little mean spirited satisfaction, she was better off than Kirche who had come along completely unprepared and had to continually recast a wind shield spell to prevent herself from taking the full brunt of the gusts.

Louise peered down over the flank of the dragon. The last time she had been up so high had been as a child, when her mother had taken her along atop her Manticore. From this high up, the roadways and rivers of Tristain spread out like lines on a map. Over the past hours they had watched villages and towns crawl by far below, and spotted a handful of the flying 'mobs' that now inhabited Tristain's deep forests. One of the Faeries passed into her view, green wings glinting in the sun as she traveled on ahead at amazing speed.

They had been flying for around two hours now. Though nimble fliers and at least as fast as Tabitha's wind dragon, the Faeries could only maintain their wings for a brief time. While Sylphied could easily have flown from the coast of Tristain to the Tip of Albion without stop, the Faeries had to land regularly to rest their wings. So instead of forcing the Mage's to wait for them, Tabitha had reigned in her wind dragon, flying at a leisurely pace that gave the Faeries time to catch up after each stop. It was awkward at first, but as they had traveled a rhythm had developed and they had settled into a distance eating pace that had brought them to the vicinity of the village of Tarbes.

Tarbes. Louise had barely heard of the place before Henrietta had asked her to go on this mission, a small farming village situated in North Western Tristain. Located near the mountains, the people of Tarbes supported themselves mostly on their livestock and the wine of their vineyards. Tarbes wine was apparently highly prized and sold well in the Capital. Siesta had once spoken highly of her home, and from the air, Louis could see why. Nestled in the foothills, surrounded to the south by wide fields and the north by the mountains, the villagers of Tarbes were blessed with scenic and peaceful surroundings. Any commoner would count themselves lucky to be born in such a place.

The Cait Syth girl, Silica, came up beside Sylphied, her familiar keeping pace at her side, and waved to get Tabitha's attention. "Tabitha-san! That should be the village right down there."

The girl shouted to be heard over the wind. Far bellow, Louise could see a number of buildings clustered around a paved square fronted by a church. From the air, it looked tiny, but of course this was simply the heart of Tarbes. Like most farming communities, the village's farms and homesteads would be scattered over a wide area. Many of the most distant villagers probably only came to the village square once a week. For church certainly, and then perhaps on days of festivals or for business.

"We should set down just outside." Louise shouted back. "Otherwise we might scare the commoners!" A dragon couldn't be a common sight in such a quiet little village. Certainly landing right in the village square would never do.

If Tabitha had said anything, it had been swept away by the wind, nonetheless, the beating of Sylphied's wings ceased and the dragon began a long spiraling glide downwards, the Faeries following closely behind.

Nearing the ground, Louise could make out the inhabitants, like ants, going about their business. The villagers took notice of the arriving dragon and suddenly they began to hurry for cover. Louise frowned inwardly, so much for not causing a scare.

Sylphied touched down at a fast trot, spreading her wings wide and flapping a couple of times to bring herself to a full stop before kneeling down to allow the mages on her back to dismount. Tabitha went first, followed by Louise, and then Kirche.

Louise pulled her goggles down and stretched wearily. Even having an idea of what to expect, who would have thought traveling by dragon could be so tiring? Looking over her shoulder she almost had to hide a smirk. Kirche had survived the journey about as well as Louise and was looking quite frazzled. The Germanian girl's hair was in complete disarray and her eyes were watering faintly from the hours spent in the air stream along Sylphied's back.

"Are you feeling alright, Zerbst?" Louise asked.

"Oh, well enough." Kirche replied, shaking her head. "Hey, Tabitha, couldn't you have cast that wind shield over all of us?"

"Drag." Tabitha replied. "Uncomfortable for Sylphied."

"Oh." Kirche sadi. "Well, we wouldn't want her to be uncomfortable."

To Louise's disappointment, Kirche managed to recover quickly now that they were on the ground, pulling her hair back and stretching languidly as the Faeries set down beside Sylphied. The Fae looked no worse for their time in the air, as to be expected for a race with the inherent ability to fly. Though their movements suggested a degree of tiredness and they all seemed grateful to be on the ground once more. Silica's familiar in particular, sank down gratefully atop her master's head, wings drooping in exhaustion.

"So this is Tarbes?" The Salamander named Klein asked as he looked around. "Nice place. Hard to believe its being hit by raids."

"It sort of reminds you of Floria, on the 47th floor. Doesn't it Klein-san?" Silica observed as her eyes were drawn the many blooming wildflowers in the nearby fields. '47th Floor?' Louise wondered.

"Eh, yeah, you're right." Klein nodded in agreement.

"Though, where is everybody?" Leafa asked. "They all ran away when we got near."

Kirche shrugged, "They were probably just scared by Tabitha's dragon. Come on, lets go find the Village Chief so we can get to work." The Germanian set out towards the cluster of homes and barns that constituted the heart of the village. The others following behind her.

"Tabitha-san, aren't you coming?" Silica called from the rear of the group.

The unlikely chevalier shook her head and ducked back behind her book. "Can't go into town. Villagers are scared. Have to keep Sylphied company."

"Do you want someone to stay with you?" Silica asked, ears twitching curiously.

"No. Fine on my own." Tabitha replied quickly and then turned around to face the other direction. Honestly, what was wrong with her recently? Louise wondered.

When they arrived in the village square, they found it abandoned. There wasn't a soul in sight, and the doors and windows of all of the houses had been shut tight. The Faeries and Kirche were on guard almost at once. Klein and Leafa standing with hands on their sword hilts, ready to take flight in an instant. Silica reached behind her back for her dagger and KoKo had already taken up her bow. Both Cait Syths' ears swiveled about, listening for any sign of danger. Louise leveled her own wand, though useless at proper magic, she could at least aim her explosions if necessary.

Louise's eyes wandered as she began to pick out discrepancies. There, a produce stand had been left unattended, there a face glimpsed briefly through a window, and then the sound of movement from behind a doorway. Beside her, KoKo sighed.

"They're hiding from us." Louise frowned. "Why?"

"Only one way to find out." Klein said before marching out into the center of the square. "Oy! Villagers of Tarbes!." The man didn't so much shout as turn up the volume on his already loud voice. "We got word that you've been having problems with monsters. We've been sent to help! Anyone home?"

There was no answer. The doors and windows remained tightly shut. If anything, as the echoes of the shout faded, the village seemed all the more desolate. The Salamander grinned sheepishly, "Well, it was worth a shot."

'He's . . . An Idiot.' Louise thought.

"You should let me try." Louise said. "You're a foreigner, so obviously they won't trust you."

"Honestly Klein." Leafa grumbled while wearing an expression of disbelief, "Why you thought that would work . . ."

Something hurtled through the air, spinning rapidly. In the blink of an eye, Leafa ducked down and sidestepped, already drawing her sword and leveling her free hand. Ready to cut or cast as needed. The object, which narrowly missed the Sylph, traveled on, and with a loud -thunk- struck the still turning Salamander in the back of the head before ricocheting up into the air.

Klein barked out, clutching at his skull, face contorted in pain.

"Klein-san!" Silica shouted, sinking lower into her guard stance.

"I'm fine." The man grimaced as he probed at the back of his head. "Definitely felt that one! What the hell?"

To answer, the object came tumbling back out of the sky, striking the ground at the Salamander's foot with a flat, heavy, -clunk-. Still rubbing the back of his head. Klein squatted down to examine the projectile. "Eh? A horseshoe? Oy! Who throws a horseshoe at a person? Is that any way to greet visitors!?"

"Klein." Leafa nodded towards a narrow path between a small home and a common building. A small head was peaking out from behind a barrel. It was child, Louise didn't think he could be more than ten years old.

"Hey, Kid!" Klein grunted, "What do you think you were doing? You can hurt people like that!"

The child stumbled back and turned to run. "Antoine!" A voice cried as a woman burst from the house nearest the boy and ran to his side, cluthing him closely as Klein and Leafa approached. The woman looked up fearfully. "S-stay back! We don't want any trouble with your kind!"

The Faeries stopped in their tracks. "We're not going to hurt you." Leafa said gently, raising her hands passively. "We're here to help."

The woman glanced between Leafa and Klein and then back to Leafa. No, to Leafa's shoulder. "L-liars! You have one of them with you!" She pointed to the tiny form of Yui. The pixie girl looked startled and stepped back to hide behind one of Leafa's bangs.

"One of them?" Leafa repeated and shook her head. "You mean a pixie?" Understanding dawned in the Sylph's eyes and she smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry, Yui-chan is harmless, she's not like the wild pixies that have been attacking your village." The woman looked unconvinced.

Louise decided it was time to get involved. She was an acting representative of the Crown after all. Standing straight she stepped forward. "What is the meaning of this!" She barked out in a commanding voice.

The woman's attention turned to her. "You . . . Who are you?"

"I am Louise Francois Le Blance De La Valliere, third daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Valliere, I have been dispatched from the Academy to Investigate the monster attacks that have been reported around your village." She waved a hand to Klein and Leafa. "The Faeries are here to help with the express permission of the Crown. I vouch for their honor. Now then, what is the meaning of all of this?"

"A noblewoman . . . from the Academy?" The woman bowed her head, placing a hand on the boys neck and gently forcing him to replicate the gesture. "A thousand pardons. My son acted without thinking. Please forgive him!"

"Well, that's up to the person he attacked." Louise said, glancing to the Salamander. What would the Faerie do? Demand the boys punishment no doubt. The blow had been aimed to do serious harm. Perhaps not to Klein, but it would have been no less serious if it had struck its intended target. Louise couldn't see the boy getting away with less than public humiliation, maybe lashings, of course if Klein pushed for too much she would have to step in and suggest a lesser punishment.

The Salamander stepped forward, looming over the child. "Hey, kid." Klein grunted. The boy's mother pushed his head further down.

"Oy. Lady, you don't need to do that. I just want to talk to your son." Both commoners looked up at the same time confused as Klein squatted down in front of them. Suddenly the Salamander grinned, "You've got a good arm. If I didn't have such a thick skull I could have been hurt pretty bad. You shouldn't be throwing things like that at people who've come to help you, so apologize."

"He's sorry!" The boys mother said quickly.

"Yeah, but I want to hear it from him." Klein said, fixing the boy with a serious gaze. "A man's gotta take responsibility for his actions, and anyone brave enough to pick a fight with me is a real man in my book."

The boy met Klein's eyes, and then looked away. "I'm . . . Sorry."

Klein nodded, "And apologize to Leafa-san too, since you were trying to hit her. A real man never hits a girl."

The boy looked up to the Sylph woman who gave him an encouraging smile. "I'm sorry Miss Leafasan."

"There, that wasn't so hard, was it? As for the rest of your punishment, well, don't do it again, okay?" The Salamander helped the boy and his mother up. "Like Louise-san said. We're here to help out. My name's Klein and this is Leafa."

Louise blinked a few times, wait, that was it? Klein wasn't going to have the boy lashed? He'd stricken him with the intent to cause grievous harm for Founder's sake! While the Faeries may not have been proper Nobles, they were magic users and would soon be citizens of Tristain. Klein would be well within his writes to demand the child be disciplined.

Deciding that it was simply Faerie strangeness, Louise shook her head. "Why is everyone hiding?"

The woman stood up. "Please, I apologize again for my sons rudeness. My name is Claudia. And to answer your question. All I know is that the alarm was called and the village Chief ordered everyone to stay inside. The attacks have been getting worse every day. Some of the nearest homesteads were ransacked last night."

Slowly, as people realized that the strangers were not there to harm them, doors and windows began to open. An older man, better dressed than the other villagers was the first to step outside and approach Louise."I am Roseau, the Village Chief." The man introduced himself and gave Louise a small bow.

Louise nodded in reply. "Louise de La Valliere." She repeated only her given and family titles. "Did you hear everything?"

"Enough." The man said, stroking his chin. He looked to Klein and Leafa. "I apologize for our in-hospitality, but when you arrived I fear people saw only your wings and were reminded of the little ones that have been at our heels. Had they seen that you were in the company of a Noble, I swear, this would not have happened."

"Eh? It's alright." Klein winced as he rubbed at the back of his head. "He didn't do any permanent damage. I just hope he learns his lesson."

"That he will." The Village chief promised. "Claudia, your son will have to clean out the temple as punishment. Understood?"

"As you wish." Claudia replied gratefully, taking her son and backing slowly away. More of the villagers were beginning to emerge from their homes now. Most were commoners, but Louise spotted at least two who were better dressed. Petty mages. If they weren't native born, it wasn't uncommon for weak dot or line mages to be hired to help a small community.

Murmurs spread among the gathered people as they watched the Faeries warily. Louise couldn't make anything out but she noticed the ears atop KoKo's and Silica's heads pivoting about nervously. Both Faeries looked unhappy with whatever they were hearing. This was to be expected, Louise thought. At the academy, the Faeries had become a common sight, but here in Tarbes they were an unknown. Naturally, the villagers distrusted them.

"So these are the Fae we've been hearing so much about." Roseau said, sizing up Klein and then Leafa. "Quite peculiar people it seems." Both Faeries smiled sheepishly. The Village Chief turned around and began to address the villagers. "Everything is alright. These people were sent to answer our plea for help."

"They've got wings like the little hellions that have been attacking us!" A man near the front of the crowd shouted. "How do we know this isn't a trick?"

"Right, and that one has one on her shoulder!" The muttering amongst the villagers grew louder. The faces examining the Faeries looked unsure, distrustful.

Louise felt her annoyance spike. Country bumpkins suspicious even when a Noble was present. "Listen! These Faeries have been vouched for by the Valliere family and the Crown." She said in her most commanding voice. "We've brought someone who knows about pixies to see what is causing them to attack, and we have strong mages and even a dragon to protect the village while we investigate. Everyone here can rest easy."

"The Noblewoman has spoken." Roseau said, "All of you back to your business, there's no danger here."

Though unhappy, the villagers began to disperse, a few lingering to get a good look at the Faeries before hurrying back to their tasks. In the middle of spring, there would be much to do and the arrival of Louise and Mages and Faeries had kept them long enough.

The Village Chief shook his head tiredly, he seemed to age at least ten years before Louise's eyes. "Again, a thousand pardons, but with news of what has happened elsewhere, and now the monsters attacking us, the first instinct of many of our people is to be fearful of the Fae. I suspect that was the meaning behind Antoine's attack."

"I get it now." Leafa groaned, shaking her head. "Cold iron."

"What?" Klein asked.

"The horseshoe. In stories, Faeries are powerless against iron." Leafa explained, "But I guess it doesn't really work that way."

"I believe Antoine got it in his head to try and ambush you to protect everyone else. He's a good boy, mostly."

"I'd say he's still a pretty good kid." Klein said easily, "After all, he was putting others before himself. Just make sure he learns to think things out a bit more."

The village chief nodded as he continued to look over the group, he gestured cautiously to the pixie on Leafa's shoulder. "Forgive me for asking this. But are you sure that she's safe? The others have been quite vicious and have badly hurt several of our men."

"Yui-chan wouldn't hurt a fly." Leafa insisted, raising a hand to shield the pixie.

"You shouldn't think so ill of one of your countrywomen." Louise declared, although upon thinking about it, she wasn't certain if Yui was in fact considered a member of one of the Fae races for purposes of the treaty. "Just as there are Gallians and Germanians you should have some faith that Faeries can be the same way." Louise was so caught up in what she was saying that she didn't see the grateful looks offered by Leafa and Yui or the nods of approval from the other Faeries.

"I see." The Village Chief said after some thought. "Then I suppose I must accept it. Again, we've been quite terrible in our introductions. If you departed from the academy that must have been quite a journey, even by dragon. Please, come along with me, our village is not wealthy but nor are we poor. wW can certainly spare food and lodgings for people sent to help us. We'll discuss this matter over lunch."

They were taken to the Village Chiefs home, a larger stone and wood building with a roughly cut table set in the shade of a nearby tree. After retrieving Tabitha and Sylphied the group sat down to eat. Lunch turned out to be dark bread and a thick vegetable stew, commoner fair, but a commoner raised on it would certainly have found nothing to complain about. Louise tore at her bread, taking the opportunity to observe the Faeries. Sitting around the table, save for their ears, they seemed so . . . ordinary. They ate just like anyone else would, talking among themselves like friends. Their manners were worse than those of a Noble but better than most commoners, Louise supposed, but that was about all that could be said for them. Yet a ruffian like Klein had happily made peace with a boy that had tried to do him harm and the Sylph woman, Leafa, shied away when Roseau offered her a glass of wine.

"Hey, Louise, why so glum?" Kirche asked, tapping her gently on the shoulder.

"What? I'm not glum. I'm fine, fine!" Louise shook her head and took another bite of bread. "Anyways. We need to get started. You said the Pixies have injured people?"

Roseau nodded gravely. "Yes, two days ago they ambushed one of our men in the fields and badly burned him before others were able to come to his aid. And last night one of the men standing sentry was mauled be one of monsters. It's getting worse every day." The chief laced his fingers together. "At first they were simply a nuisance, they came out of the forests and attacked those in the near fields. But then they began to raid the outlying homes and vineyards, one or two a night, with the help of the others monsters."

"If you don't mind me asking." KoKo spoke up. "Did anyone get a good look at these animals."

"I would have to talk to Gavin, he and his brothers have been keeping watch the last couple of nights, and they are the ones who beat the beast off of Alard. But the ones I've seen for myself were like great blue furred wolves."

"Did they carry anything in their mouths?" KoKo asked, "Like a bit of bone, or a knife?"

"Y-yes. How did you know?" Roseau asked.

"Dagger Dogs." KoKo muttered, "I'm a hunter, its my job to know all about the wildlife in ALfheim. Your man is pretty lucky to be alive."

Roseau nodded seriously, "Thankfully, some of the families of Tarbes have a weak affinity for magic. We save up enough to send the children for basic schooling and most are loyal enough to return here and help their families. Thanks to them we've been able to fight off the attacks so far."

"That's very honorable of them." Louise said sincerely. It wasn't uncommon for commoner families to sire a mage from time to time, though it was more accurate to say that those families had weak magical bloodlines.

If the young mage could afford training they could enter the ranks of the petty nobility, landless mages who worked alongside the common people, practicing trades and performing essential magical tasks. Earth mages would use their talents to construct wells and aquifers and help to rejuvenate overworked fields, while even a weak water mage could become a respectable healer, wind mages most often found work in the skies aboard ships, while fire mages were most frequently blacksmiths or soldiers.

"Your people must really love Tarbes to come back after they receive their education." Louise observed.

The Village Head smiled, "Ah yes, there are those that get a taste for life beyond our village, but most come back, or at least continue to send money home until they settle down themselves. It took quite a lot of convincing to get people to pitch in at first. It's a tradition that was started by my grandfather and uncles you see. Very peculiar men, Foreigners from the east. When they settled in this village, they brought many ideas with them. Some are silly of course, but others have proven their worth. It was one of my uncles who insisted that every man be trained to use a pole-arm and organized into a watch. Having all of the men trained to defend themselves has probably saved more than a few lives these past days."

"It doesn't make any sense." KoKo said. Louise watched the Cait Syth, her ears had flattened against her skull and her eyes were downcast, attention turned inward. "Normally pixies are pretty peaceful. Even if they're agroed they won't normally follow beyond a short distance. And it sounds like they're pushing inward."

"Yes." Roseau agreed. "We've already had to abandon some of the furthest homesteads to the East." The Village chief eyed Yui thoughtfully. On the table the pixie girl had torn lose a piece of bread and was offering it to Silica's dragon. Pina examined the offering for a moment and then gobbled it up without further hesitation. It was hard to imagine anything dangerous when looking at the sweet little girl. "The monsters only come from the direction of the Forest. We tried sending a hunting party to drive them off but they were surrounded and attacked by the monsters in turn."

"Sounds like the mobs are pretty smart." Kirche observed.

"Smarter than they used to be." KoKo agreed. "Klein? Have you heard about anything like this?"

The Salamander took on a contemplative expression. "Afraid not. The mobs we got stuck in into it with were all pretty smart, but it was animal smarts, this sounds like it's planned you know."

"I do know that the monsters that ambushed our hunting party were being ridden by the pixies." Roseau added. "The men who've fought them likened it to a dragoon or cavalryman on his mount."

"That's what Argo was afraid of." KoKo said, noticing that everyone's attention had turned to her she continued. "In ALfheim we called the monsters mobs." She explained for the benefit of the Village Chief.

"Is that because they attack in unruly packs?" Louise asked.

KoKo shook her head. "No actually, its slang from a foreign language in our land. It's short for mobile and refers to the fact that the mobs are independently moving objects. ALfheim was a game, it was entertainment, and the mobs were part of that. I guess you could think of them as very lifelike Golems. There job was to imitate people and monsters for games of make believe. But something happened in the transition." KoKo's ears twitched furiously in time with her racing mind. "It's hard to explain, but ALfheim didn't poses a physical existence in our world."

"It was all illusion magic." Louise supplied, "My mother told me about that." The idea that the Faeries were masters of illusions only made sense.

"Right." KoKo agreed, "Basically all of ALfheim was stored in a very complex spell. Whatever brought us here had to make everything real, otherwise nothing would have appeared. So some of our people think that the summons, or portal, or whatever was smart enough to understand the intent of the things it was transporting and tried to make them as real as possible in this world. That's why our magic works. It also explains why the mobs are acting so unpredictably. They've been turned into real animals."

Louise quailed at the idea of a spell so powerful it could make an illusion real. Nothing human could do that save perhaps the Founder's sacred void. Maybe spirit magic?

"So what does that mean for the pixies?" Klein finished. The salamander stroked his unshaven chin thoughtfully. Suddenly devoid of his buffoonish expressions, the man looked about a hundred times smart, Louise thought.

"Well . . ." KoKo began. "If we assume that mob intelligence is increasing with behavioral complexity, Pixies are near the top of the list. They're one of the few NPCs that had an optional ability to link to Cardinal's Natural Language Engine. In fact, that's why they're so rare. They were incredibly popular in the beta but ate up system resources."

"Natural Language Engine?" Lousie repeated slowly and then shook her head, "Please make sense and don't use your Faerie terms if you can help it."

At the looks of complete confusion on the parts of the Mages, KoKo elaborated. "Sorry. Uhm, think of it as a big library that the some of the mobs could use to create the impression of intelligence. They weren't really intelligent, they just seemed that way because they had lots of knowledge that they could quickly access."

"But they were intended to be intelligent." Silica suddenly spoke up. "So if they were brought to this world they would be among the smartest mobs, right? Maybe even smarter than Pina."

The dragon at Silica's side gave an irritated "Kya!"

"Only a little smarter." Silica apologized.

"That's not good." Leafa said, the Sylph woman's expression grew very serious. "The mobs were already dangerous enough, but if the Pixies are that intelligent, it means that they can plan ahead. Yui, what do you think about all of this?"

The navigation pixie looked up from the seed she had had been nibbling on. "I'm sorry, I can't really say for sure. Originally I was intended to analyze human behavior, so I can't say what the pixies may be like." The girl frowned, "Though the possibility exists that they may posses a mind structure similar to my own."

"In that case, please try to think about what would cause you to act like this." Leafa suggested.

Yui's face scrunched up in concentration and then she shook her head. "I can't think of anything that might make me angry enough to hurt someone." Yui decided and then added uncertainly, "Maybe someone hurting Mama or Papa." She nodded her head slowly. "Un, if I was really desperate, maybe I could get that mad." She looked up worried, "I don't know for sure. I . . . I don't want to know." Louise was sure she saw the pixie girl tremble as she finished speaking.

"And what about if the pixies are like humans." Klein asked. "Lets look at it from both angles."

"Well, in that case, the answer would probably be the same." Yui said with more confidence. "There must be something that's making them act like this."

"For the sake of argument, let's assume the pixies are intelligent." KoKo said. "In that case, what Yui-chan is saying makes sense. They probably aren't strong enough to just overrun the whole village at once. And the people can barricade themselves inside buildings for protection."

"What are you saying?" Kirche asked.

"Scared, desperate, or both." Tabitha finally spoke up, looking up from her book for the first time during the conversation.

"Exactly." KoKo said. "I think that should be the thrust of our investigation. After all, none of the pixies around the World Tree have been acting up. So there must be something in or around Tarbes that's affecting their behavior." The Cait Syth looked over to the village chief. "We'd like your cooperation to speak with everyone in the village, especially anyone who spends time around the forest and people who were involved in the attacks."

Roseau raised a hand, "That is no problem. The people of Tarbes will gladly cooperate with you in ridding us of this menace."

"Hopefully it won't come to that." KoKo replied, shaking her head sadly.

After finishing their lunch, the Faeries and mages broke up into groups to begin the investigation. Tabitha was paired with the tamer Silica and assigned speak to the villagers near the heart of Arrun while Klein and Kirche were sent off to look for clues among the fields near the edge of the forest. That Left Louise to be paired with KoKo and Leafa to speak with the villagers who worked the fields and vineyards nearest to the forest.

As they walked, Louise thought back to the conversation with the Village chief.

"Miss KoKo?" Louise asked.

"Neh?" KoKo glanced over. "You want to ask something?" Large golden eyes observed Louise curiously.

"What did you mean when you said, 'Hopefully it wouldn't come to that?'"

The woman's normally energetic expression drooped and she sighed. "I was thinking. If the Pixies are intelligent then it means they must have a good reason for what they're doing. And if they have a good reason then it means that we can reason with them. I don't want to have to hurt them if I we don't have to."

Louise nodded slowly, that made sense. It went back to Klein's behavior earlier. It was . . . It was like they were following their own code. Louise nodded inwardly, of course, they had their own rules that they obeyed, just like anyone else.

"That's commendable of you." Louise decided. "But if we can't stop them from attacking, what will you do?"

KoKo became very quiet. "I'd try to scare them away first. Get them to move deeper into the forest where they wouldn't come into conflict with the people of Tarbes. Or maybe try to see if the Cait Syth can tame them so that they can be removed peacefully. In ALfheim their taming rate was zero percent, but maybe that won't be the same here."

"Don't worry KoKo-san, I'm sure it won't come to that." Yui said confidently.

Louise looked from the pixie girl to KoKo. "I have another question."

"Okay, shoot." KoKo said.

Louise ignored the strange turn of phrase. "What exactly are pixies?" Louise screwed up her face, "You said they were mobs. So they aren't your children, are they?"

Both Faeries blanched and then suddenly doubled up laughing. What was so funny? "Grr! Stop laughing and answer the question!" Louise stopped, she was being undiplomatic again. "Please."

"We're sorry. It's just a pretty funny question." Leafa wiped a tear from her eye. "Pixies are their own species." Leafa confirmed.

"It's not a funny question." Yui pouted. "After all, I'm a pixie, and I'm still Papa and Mama's daughter."

"You're a special case Yui-chan." KoKo said kindly as she patted the girl's head with her thumb. "From what I hear your Papa and Mama love you lots, so its only natural they'd adopt you." Looking back to Louise KoKo shook her head. "Basically, wild pixies are like little helpers to Yggdrasil, they protect and tend to World Tree and its offshoots. They spawn from a rare species of flower that only buds in the presence of the World Tree or one of its shoots and only blossoms on the night of a full moon. ALfheim lore says that Navigation Pixies are wild pixies that are born from a Yggdrasil Blossom that blooms in captivity."

"Like the difference between a loyal hound and a feral dog." Louise decided, again that made sense.

"Well . . . Not exactly." KoKo said. "But I guess that will do for now."

Most of the afternoon was spent talking with the villagers. As Louise had expected, the presence of a Noble proved essential in order to loosen the tongues of many. The people seemed both curious and mistrustful of KoKo and Leafa and were especially wary of Yui, something that the Pixie girl picked up on and seemed greatly troubled by.

The people of Tarbes were especially proud of their vineyards and tended to them carefully. It was from the villagers who worked furthest afield that they heard about the first sightings of the Pixies. At first the people had been quite at a loss for words upon seeing the small creatures, likening them to winged children. The first few times they had been seen, the Pixies had fled and the worst incident in those first days had been two cases of Pixies being found sneaking into homes, only to be swatted at and shewed away as pests.

Amusement had turned to concern and then alarm when the pixies had launched their first attack, lighting fire to one of the far fields before using the chaos to ransack a nearby homestead. The villagers at first had thought the pixies might be trying to steal things, but save for a handful of sewing implements, nothing was taken from within the house. Animals were left unharmed and larders were untouched.

As the Village Chief had said, the attack had steadily grown in daring and intensity. By the third day the pixies were seen in the company of some sort of large insects the size of a bird. The insects had worked with the pixies to drive the men and women of Tarbes from their fields. While the insects had chewed on the grape vines, the pixies had taken the opportunity to attack two more homesteads and a barn.

"Willow Wasps." KoKo had identified. "You have to be careful, they're not very strong, but their venom is dangerous if you get stung. I brought some anti venom, but lets try not to use it, okay?"

The day after that the Villagers had organized themselves into a proper watch and set up sentries along the edge of the forest, obeying the decades old 'emergency plans' that had been written by the Village Chiefs grandfather. They'd beaten back the next attack, killing several of the willow wasps with the help of the village blacksmith, a dot fire mage, and the Village chief's son, a very weak dot of earth. But none of the pixies were found among the carcasses. They had either all fled or had carried away their dead and wounded.

Louise couldn't miss the way that KoKo winced at the mention of their 'dead.'

The small victory had been short lived. Although no attack had come the next day, by the night after, the Pixies had returned, and this time they brought more powerful monsters in addition to their wasps. The large, aggressive wolves that KoKo referred to as Dagger Dogs. Many villagers had been badly hurt and the villages single water mage was desperately overworked tending to them even now. It had been around this time that word had been sent to the nearest Garrison to plead for help from the Army. With Tristain's tiny peacetime forces, barely more than a border and roadway patrol, stretched dangerously thin clearing the mobs elsewhere, there was little that could be done for a single village. The message had been forwarded on up the chain of command until it had ended up at the Academy, where it had piqued the interest of Lady Sakuya and Princess Henrietta.

The attacks had only gotten worse from their. The pixies switched entirely to night raids and began to attack in larger swarms, using weak fire and wind spells to repel Tarbes' few mages and their Willow Wasps and Dagger Dogs to drive off the commoners. They had began to systematically press inwards, forcing the villagers to flee for safety with friends and family closer to the heart of Tarbes, where the villagers could gather enough men to repel a raid. Since then the village had been under almost nightly attack, the pixies systematically working their way further inwards, wrecking homesteads in their wake.

"It sounds almost like a military campaign." Louise observed as she sat with KoKo and Leafa in the common room of the Village Chiefs home. It was early evening and the room was lit by the soft light of an oil lamp, its polished brass reflector dancing in the light of the flames. It was an incredible luxury for a commoner, and no doubt something brought out by the Chief to show hospitality to his Noble guests. "Like they're trying to dislodge the villagers."

"They're very organized." Leafa agreed, "Actually, they're conducting this almost like a dungeon raid."

"Pushing the villagers back so they won't get surrounded and then systematically leaving you no place to run." KoKo grimaced. "Its a strategy, and they're reacting to everything that the villagers try and then trying things of their own. I think this proves that they're intelligent."

There was a loud knock at the front door before it was swung up by a tired looking Klein and a chipper as ever Kirche. "Hello everyone. How goes the investigation?" Kirche asked.

"Well we learned lots." Louise said, "But . . . It's not really good news."

"Oh yeah?" Kirche asked. "Tell us about it. We didn't find much in the fields, just some insect carcasses the locals missed and some animal tracks. Looks like the Pixies are patrolling the edge of the forest."

"That's about what we expected from what we've seen so far." KoKo sighed, "But why . . . Why are they doing this? The other mobs have retained their dispositions even as their behavior evolves. Is it a sign of their intelligence?" The Cait Syth looked terribly unhappy with all that they had learned.

"Well, there's not much more we can do today. Lights fading as it is." Klein said. "We should probably settle in and get ready. Another attack will probably come tonight, but if the villagers have been holding out it should be pretty easy for us as long as we're careful. Guess we'll take this in shifts."

Tabitha and Silica returned a short while later, Pina clinging to her master's head and Sylphied following behind Tabitha like a lost puppy. The wind drake settled herself down in the garden of the Village Chief's home, resting her head so that she could pear in through an open window.

"We went and saw the village's water mage." Silica reported. "She's really overworked with all of the injured, but she still found time to talk to us." The girl shook her head sadly, "It sounds like its really hard for her. She used to send her daughter with her familiar to go pick reagents out of the forest, but with the pixies attacking she hasn't been able to risk it, and now she's running low on important supplies."

"Well, we'll have to head into the forest tomorrow to investigate." Louise said, tapping her fingers on the table before her. "Maybe we can take her familiar along with us so it can scavenge for reagents." If their healer received fresh supplies it would probably go a long way towards calming the local townspeople. One things was clear, the People of Tarbes had been going through a hellish ordeal these past few days, it was amazing they'd held together so well.

"That sounds like a good idea." Silica agreed, "You don't mind more company, do you Pina?"

"Kya!" The dragon trilled and hopped down from her master's head, coming to rest beside Yui who happily scratched the small dragon behind her ears.

The group began to settle in for the night. Kirche and Klein departed to take first shift along with the villagers while the rest stayed behind to try and get some rest. There wasn't enough room for everyone to bed down in the common room, but the Village chief showed Louise and KoKo to a ladder that led up to a small loft. A pair of cots had been arranged for when the Chief entertained guests on behalf of the village.

"I wish I could offer you better accommodations seeing as you're doing all of this for us." Roseau apologized.

"Its nothing, its nothing." KoKo assured him in her normally cheerful fashion. It reminded Louise a lot of Kirche, but with the innuendo stripped away, it was much less obnoxious and much more inviting. "Honestly, it beats camping out in the wilderness."

"Goodnight then." Roseau said, "Do try to get some rest."

The Faerie and mage took a moment to look over their surroundings. The loft was barren save for the cots and a small windows that let in the light of the full moons. Louise shrugged out of her heavy traveling cloak and allowed it to fall to the floor before kicking off her boots. She glanced to KoKo who had set down her bow and quiver and removed the metal breastplate that she wore, revealing a deep blue shirt of some heavy fabric that contrasted sharply with her light khaki pants.

KoKo was a . . . a hunter. It was a very physical job. Louise thought. KoKo's build reflected this, wiry muscles rippled beneath the tawny skin of the woman's arms and she moved easily, like someone familiar with being encumbered or moving even when tired. It reminded Louise of her mother, and that was no surprise, the physical demands put on a hunter were not so different from those placed on a soldier, a need for endurance and conditioned strength. But Louise could never imagine her mother smiling the way KoKo did, or being so warm to everyone around her. Was this what Cattleya would be like if she were well?

Louise shook her head furiously, what was she thinking? KoKo wasn't a human, she was a Fae, it was ridiculous to think she would be anything like her own sister.

"Something wrong Louise?" The Cait Syth asked.

"No, nothing." Louise shook her head. "I'm tired, so I just want to go to sleep."

"Sounds good." KoKo worked one of her arms up and down. "Guess it's been a long day." KoKo flopped down on her cot. "Like the Chief said, try to get some sleep while you can. We've already had a long day today, and it's only going to get longer tomorrow."

"Right. Good night KoKo."

"G'night Louise." The woman yawned once and rolled over on her side.

Although Louise was tired. As she lay in bed, sleep wouldn't come. She was comfortable enough, even still dressed in her travel clothes. Mother had been right to insist she have them well tailored. The events of the day turned through her head. The Faeries made it sound unusual that the Pixies were intelligent, but that seemed obvious. After all, Yui was a pixie and she was obviously very smart. What else was there? Ah yes, she needed to give the Village Chief Siesta's letter, and oh yes, the reagents, if they couldn't find the ones the village healer needed, Louise supposed that they could send Tabitha and Sylphied to buy them in one of the nearby towns. That left the attacks themselves.

'They attack every night.' Louise thought. There was no reason for tonight to be any different, was there? The thought left Louise unable to sleep. At any second she expected to hear calls and to be shaken awake. She dozen for a time, coming partly alert with a start at every faint noise. Turning on her side, Louise felt the moonlight hitting her full in the face and grimaced, her eyes had adjusted to the dark by now, and in the moonlight there was no way she was going to get any sleep. The youngest Valliere's eyes fluttered open and then she stopped.

Opposite her, KoKo was sitting at her bedside, holding something reverently in her hands. Louise couldn't be sure, but in the moonlight, the woman's face looked wet and her lips seemed to move softly as if speaking to herself.

"Miss KoKo?"

The woman stiffened and quickly looked up. "Oh, Louise-san. I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

Louise shook her head, "No, couldn't sleep."

"Oh." The woman said quietly. "Well, I guess I'm the same then. Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, its fine." Louise said, rubbing at her eyes, "What's that?" She pointed to the object in KoKo's hand. It was small and flat, a little rectangle like a stiff piece of paper.

A painful smile crossed the woman's face and Louise could see that she really had been crying. "Want to see?" She offered. Louise nodded, curious, and KoKo reached over, offering the rectangle to Louise who took it carefully. In the moonlight, Louise could make out that it was a small painting, marvelously detailed, an almost perfect likeness of a little boy. Though Louise couldn't fathom why an artist would paint a child in such simple clothes, a red shirt and a pair of short blue pants that ended above the knee.

"It's a photograph. I imported it into ALfheim to decorate my apartment in Arrun." KoKo said.

"Who's this?" Louise asked.

"His name's Daisuke." KoKo said softly. "In our language his name comes from two symbols that mean 'big' and 'helpful' and he's always been a big help to me. He just turned seven. He's my son."

Louise frowned a little, "He doesn't look much like you." She said carefully, in fact, he looked to be an ordinary, if foreign, human child.

KoKo nodded, "I know. I don't really look like this where we come from. That's part of our illusion magic." KoKo said softly as she reached up to touch one of her ears. "Actually, I'm pretty ordinary in that world."

Louise's mother had told her about that too. Although the Fae claimed to be human in that other world, they clearly were not in Halkegenia, and there mannerisms were so strange as to be easier to think of them as an entirely different race. A fiction that both peoples tacitly accepted. But holding this little portrait, Louise wondered about that. The idea that KoKo had a child, somehow made the Faerie sitting across from her more real. She wasn't just a curiosity, she was a whole other life. What did KoKo really look like? Did she have dark hair like her son? Were her eyes shaped like so?

"He's beautiful." Louise said politely as she handed the portrait back carefully. "You're very lucky."

"Thank you." KoKo smiled. "I think so too."

There was an uncomfortable silence that Louise felt a need to fill. "Maybe I'll have a chance to meet him when we return to Arrun." She said carefully and then stopped as she saw KoKo close her eyes and suck in a small breath. "Oh." Louise said, she suddenly understood. "He's not here . . . He's not in Halkegenia, is he?"

KoKo shook her head slowly. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be talking about such things. It's rude for me to reveal my problems. Please don't worry about it."

"You miss him a lot, don't you?" Louise asked. It was so obvious that KoKo loved her son, she couldn't imagine what it must feel like not to be at his side. Louise had heard about noble women who had pined away after their children were killed in battle, it was a common tragedy in novels. She'd never believed it until now. Her only basis for comparison was her own mother, and the Duchess was far too strong to ever let something like that affect her, Louise knew.

"Every day." KoKo agreed and smiled bravely. "But Moms have to be tough. How else can we protect little ones?"

Louise hesitated before replying, recalling her own mother. "I'm sure you'll find a way back to him."

"Really? You think so?" KoKo asked as she squeezed her eyes shut, "I pray for that every night."

Pray? "Who do Faeries pray to?" Louise asked, she didn't know anything about the Fae or what heathen spirits watched over them, but it seemed like the right question to ask.

"I don't know." KoKo admitted, "God, Buddha, Cardinal-sama, the rice gods, anyone who might listen. But mostly I just pray to the World and hope one day it will answer. There has to be a way for us to go home."

Louise frowned at the Cait Syth's answer, feeling worry worming its way into her stomach. "But what about all the chaos that you've caused here? Tristain is relying on the Faeries to help fight back all of the Mobs, and your cities have caused problems for all of the Nobles and commoners." It wasn't that Louise didn't sympathize with KoKo, but Tristain was her home, just as much as KoKo wanted to return to her own homeland, Louise wanted hers to be safe too.

"I don't mean that we'll just abandon Tristain." KoKo said quickly. "We've caused a lot of trouble just existing in this world. We'll help like Lady Alica and Lady Sakuya promised. And I think that even if we do find a way home, there are people who will want to stay and continue to help out. I think some people would rather stay here as Faeries and leave their troubles in that other world behind." KoKo smiled sheepishly. "I guess I can understand the appeal. Honestly, I'm not anything special in that other world. I can't fly, or fight, or use magic. In fact, I can't even use a bow very well, even though I was in archery club. I'm just Daisuke's mother. But that's okay."

Louise wanted to laugh bitterly. KoKo spoke as if not being able to use magic was such a trivial thing. One thing Louise knew for certain was that all of the Faeries were mages of at least dot level. Didn't KoKo realize what a boon it was to be born a mage? To have become a mage in this world? But it hadn't brought KoKo any happiness because there were things that mattered more to her, Louise realized.

'Why do I want to be mage? What is precious to me?'

The answers were obvious enough, Louise thought, she wanted her mother's approval, her family's approval, and she wanted to repay all of Cattleya's kindness. Her elder sister had never asked for a thing from Louise save that she be happy, but that made Louise all the more desperate not to disappoint her. Cattleya had offered her something more than just love and kindness, she'd given Louise her trust, her complete faith in her little sister.

'Its not about magic . . . Its about what I can do with that magic.' Louise thought. 'No, its not even about what I can do with magic . . . Its . . . Its about what I can do, period.'

"I think you're pretty amazing, even if your just your son's mother, Miss KoKo." Louise said gently. "There's lots of strong nobles who are despicable, and there are even commoners who work hard and become Chevalier. You're first thought was to help people." The youngest Valliere blinked repeatedly at what she had just said.

"That's . . . Very kind of you, Louise-san." KoKo wiped her eyes and her smile grew more sincere.

"I've wanted to ask. But what sort of word is 'san'?" Louise said, "You use it on everyone's names, or chan when you're talking to Leafa or Yui or that other one with Klein. Is it some sort of title?"

"Neh? N-no, nothing like a title. Well I guess, maybe. San is just a polite form added to the end of a person name. Chan and Kun are affectionate forms used for children and friends."

"I see." Louise said. Getting up, Louise walked over to KoKo and placed a hand on the woman's shoulder. "I'm sorry about everything."

KoKo shook her head. "You don't have to apologize Louise. It's not your fault after all. It's like a hurricane or a tsunami, we all just got swept along. It's nobodies fault, not really." The woman shook her head, "But that's enough about me. Are you sure you aren't having any problems? You said you couldn't sleep."

Louise bit her lip. "Its nothing. I've always had a hard time sleeping by myself in a new place." That was true, of course it wasn't the complete truth, but Louise wasn't about to admit that she was a little frightened that something might happen tonight.

"Hmm. Why not sleep here?" KoKo patted her cot invitingly.

"What? N-next to you?" Louise stuttered.

"Sure." KoKo nodded, "We're both thin, so it's not a big problem, right?"

"I . . . I d-" Louise didn't make it any further before she was enfolded in warm arms, very much like a Cattleya hug. Pulled close to the Faerie, Louise felt hot breath tickling her neck, and a faint saltiness, less like sweat and more like the ocean on a warm day.

"Thanks, Louise-chan. You're a good kid. Sorry for weighing you down with my troubles." KoKo whispered.

"No, that's alright, its perfectly normal." Louise said, "Yes, normal, perfectly normal." Absolutely, it was completely normal to comfort a Faerie with cat ears while investigating a wild Pixie invasion in a little back country village. Louise thought sarcastically.

But as she lay down beside KoKo and felt the woman embracing her protectively, the mother seeking a child, and the child seeking a mother's warmth. Louise thought, it was a really nice 'Normal'.


	35. Chapter 11 Part 3: Yui Alone

Halkegenia Online-Chapter 11-Part 3

'Must remain focused'. Tabitha thought. 'Must, remain, focused.'

As a Gallian Chevalier, Tabitha had developed the skills and qualities expected of a Knight. Superior magical ability, agility, mental and physical fortitude far beyond that of all but the most dedicated soldiers. Her small body concealed far more strength than most would expect and she had only been toughened further by her journeys.

Instructed to take on only the most dangerous missions, each time expected to fail, Tabitha had trained herself ceaselessly as a battle mage. Willpower reserves that nearly reached the rank of square and a mixed air and water affinity of triangle level that she had learned to wield in lethal combination, had been combined with a relentless determination and ability to remain focused, utilizing her magic to its limit in even the most brutal and unforgiving environments.

'Focused!'

She began to read the next line. 'What have, and hey by hearth of heart . . .' She heard the softy laughter once more and couldn't help it, she glanced up.

"Pina, stop it!" Silica giggled as her familiar affectionately licked her cheek and let out another small cry like her own Sylphied in miniature. Tabitha ducked her head back down. 'Focus'

Tabitha had put away childish things long ago. Faerie tales were pleasant lies, happy endings weren't, and most of all, cute was meaningless.

"Hey Tabitha-san?" Silica asked.

Tabitha looked up slowly, carefully keeping her book leveled to conceal her blushing cheeks, the ears were twitching again, what to do? "Yes?"

"Is your book good, you've been reading it all day. You must be almost done."

"Near the beginning." Tabitha Replied and then added. "It's good." In fact, she would have been done if she didn't keep getting distracted.

Silica sank back down, legs folded beneath her, they were both seated on the floor, sharing a feather mattress as they prepared for bed. The elder Faerie, Leafa, had removed her corset and coat and now sat cross legged beside Silica, a light blanket thrown over her shoulders, watching the antics of Pina and Silica with some amusement. The Pixie, Yui, had situated herself atop Pina, laying against the comfortable down feathers of the dragon's undercoat.

"If you don't mind telling us, what's it about?" Silica asked, tilting her head to the side.

Tabitha twitched, it was like, a cat, a kitten she had had in happier times. It was almost too much. 'You are a Chevalier.' Tabitha thought. 'You will not be defeated.'

"Comedy." Tabitha replied, "About a Squire."

"A squire?" Silica asked, looking thoughtful. "Those people who work for Knights?"

"Yes." Tabitha said, weighing her options carefully before she decided to continue. "He falls in love with his master's daughter and has to hide it."

The story was an old Gallian Tale, often retold, the Squire who had served his Knight dutifully, fell in love with his master's fair daughter and went to great lengths to conceal his interest lest his master grow furious with him. Meanwhile, the Knight, who had always thought highly of his Squire and intended to put his name forward for Knighthood, bemoaned the fact that no reliable men had shown interest in his daughter. The Squire and Knight's daughter got up to increasingly contrived schemes to avoid being discovered by the Knight who would no doubt happily welcome their union. Tabitha was only now at the part where the Knight was wondering if his Squire, who was careful to show no interest in his daughter, was perhaps a eunech, that part always got a laugh when the story was told on stage.

"Oh. We have stories like that where we're from." Silica said. "I wish I had some of my books from home, it'd be fun to read them and compare."

"The Arrun central library has complete printouts of the project Gutenberg library." Yui supplied. "There's lots and lots of good stories in their."

Tabitha perked up a little, wondering what Fae stories were like, it was a nice distraction. "Fae Stories?" Tabitha asked.

"Un", Yui nodded. Standing up on silica's back she started to gesticulate wildly. "Like the Wizard of Oz, and Treasure Island, or the Count of Monte Cristo!"

"Those are all western stories though." Silica said, "What about Eastern fiction."

"Hmm, I'm not really sure, I just read part of the card catalog while waiting for Papa."

"Oh." Silica said, "I'll have to check it out when we get back to Arrun, why don't you come too Tabitha-san?"

"Come too? To the Library?" Looking at Silica, it was tempting, oh so very tempting. She shook her head, "Don't read Faerie Runes."

"Well I can't read Tristanian either." Silica said, and then brightened up. "Why don't we teach other?"

"Teach?" Tabitha asked.

"Un." Silica nodded, "You know, I was a pretty good tutor back in grade school, I helped the other students all the time." She smiled, "Though, I'm a little behind right now because of . . . Of sickness. So I'm sure I could teach you how to read Japanese, and you can teach me Tristanian." The girl looked so excited at the idea, how could she say no?

Tabitha looked down at her book, she couldn't hold out much longer, quick, diversion. "Have to go to the academy. This book is too complicated to teach with." Tabitha said softly.

"That's alright." Silica offered kindly. "Maybe you could read it aloud to us instead?"

Tabitha felt heat rushing to her cheeks, the girl was so . . . so cute . . . and so gently insistent. Tabitha closed her book slowly. She stared at Silica, Silica starred back expectantly.

Tabitha swallowed. "Okay."

"Really?!" Silica brightened, "Leafa-san, do you want to listen to?"

"I think I'd like that. I'm not very tired yet, and the story sounds like fun." The Sylph woman smiled kindly.

"One thing first." Tabitha said quickly.

"Oh? What is it?" Silica asked.

Tabitha raised her hands slowly and then asked in a voice that could barely be heard, "Can I . . . Touch them?" Her eyes were fixed firmly on the two triangular ears atop Silica's head. They were . . . so cute.

Silica reached up and probed the top of her head curiously and then just nodded. "That's okay, just be gentle, they're a little sensitive."

Slowly, cautiously, Tabitha reached up and gently took the tip of each ear between a thumb and index finger. The fur was as soft as down and very warm. Silica stiffened, eyes going wide and then relaxed. Her eyes grew hooded and she sank down into a comfortable position. A strange sound came from the girl, not a groan, but something deep and gravelly from within her chest. It also made Tabitha let go in surprise, she was . . . purring.

"Are you okay Silica-chan?" Leafa asked with a hint of worry.

"It's fine." Yui said, smiling, "She just really likes it."

"Un." Silica said, smiling faintly, "But it's making me sleepy, and I still want to hear Tabitha-san reading."

With a small sigh, Tabitha let go and picked up her book and made herself comfortable. The room was almost completely dark, but enough light was cast by the oil lamp to comfortably read by. Silica and Leafa scooted closer. Silica's dragon curling up in her master's lap and leaning her head against Tabitha's leg while Yui lay down on the dragon's back.

"A Cordial Engagement, Act One." Tabitha read slowly and thin flipped to the first page.

"Come here Squire, though I love you as a son and see what foolery is this today?"

"It be great foolishness, Sire."

"And is this foolishness over humor or tragedy?"

"Perhaps of both, Sire . . ."

That night, Tabitha read to someone else for the first time since she was child, since she had been Charlotte. The Faeries listening closely. They laughed when the squire first realized that the woman he was courting was the Knight's daughter, and they nearly pulled their hair out when the Squire was left hanging by a bed sheet from the window of the daughter's room. When they reached the eunech scene, Tabitha was surprised to see that while Silica rolled with laughter, Leafa turned beat red, perhaps the woman wasn't as forward as her appearance indicated.

They continued from there through the ever more hilarious and contrived series of events, each one challenging the Squire's daring and nearly killing him, only to be saved at the last moment by some circumstance or another. The Faeries leaned in as they reached the climax, the Knight finding his Squire dressed his daughter's habit. Being unable to wed her, the Knight had planned to send his daughter to a convent and Squire and daughter had hatched one last ill conceived ploy which had finally revealed their scheming to the Knight, thus bringing the story full circle to its beginning where it was indeed declared a comedy.

Tabitha realized as she read, throat soar from talking more than she had in ages, that she was happy. The only other person she could say that with was Kirche.

She was just about to begin the last act, where the Squire readied himself for what he thought would be his execution but was actually a hastily arranged wedding, which of course were much the same thing as the Knight explained, when the sound of the church bell rolled through the window. The warm happy Tabitha who had briefly revealed herself was hidden back away and the Chevalier Tabitha closed her book and rose up calmly.

"What is it?" Leafa asked, but she already knew and went about quickly preparing herself along with Silica. A loud thunk came from the hallway as KoKo dropped down from the loft, Louise following slowly down the ladder.

"Sounds like they're here." KoKo said.

"An attack!" The Village Chief, Roseau appeared in the doorway. "The signal bells are coming from the eastern homsteads.

"So whats the plan?" Leafa asked, checking that she had her sword secured.

"Klein and Kirche will be with the Sentries nearest the forest." KoKo said. "They're probably already fighting."

"So we need to go and help them." Louise said, rubbing at her eyes.

"Tabitha-san." KoKo said, "Get into the air with Sylphied, we've got full moons tonight so you should be able to see pretty well, keep an eye out for a second attack. The Pixies have used diversions more than once already. Leafa-chan, you're with me, we'll go to back up Klein and Kirche or whoever else needs our help. Silica-chan I want you to stay here and keep an eye on Louise-chan and Yui-chan."

"Hey, I don't need special protection!" Louise reddened. Tabitha shook her head inwardly, 'Yes you do', she thought. Louise had some minimal training, she knew how to keep her head down and pay attention to her surroundings, when she wasn't fuming. But it was clear that she was still a novice and certainly not a fighter.

KoKo smiled as she hefted her bow, "Oh? But you're our diplomat, Louise-chan. After all, you're the only Tristanian we brought with us. We can't let anything happen to you." The Cait Syth gave a small wink. "So stay here and keep a watch over the Village Chief, okay?"

Louise's expression soured, but thankfully the youngest Valliere Daughter agreed.

Tabitha was out the door and atop Sylphied in a heartbeat, the Rhyme Dragon in perfect tune with her partner. "Let's go, Irukwuku." Tabitha whispered under her breath. The dragon let out her shrill cry and broke into a trot, beating her wings once, twice, and taking flight over the low homesteads of the village, following the Faeries into the night sky.

_

"Kirche, switch!" Klein shouted, leaping back as another Dagger Dog took a swipe at him with a stolen knife. The creature was the size of a large wolf, with a sleek blue furred body. Its head terminated in a narrow dexterous muzzle that possessed considerable bite strength. Even so, this particular mob preferred to pick up dropped knives and swords and use them for crude slashing attacks, or if no forged weapons were available, would create its own by crudely sharpening bits of bone or flint. This one wasn't so unfortunate and wielded a wickedly sharp knife that glinted in the moonlight.

The Dog's had appeared as if from nowhere. One minute Klein had been talking with a couple of the Tarbes sentries, and the next he was readying himself as he caught sight of the first mob erupting from the forest and making a straight line for the homesteads. A pack of five Dogs and at least a dozen of the Willow Wasps, most of which shot straight overhead without slowing down. And then Klein and the fire mage at his back had been too busy fighting the mobs that were right in front of them to worry about where the rest were headed.

The Dagger Dog growled viciously as it watched Klein. A jet of flame licked out towards the mob causing it to leap back before curving its spine and hunching down in readiness for an attack. "How was that, Darling?" Kirche called from her position off to Klein's left. Between himself and Kirche there was nothing to fear from this solitary mob, but the problem was . . . More growling and high pitched cries came from the direction of the fields, three more Dagger Dogs stocked forwards out of the shadows of the forest.

'No good.' Klein thought. These guys were only dangerous to him as long as he was grounded, but retreating to the skies would leave the Village sentries vulnerable and he wasn't good enough with magic to offer much support from the air. Kirche could probably torch the wolves, but that had its own problems, they couldn't risk burning the fields to the ground. Settling into a wide set guard, he made ready for the next attack, watching each of the Dogs carefully. 'Remember, their tells and attack patterns aren't consistent, you'll just have to predict it as best you can . . .' The one time samurai narrowed his eyes. 'There!'

The lead Dog rushed followed a split second later by the Dog to its left. They were going to try to attack one after another so so that Klein wouldn't be able to guard both strikes. That would have been dangerous in SAO, or if he was grounded, but that wasn't the case. Klein let the Dogs get close and then kicked off, rocketing upwards on the power provided by his wings. He easily cleared the charging mobs, coming down behind them and rushing the Dog that had hung back as the others circled back around.

The rear Dagger Dog hunched down and raced out to meet him. Klein's Katana flashed out, he felt the blade make contact with flesh and heard the sharp yelp as the mob cried out in pain. Even now he couldn't get used to the sound and the sensation. He didn't think he ever would. 'Now, onto the other ones.' The first Dog had backed away and was circling around cautiously to Klein's right.

"Klein, a little help!" Kirche called. Glancing over his shoulder Klein cursed. He'd expected the other two Dogs to come back after him, but instead they had broken for Kirche. They shouldn't have been too much trouble for a skilled mage, but as Klein watched, the flame whip that Kirche had summoned to protect herself washed over a pale blue, hemispherical barrier, leaving the mobs unharmed. Klein searched quickly and soon spotted what he was looking for. About ten meters off the ground, the fat bodies of a pair of Willow Wasps were hovering along with a half dozen tiny glimmering pairs of wings.

"Kirche, above you, Pixies!" And then Klein was too busy guarding as the first dagger Dog saw its opening and rushed in.

Kirche for her part was badly pressed holding back both the mobs and the supporting pixies. The tiny creatures were too far away for Kirche to make out anything but the pale glow of their wings. But as she watched, each of the pixies was surrounded by a glowing series of runes. She'd seen Faerie magic often enough to know what was next. A half dozen small fireballs jetted forth, each no bigger than a balled fist, and Kirche quickly brought her wand up to guard. Fortunately, the pixies hadn't figured out how to overwhelm the defenses of a human mage, so instead of staggering their attacks, they came all at once, making it trivial for Kirche to block them with her own spell. The magically conjured fire was swallowed up and hurled back in Kirche's own fireball a moment later, causing the pixies to scatter.

With a brief reprieve from the pint sized mages, Kirche turned her attention back to the Dagger Dogs that were at her heels only to find that they were already being dealt with.

"That's it! Just like grandfather taught us!" A broad shouldered farmer cried as he and his fellow villagers advanced, wielding their halberds like novices, but well practiced novices. As Kirche watched, the men of Tarbes split into two groups of five and began to surround the Dogs, brandishing their pole-arms menacingly. The Mobs were forced back. A soft high pitched clicking emanated from both Dogs and they glanced to one another and then to Klein who was just finishing with the first Dog, having finished it with a single stroke to the throat. The mobs turned about and ran, cutting across the fields and heading straight back for the forests.

The men of Tarbes made to pursue, but before they made it more than a half dozen steps, a dozen little lights flickered to life in the sky and rained fist sized fireballs down upon them. The blasts were poorly aimed and not terribly powerful, Kirche thought, but still dangerous. A lucky strike might kill, even a glancing hit would badly burn someone. Kirche released a tongue of flame from the tip of her wand and directed it towards the nearest Pixie caster, watching the tiny pair of wings flitting about, desperately attempting to dodge. She didn't try to hard to hit the Pixie and simply moved on to the next, and the next, grazing one of the buzzing Willow Wasps in the process. More importantly she kept the Pixies distracted and unable to keep up their attack.

"Everyone retreat." Klein ordered, "You did a good job with the other mobs, but leave the pixies to us!" However, no sooner had the words left the Salamanders mouth, then the pixies began to disperse. "Hey, come back here and fight someone a hundred times your own size damn it!"

As soon as the attack had come, it had ended, leaving Kirche and Klein, and the men of Tarbes standing in the middle of a suddenly quiet field. Even the night insects were still, shocked into silence by the sudden brief battle that had taken hold in the field.

"Kyuui!" Klein looked up to see the serpentine shape of Tabitha's dragon circling high above, the green and yellow wings of Leafa and KoKo glowing in the moonlight as they descended. The Pixies had probably decided the fight wasn't going to go their way with reinforcements.

"Klein!"

"Oy, you're a little late to the party." Klein said.

"We got here as fast as we could." Leafa defended, eyes scanning the forest. "Only one attack?"

"There will be more." One of the farmers said. "Usually they strike all over before concentrating for a final attack. Thanks for your help so far. We would have been hard pressed on our own."

"Well, the next attacks should come pretty quick then." Klein wiped the gore from his Katana and sheathed the weapon. "They've already lost the element of surprise."

No sooner had he finished speaking then the sound of distant bells filled the air. "Marvelous powers of perception, darling." Kirche said in a sweet dripping voice that Klein couldn't tell if it was sincere or sarcastic.

"Uhm, thanks?" Klein rubbed at the back of his head.

"That's coming from the far north." One of the villagers said, "We haven't stationed many sentries in that direction."

"Lucky we've got wings." Klein replied as his own materialized with barely a thought. "Kirche, there's no telling if those mobs will double back. You going to be okay with these guys?"

"Leaving already?" Kirche pouted, "Well, if you insist, I can hold my own own all night if that's the worst these little pixies have." The fire mage gave a confident toss of her hair.

"Just hurry back when you're finished, okay?"

"R-right." Klein said, feeling very unsure.

Klein fell in with Leafa and KoKo, streaking over the scattered village homesteads and fields while cursing to himself. It was like one of those flat panel video games where the hero had to run around guarding different parts of the base, only they didn't have the luxury of memorizing the enemy attack patterns and then hitting restart. A homestead was already on fire in the distance, the pixies were burning the villagers out of the relative safety of their barricaded homes. From the air he could women and children being pursued by more Dagger Dogs.

"Leafa, with me." Klein shouted, diving towards the first Dog.

"KoKo!" Leafa shouted as she followed.

"I'm on it!" The Cait Syth killed her forward momentum, spreading her wings to steady herself, and swiftly notched an arrow, taking careful aim as she hovered in the skies above. The first kill went to the hunter as she put a steel headed arrow through the back of the first Dog's skull. The others scattered immediately, diving to the sides and spinning about, their prey forgotten in the face of this new threat.

At his side, Klein caught the faint glow of the runes encircling Leafa as she recited the words of a spell. The girl's hand reached forward and though he could barely see any effect, a loud, vicious hiss emanated from her hand. On the ground bellow, one of the remaining Dogs yelped in surprise as blood sprayed across its fur. The mob stumbled back, hurt and frightened by the Sylphs attack. The remaining two Dogs closing ranks on their wounded comrade.

Seeing the animals acting so compassionately towards one another didn't make this any easier, a small part of Klein thought. He hit the ground, bringing his Katana down in an overhead swing that would have cleaved the head of one of the Dog's in two if it hadn't backed off. Leafa set down at his side and then pushed off again, skimming close the ground as she went after the other remaining uninjured Dog.

Klein blocked as the Dog in front of him reared and launched a vicious slash with the dagger it held in its teeth. The animal might have been smart and dexterous enough to slash and block with a blade, but its body simply wasn't built to properly wield the weapon. The Dog was too clumsy to strike with anything but the edge of its weapon, causing the blade to chip and crack with each strike. That was part of why Dagger Dogs, while dangerous to beginner players and possessing fairly high level stats, were not a very great threat one on one to a skilled player.

Off to the side, Klein could see a pair of pixie wings landing beside the wounded Dagger Dog. Runes floated in the air and the mob was suffused in a faint green glow. Slowly, the wounded Dog staggered to its feet whimpering softly and began to limp away. Klein pressed forward, driving the attacking Dog off of him with a kick to its exposed stomach. No sooner was he back in his guard then there was a flash of light and electrical tingling washed over him.

"Klein!" Blinking his eyes rapidly, the swordsman found himself on his back looking up to see Leafa leaning over him, a concerned look gracing her face. Now that was a new one, a woman showing him unambiguous concern. 'Damnit, why'd you have to go and be Kirito's sister.' Klein lamented inwardly as he shook the buzzing from his head.

"It's just a stun spell." KoKo said over her shoulder. The hunter stood beside them, another arrow notched and ready, a second readied between her thumb and index finger. Her ears were pivoting about like miniature radar arrays as she listened for any more trouble. Just as with the previous attack, this one had ended as soon as the Pixies and their mobs met resistance. 'So another diversion.' Klein thought as he stood. The actual stun effect had only lasted for a few seconds, but as with everything IRL, status effects didn't just wear off instantly, he felt like he was coming off an ear infection.

In the distance, Klein could see villagers running towards the burning homestead, men carrying halberds, and women and older children running with buckets, desperate to save their homes and more importantly, stop the fire before it spread to the nearby fields.

"This is strange." KoKo said, lowering her bow.

"What?" Klein asked, the ringing in his ears had finally stopped.

"They set fire to the building and ran. So this was definitely a diversion . . . But they stayed around to fight."

Klein frowned, "Maybe they wanted to ambush the villagers when they came to fight the fire."

KoKo shook her head, "No, they couldn't have been expecting us. I think maybe they were trying to draw more sentries this direction. Klein, can you fly up and tell Tabitha to head towards the south side of the village?"

"Sure thing." Klein said, catching on immediately. The pixies had been trying to pull the sentries out of position by starting a fight here. So they probably had another attack planned. It was a simple strategy, but effective. The smoke from the fire would probably serve as the signal.

"While we wait, I'm going to see if I can do anything for the injured." Leafa said.

"Wait up, I know a few first aid spells" KoKo added. Klein took a few experimental hopes to reassure himself that the stun status effect had completely faded, and then made his way up towards Tabitha and her circling dragon. Before he made it however, he heard the distant sound of more bells, and the church bell was ringing again. From the sky, Klein could easily localize the source of the alarm, gaze scanning until he settled on . . . 'Shit!' A gout of flame appeared in the village square, bathing the surrounding buildings in alternating stripes of orange light and shadow. The pixies had finally grown impatient, they'd gone for the heart of the village.

_

After the others had rushed to the aid of the villagers, leaving Louise, Silica, and Yui to stand guard, all had been quiet save for the distant ringing of bells and the faint shouts as villagers rushed from their homes to help. The women and children were urged to stay inside while the men took up arms and made ready in the square. Silica stood beside Louise, her familiar clinging to her shoulder, watching the distant fields where the fighting was taking place even now. The young Cait Syth looked anxious, worried for her friends who had gone off to fight. Every time there was a loud noise, the ears on her head would pivot, tracking the source and her hand would make for her dagger.

Louise for her part felt useless, although what KoKo had said was true, she knew it was just a polite way for the Cait Syth to keep her out of danger. She couldn't blame KoKo, she wasn't a battle mage, she was barely a mage. She could defend herself well enough, probably, with her explosions, but little more than that. Louise had looked to Silica, thinking that she might be able to at least comfort the younger girl, only to find Silica's face set in a mask of grim concentration. On any other child it would have looked adorable, especially one possessing a pair of large cat's ears, but in Silica it was off putting, it wasn't just an act, this was all part of her. Louise recalled her speculation from that morning that Silica was like Tabitha, her stature and appearance concealing her true ability.

"It's okay, Louise-san, Leafa-chan and the others are really strong, they can protect everybody" Yui said confidently from her position on Silica's shoulder opposite Pina.

"I'm not worried about them." Louise shook her head. "I just think I should be out their too . . . helping."

The pixie girl gave a small nod of understanding. "I know how you feel." Yui tilted her head curiously. "But you've already helped a lot, Louise-san. There are things that only you can do. And this is what Leafa-san and Klein-san came along for. Its what they can do, so don't worry about it."

Louise nodded slowly at the peculiar statement. The pixie seemed so much like a child, and then she would say something like that.

"Fear not for your safety Miss Valliere." The Village Chief assured at her side. "Your friends and allies are doing us a great service. The least we can do it keep you safe in turn."

"I hardly need the protection of commoner villagers." Louise snapped and then stopped, "I mean . . . It is a gracious offer, but I can see to myself."

"I have no doubt, Miss Valliere." The Village Chief replied. "But please, I merely meant to reassure you. You are our honored guest Miss Valliere, please remember that."

"O-of course." Louise said, feeling rather unsure of herself.

Smoke began to rise from the North and shouts of alarm spread through the gathered villagers. Something had set fire to one of the homes, or worse, one of the fields, for the village, such an event would be a disaster. Some of the sentries broke ranks and began to run towards the fields followed closely by some of the village's women folk and children.

The Village Chief allowed about half to go before shouting for the rest of the men to stay.

"But Chief, if the fields burn our village is lost!"

"And you know what devious creatures the pixies are." Roseau snapped back, grimacing, "They set light to one field and will only use it as a distraction to burn another, or to ransack our homes. Calm yourself Gavin."

"Y-yes, Chief." The man replied, leaning against the shaft of his pole-arm anxiously.

Both Silica and her dragon piqued up as one. "What's that noise?"

"Noise?" Roseau asked, "Do you hear something Miss Silica?"

"Un." Silica nodded, "Like, buzzing, no its too low for that."

"I sense it too." Yui said from Silica's shoulder, the little girl had closed her eyes and her face was a mask of perfect concentration. "Its coming from the East . . . And from the South too. Mobs!"

The Village Chief bit out a curse. "They've never come this far into Tarbes before. Get the women and children back inside!"

"Everyone get ready!" Silica shouted.

"Miss Valliere?" Roseau asked.

"I shall stay here." Louise replied, taking up her wand. Though she could still only manage explosions, her aim had improved vastly over the past days. And, glancing to the Cait Syth girl who had already readied herself. As a Noblewoman of Tristain, Louise could hardly do any less. At the edge of her hearing Louise finally made out the buzzing that Silica had mentioned, a low deeply rumbling that filled the air.

The villagers looked around cautiously, hefting their weapons uncertainly. The villager who had spoken earlier, Gavin, seemed the most calm, perhaps he had been conscripted into service in the past. Louise thought.

The source of the noise became visible and Louise fought to keep down an instinctive sense of revulsion. The . . . Things were like giant insects, wings the size of those of a pigeon, but with bodies larger than a carrion bird. Their heads were large, almost entirely covered in hard black eyes, mouths terminating in a wicked set of mandibles. The body was divided into a tiny midsection, barely more than a place for the creature's legs and wings, while the thorax was a bulbous, swollen, striped ovoid of armored chitin ending in a hysterically large stinger.

"Willow Wasps!" Silica shouted, "They're venomous! Don't let them sting you!"

That would be easier said then done, there were at least a dozen of the nightmarish creatures, and as Louise watched they began to encircle the villagers, darting in an out menacingly. Gavin roared and threw himself at one of the low flying insects, only for his halberd to be blocked by a translucent blue barrier.

'Magic!' Louise looked around but she couldn't see any sign of the pixies at first. Then, looking more closely at the Willow Wasps, she caught sight of a tiny pair of wings sitting just behind the head of each insect. From this distance, she couldn't tell for sure, but they looked almost like miniature knights in glistening black armor that glinted in the light of the moon. They . . . They were dragoons, little pixie dragoons!

The Wasp that Gavin had taken a swing at spun away, emitting a loud, angry buzz before charging back towards the man, extending its stinger forward. Louise remembered Silica's warning. Even if the stinger wasn't very large as weapons went, it was still dangerous. Raising her wand Louise thought up the shortest spell she knew and channeled as much willpower as she could into a simple 'holy light' chant. The effects were . . . Immediate.

One moment the wasp was closing on Gavin, the next it was engulfed in a cloud of fire and smoke before plummeting from the sky, twitching feebly as it hit the ground. The villagers moved in to finish the job, hacking at the creature with their halberds, cracking its exoskeleton and taring away at its guts. Louise saw a tiny shape flit away, the rider fleeing from its doomed mount.

Satisfaction at her success turned to horror as three of the remaining wasps broke from the rest and closed in under the direction of their pixie riders. Louise let loose with another aimed explosion but the Wasps and Pixies were on to her now and weaved about furiously to throw off her aim.

"Louise, run!" A brown haired blur in a blue coat truck the first wasp fall on, dagger sinking smoothly into the seam between the thorax and abdomen. The Wasp let out a sharp buzzing keen as Silica withdrew her dagger and kicked off in midair, sending the stricken wasp crashing to the ground just as she landed neatly beside Louise.

Coming to her master's aid, Pina dove from the sky, shrieking an angry challenge at the Wasps and their riders. Louise couldn't imagine what the little fuzzball expected to do against the vicious looking insects. She found out a moment later as Pina opened her mouth. Many species of dragons had breath attacks, most infamously fire dragons, but also the whale dragons that inhabited the seas with their natural hydro cutters, and various species of land bound dragon which were known to spit poison.

This still left Louise unprepared when the first bubble burst forth from the small dragon's throat followed by another and another. It was like, it was like the clever little device that the servants brought out during Spring time parties, a little rotating mechanism of hand cranked fans and forms that was fronted by a reservoir of soapy water. A shower of small bubbles emanated from the little dragon's throat surrounding the Wasps before bursting. Louise watched, at first there seemed to be no effect, but then, the Wasps began to stagger drunkenly, plummeting from the sky, twitching.

"Thanks Pina." Silica said, extending an arm for her familiar.

"Kya!"

However, the victory was short lived. The wasps buzzed angrily as they struggled to right themselves, wings flapping slowly. It would be a short time before they could return to the sky, but in the meantime, three more of the wasps had broken off to face silica, and the riders from the first three wasps now rose angrily, small forms surrounded in ruins before casting a trio of miniature fireball spells.

Silica dodged nimbly, seeming to dance around the spells. She didn't even need to use her wings. 'Amazing' Louise thought. "Louise! Hurry up and run!" The Cait Syth girl turned to "Yui, go with Louise, its dangerous out here." Silica said.

"Right!" Yui flitted over to Louise's shoulder and slipped into the front pocket of her travel shirt. One of the three wasps approaching Silica broke off and gave chase to Louise. Caught between fight or flight, Louise chose to run, narrowly dodging the Village Chief who had retrieved a crossbow from some undisclosed location and was rushing to Silica's aid. Louise caste another explosion and the Wasp dodged. There wasn't enough time for another spell, she dove through the door of the Village Chiefs house, slamming it closed with all of her might and swinging the latch down just as something struck with a solid -THUD-, shaking the door in its hinges and causing the house to creak.

She fervently hoped that the impact had been fatal to her attacker. Bust such was not to be as an instant later a knife sized stinger, all hooked barbs and glossy black chitin, burst through the wood of the door, accompanied by a low, angry buzzing. Louise backed away, leveling her wand. She was tempted to cast a spell now that the wasp was pinned, her explosions were at least powerful enough to swat the bug, but if she blew the door open she'd only let the others in. She was scared. She'd thought that she had prepared herself. Thought that she'd be ready. But she was wrong.

"Louise-san, lets go out that way!" Yui point to the back of the room where a Germanian Door lead out the opposite side of the house. Louise nodded to the pixie.

"Stay hidden, Yui." Yui obeyed without another word, ducking back down into the pocket, she was barely more than a hummingbird. The little pixie was so childlike, in complete contrast to the ones that were now attacking them with lethal intent. Louise might have been the weakest mage in their group, but she could at least protect someone like Yui. The thought gave her some courage as she ran over to the door and unlatched its bottom half, ducking out from bellow. If she could just get up somewhere high and keep some distance from the wasps, she knew she could make better use of her explosions. Maybe, the church, the church tower would be perfect.

She stole off in the direction of the still ringing church bell. Louise made it about half way across the square before she heard a low growling accompanied by high pitched clicks. Turning her head nervously, Louise swallowed. Stalking out of the shadows were a trio of Wolves. Not just normal wolves but some sort of ALfheim wolf, a mob. Their bodies sleek and covered in blue fur, muzzles terminating in a pointed snout. Each held a weapon in its mouth. One clutched the head of scythe, while another wielded a truncated halberd with most of the haft broken off. The last held only a small knife, but was no less menacing.

Louise took a step back as the wolves began to surround her. "S-stay back! M-mangy dogs!" Louise stuttered raising her wand. The wolves dashed away at her first explosion, only being caught at the edge of the blast. They spread apart, forcing Louise to watch all sides at once.

"Don't worry about our back, I can sense them." Yui said, "You keep your eyes focused to the front, Louise-san!"

The first dog began to pace forward building speed, Louise brought her want up shakily. "Kya!" Out of the sky, Pina crashed into the back of the wolf and with bravery bellying her small size, sank claws mercilessly into the the mob's back.

"Louise, I told you to run." Silica shouted, plummeting down from above on yellow wings.

"I tried." Louise spat back.

"I meant away, not into more of them!"

"I tried!"

Silica and Pina fell back, putting themselves between Louise and the wolves. "Pina, get ready!"

"Kya!"

The first wolf moved in again, not so much jumping as lunging for Silica. Again Louise was left in awe of the girl's agility. Without using her wings, Silica jumped up, spreading her legs wide and pushing down with her hands, vaulting over the wolf in a gymnastic display that briefly revealed the blue short pants that she wore beneath her skirt.

"Louise, he's yours!"

"R-right!" Louise lashed out with another explosion, this time catching the wolf and sending it flying against the wall of a nearby house, letting out a yelp of pain. The animal was only stunned, but as it rose it chose to flee rather than stay and fight. 'We can win!' Louise thought.

"Okay, here comes another." Silica said, "Louise, when I say switch, I want you to take over attacking, do you understand? I'll guard you attack."

"I understand." Louise said quickly.

The remaining two wolves stocked forward and then stopped, each taking a step back. More low buzzing came from above them. The wasps were back. Louise's stomach churned as she saw them. The wolves were frightening, but the wasps were repulsive, a horror she was unused to imagining.

Then from the sky, a small dark sharp plummeted, wings unfolding at the last instant. "Gyah!" The black shape crashed into Silica's familiar, both rolling to the ground.

"Pina!" Silica cried, distracted for a crucial moment. One of the wolves rushes her, charging for her flank and sending the girl flying like a rag doll to crash into the side of one of the building. Before she could as much as move, a bright yellow flash engulfed her and she collapsed.

On the ground, the black shape was revealed as another feathery dragon, smaller than Pina with dark feathers and golden eyes. The second dragon had Pina pinned, the weight of its body pressed down on Silica's familiar and its jaws closed tightly on her throat. An armored pixies rode upon its back and a tiny white needle glinted in its hand like a saber. The needle was waved about and Louise realized she was surrounded. Taking a step back and then another, pointing her wand in every direction. The monsters rushed in.

"Louise!" Silica shouted, struggling to stand. Another flash of yellow spell light engulfed her, nearing causing her to fall to the ground.

Louise screamed as she was surrounded by hard chitinous legs and wings, scrabbling and scratching at her skin, pulling at her hair and clothes. She squeezed her eyes shut, covering her face with her arms, trying to block out the terror. The beating of their wings thundered in her ears. She was sure any instant she would feel the sharp barb of one of their stingers, the rush of their venom. She screamed, she screamed herself hoarse, tears coming to her eyes. 'Please, somebody save me, someone, please, mother!'

"Get the hell away from them! NEOW!" A furious voice shrieked. Louise felt the wasps scatter and opened her eyes. An arrow pierced one of the wasps from above, and then another, and another. Diving from the sky, KoKo discarded her bow and unsheathed her knife, driving the blade down to its hilt into a fourth wasp, crashing to the ground and driving her knee into the creatures carcass, crushing the life from it.

KoKo turned her eyes back to remaining monsters. The wolves growled lowly and the wasps gathered into a formation above them. The black feathered dragon rose back into the air, its rider gesturing with its needle sword at this new opponent.

The Hunter spread her arms wide breathing heavily. "Louise, are you alright?"

Louise sank to her knees trembling. "I – I'm okay." She hugged herself tightly.

"Silica?"

The Cait Syth girl had returned to her feet and rushed to her stricken familiar's side. The small dragon had rolled back over onto her belly and was purring miserably. Louise could see where the other dragon had drawn blood, deep red staining the light blue feathers.

"We're okay." Silica said, clutching up her familiar protectively in one arm and guarding with her dagger in the other.

The Cait Syth pulled her knife loose from the wasp at her feet and assumed a knife fighting stance, baring her fangs at the monsters. "You wanna mess with these cubs, you'll have to mess with me!" She began to whisper something under her breath and Louise watched as the runes of a Faerie spell circled her. Only three? So it wasn't very powerful Faerie magic, Louise thought.

One of the Wolves took a cautious step forward just as KoKo finished her chant. The Cait Syth took a deep breath and then opened her mouth wide. Louise's hearing went faintly numb and to her side she could see Silica covering her ears.

The monsters suddenly acted very strangely, the wolves cowered back, and the wasps seemed to trembled in the air. Even the black feathered dragon and its rider seemed briefly effected. A moment of indecision passed, and then came to an end as a shout came from above. Klein and Leafa had arrived, the Salamander diving downward, ready to lock blades while the Sylph prepared to cast.

Indecision ended, with a last wave of its needle, the rider of the black feathered dragon directed her mount to flee, the other monsters following suite, slinking back into the shadows. The heavy beating of wings faded and then there were only a few distant howls, and then nothing but the still ringing church bell and the distant shouts of commoners.

KoKo stood, breathing heavily, the woman's slender frame trembled for an instant before she wiped the insect juices from her knife and put the blade away. She turned to Louise and sank down by her side. The hunters golden eyes looked Louise over, pausing on every scrape and bruise. There were scratches, and a few light marks from where the wasps had bitten at her experimentally.

The fear in those eyes shook Louise from her own trauma. "I'm okay." Louise said, trying to reassure the woman like she so often did her sister Cattleya. "See." Louise raised her arm, "Just scratches, I've hurt myself worse practicing magic." Louise half joked.

KoKo nodded slowly and swallowed back something she had been about to say. "Silica, come over here and let me see Pina, she looks hurt."

"She is." Silica said, worried. Though alert in her master's arms, the blue feathered dragon was making soft pained noises and whined whenever Silica stopped supporting one of her wings.

KoKo looked the small dragon over and let out a sigh of relief. "Feels like it's just dislocated." She clucked softly as she probed at the base of Pina's left wing. "What hit her?"

"Another feathery dragon." Silica said, "One of the pixies was riding it", Silica frowned. "I think that was their leader."

"Well, my veterinary skills and healing skills gave me enough knowledge to set this, but she'll probably need to stay off her wing for the next few days. Otherwise she just has some scratches. I think she's more angry than hurt."

"Kya . . . " Pina moaned.

Silica let out a sigh of relief, "Thank goodness."

"Sorry we didn't get here sooner." Klein said. "But we kept getting caught up in diversionary attacks and couldn't leave the villagers alone. We didn't think they would hit the village center so hard."

"There's no way you could have known." Silica said, "I didn't expect it either. In fact, the first we knew was when Pina, Yui, and I heard them coming."

"Yui?" Leafa said suddenly. Everyone turned to the Sylph who was suddenly looking around wild eyed. "Where is Yui?"

"She was in my pocket." Louise reached to her breast and then looked down to the front her traveling clothes, face going pale. Her breast pocket had been torn open and Yui was nowhere to be seen.

_

Fear Yui thought, associations fanned outwards. Anxiety, Fight or Flight, Unknown. The last on the list grew to encompass her attention. That was it, the squirming unpleasant feeling within her mind and the cold clamminess that gripped at her physical body, the unknown terrified her. She was a being of information, she needed it to feel at peace. Being deprived of her link to external networks had been distressing enough, but at least she had been able to use her own senses and could still access information in an effective if crude fashion.

But now she didn't even have that. She was blind and almost deaf and didn't know how what had happened or how she had gotten here. She could not determine where she had started from, she could not plot where she was going. It was wrong. One moment the pocket of Louise's blouse was being torn open, the next her captors were stuffing her into some sort of sack, closing it tightly. She could hear only the low buzzing of Wasp wings and feel the rumble of their flight through chitin beneath her. Those were her only external sources of information.

The journey lasted for all of twelve hundred and fifty four seconds by Yui's internal clock. How far could the Wasps Travel in this time? Where were they taking her? Logical extrapolation said the forest East of Tarbes. It agreed with her internal spacial reference function, her sense of direction. But Yui could not guess anything else. She could fathom human thought processes, even if she did not fully understand humans, she had extensive knowledge about human reactions and could make very well informed guesses about how they would respond in a given situation, what stimuli would invoke what response.

But for artificial minds she had only herself and Pina to extrapolate from. Pina, though possessing a complex mind structure, was fundamentally different from herself, having achieved true intelligence only after the transition. As for herself, Yui could no more understand her own mind that any single human could examine their own. Objectivity was impossible to maintain. Observation altered what was being observed. The instrument failed in examining itself.

Yui waited, she hated waiting, just like Papa. But until she had more information she could do nothing else, she couldn't even generate probably scenarios. Not that she didn't try, and fail. Her simulations stacking up and biasing towards the worse case, the thing humans called Anxiety taking hold and driving her towards panic and despair.

Finally, the rumbling stopped and Yui felt herself being lifted down from the back of the Wasp. She heard muted voices whispering among themselves. The sack was opened and she was set free, blinking in the moonlight. Information flooded into her, her limited senses expanding. Free of obstructions her search capability was restored and she scanned her surroundings, detecting dozens of mobs and hundreds, thousands of other signatures. The native animals and insects of Tristain. She was standing atop a log. At her back, several of the willow wasps sat calmly, mandibles folded into smooth masks. Wings stilled. Their jerky aggressive motions replaced with slow, cautious movements more akin to a weta bug than a wasp.

Yui felt something within her relax, new information, optimization was now possible, the worries began to disappear as she assessed her surroundings and discarded unlikely scenarios. Looking around, she found herself surrounded by pixies. It was a strange sensation to stand before so many people her own size, something that she had only experienced briefly at the orphanage in SAO.

The other pixies watched her curiously, leaning in to whisper to one another. They were like navigation pixies in that they all resembled human females with physical morphology reminiscent of prepubescence. The facial structures possessed rather less variation that humans, but this was a limited sample base. Hypothethesis appearance was optimized for positive emotional response from players. This was reasonable and agreed with the facial features falling close to those of the median Median Ideal. That was to say, the girls surrounding her possessed features that were very carefully slanted towards the statistical 'average'. Invoking a positive sense of familiarity.

The Pixies were dressed very differently from herself. Most wore dresses patched together from bits of course fabric, skirts made up of a dazzling array of yellows and reds, like leaves in fall. A few wore more somber robes woven from finer fabric of a deep green, only one or two of the girls wore this sort of garb and their facial features suggested the onset of puberty and the beginning of physical development. Hypothesis A subtle implication meant to cue that they were 'older' and therefore 'wiser' than the others. Unlike the 'younger' girls they talked less and observed carefully. The last variety were what Yui could only describe as knights. They still wore the multicolored skirts of the younger pixies though emphasizing brighter reds, yellows, and blacks, colors of aggression. But their upper bodies were covered in glossy black armor reminiscent of insect chitin, and in fact appeared to be carved from the carcasses of some sort of beetle. Each of the Knights wielded a sewing needle hooped through a bit of string worn as a belt, and carried helmets decorated in blacks and yellows. With their helmets removed it was clear that the knights were the most physically 'mature' of the pixies with slightly greater physical size and development implying greater strength and self reliance. Their wings were also more reminiscent of the more aggressive Faerie races with two sets, slightly smaller and more angular than those possessed by Yui or the other girls.

That was the limit of what Yui was able to determine through passive examination. Questions began to accumulate, the demand for information spurring her to action. "Hello?" Yui asked cautiously.

The murmuring grew among the young girls. Finally, one of them stepped forward, a girl, smaller than Yui herself with mousy brown hair and an uncertain look on her face. She looked from side to side, making sure that it was okay for her to speak. "I-its okay. Y-your safe now." The others nodded approvingly.

"Safe?" Yui asked uncertainly. Did they think that they were helping her, that they had rescued her?

The girl smiled shyly, "We're so glad we got to you, since its a full moon tonight. The beings . . . They didn't . . . They didn't bond you . . . did they?"

Yui shook her head in confusion, realizing only a moment too late that the gesture could be misinterpreted.

The general atmosphere of the crowd grew relieved, "Oh thank goodness. We thought that they'd got you. But Sayuri-sama and the other knights found you just in time." Tears began to well up in the girl's eyes. "W-welcome home little sister!" The girl rushed forward and embraced Yui in a tight hug. Yui had little time to think about this before the girl stiffened. "Wait . . ." The girl looked up at Yui and seemed to sniff at her. "You . . . Don't smell like the garden . . . " Her eyes grew wide and fearful. "You smell like beings!"

The other pixies all looked on, eyes wide. Murmurs passed between them and the young girls shrank away, the robed girls still watching quietly. Yui turned around at the sound of the knights unsheathing their needles.

"Enough!" An older, more commanding voice called above the others. Yui turned around to find one of the Knights dismounting from the side of a black feathered dragon.

"Sayuri-sama!" The other pixies murmured softly. The other knights looked to their leader for instructions and at a gesture, lowered their swords.

"This is my error." Sayuri said coolly. "We had little time, the beings of the village have new allies, Faeries. We were forced to retreat just after we found this one. She must be bonded, just a slave that can't even hear Yggdrasil's song."

"Sayuri, she is dangerous to keep here. She'll inform the beings." One of the robed girls said.

"That is only if we allow her to leave. And she may be useful to us." Sayuri replied. Yui felt an unpleasant sensation heart sinking.

"What are you suggesting?" The robed girl asked.

"If she's a being's pet." Yui bristled at the word. "Then she may have been all over the village. She may know useful things."

The robed girl looked unhappy. "Sayuri, this is unwise."

"I will take responsibility for her." Sayuri said, "As your leader, she is my mistake, she is my responsibility."

"I . . ." The robed girl closed her mouth. "As you wish, Sayuri-sama. This Little Sister accepts your wisdom, Elder Sister."

The knight stepped towards Yui, removing her helmet, long blonde hair cascaded down to the small of her back. She stood a little over a head taller than Yui with pale Nordic features and clear blue eyes. Her expression was cold, eyes narrowed and suspicious. Yui quailed Familiarity like Mama but not the part of Mama that was ever shown to her Alienation The cold commander, the Vice Commander of the Knights of Blood. Yui stepped back, this girl was not her Mama, but the similarity resonated deeply with something within her.

The girl drew her own sword, a bone white sewing needle and pressed it against Yui's chest. "Now, you will answer my questions . . ."


	36. Chapter 11 Part 4: The Yearning Knight

PLEASE READ - For those who missed the last announcement. This is part of a set of nine snips that will be posted three at a time. We will then return to our regularly scheduled race to find Asuna in another Castle.

Again, sorry for the spelling and grammar errors, I could really use a beta to proofread these before pasting to . Also, I've been made aware recently that has a tendency to eat parts of my formatting which is rather frustrating consider how Yui actually expresses her feelings. Needless to say. In the original postings of this chapter, the random capitalized words in Yui's thoughts are supposed to be bracketed like so Word . This is supposed to be a reference to the fact that her mind follows a top down architecture. Even if she is now an organic being her thought processes are not really human, if they were it would be fridge horror for a whole lot of reasons. However, posting function is, shall we say, MORONIC. If anyone knows how to turn this off it would be appreciated.

Anyways, enjoy and I'll try to get the other two promised chapters up in the next little while. As always, criticism is fine, I know this story is incredibly glacially paced and has some consistent spelling errors. But then again I'm not a professional author and personally like this pacing, it's something I could only do in an online format.

Finally. Please be considerate and if you post reviews, place a review for each chapter so that I can figure out what you're talking about.

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Halkegenia Online-Chapter 11-Part 5

"Yui-chan!" Leafa cried out as she hovered over Tarbes "Yui-chan!" The woman's voice had grown raw from hours of calling.

"Oy, Yui-chan!" Klein drifted at her side, shouting right along with her.

By now, the fires had been doused and the villagers of Tarbes had begun to take stock of the damage. A homestead and a barn burned to the ground, but the fields had been saved and the home could be rebuilt. A few of the men had been injured. Bitten or slashed by dagger dogs, a singed arm from a near miss by a fireball, and few scratches from the wasps which would have been serious without the anti venom provided, reluctantly by KoKo, the Faeries were still unsure how their medicines might effect a human.

In the village square, Louise Valliere sat on a stone bench beside the Church. The sky was beginning to lighten and the sun would rise in another hour. She'd barely slept all night. "This is all my fault." Louise groaned, placing her hands over her face.

At her side, Silica looked on helplessly as she held her wounded familiar. "Don't say that Louise-san." The girl placed a hand on her shoulder and Louise felt even worse. She was being comforted by a twelve year old.

"I was supposed to keep her safe." Louise said.

"No. You were supposed to keep yourself safe." KoKo replied as she crouched down on the ground beside them. "We thought if you did that, Yui would be fine. We were wrong." The hunter was examining the carcasses of her kills. With a single smooth motion, she wedged her knife into a seam in a Wasp carcass and began to slice open the creatures abdomen to gain access to its innards.

"What are you doing?" Silica asked.

KoKo didn't answer immediately, choosing to quietly sift through the wasp's guts. "These guys might look nasty, but they're herbivores. Those big stingers are just how they protect their nests."

"So?" Louise snapped.

"Well, if they're tamed then it stands to reason they're probably being fed pretty consistently in the same place. In which case we know what sorts of plants they've been hanging around. If there's anything from ALfheim in here, then I can tell what we should be looking for from the air."

"Looking for?" Louise asked. "You mean . . ."

"Mmm. If Yui isn't here she must have been taken with them, or else . . ." The Cait Syth didn't finish that sentence.

'Or else one of the wasps thought the little girl in the flower dress was just a little flower.' Louise thought, but nobody wanted to say that. There was an unspoken fear among them all that Yui's little body still lay hidden somewhere in the shadows of the Square. 'Please Founder, don't let that be true.' Louise thought miserably.

KoKo pulled a fleshy bag from the wasps innards and then paused. "You know, suddenly knowing how to do all of this mighty hunter catwoman stuff is pretty cool . . . But . . ."

"It's also pretty gross." Silica finished.

"Uh-huh." KoKo nodded and then, flipping her knife in her hand, drove the blade into the pouch and spilled the wasps last meal across the cobble stones at their feet. Louise felt lucky that her own stomach was almost empty, otherwise she would have lost its contents. "Mmm. Mostly leaves and, some fruit, these look like Eden Apples, so some of those most have made it in the transition . . ." KoKo said to herself.

Klein and Leafa set down nearby to rest theirs wings. When they had realized Yui was missing, they'd tried to give chase when the Pixies and their wasps fled. But by the time they had realized what had happened and gotten into the air, the Wasps had already scattered into the forest. There had been no use in chasing them. Even so, Klein and Silica had been forced to almost haul Leafa back rather than allowing her run off into the woods.

The Sylph woman looked even worse than Louise felt. "We should never have come." Leafa said, "Yui and I should have stayed in Arrun. I put her in danger . . . I don't deserve to be her . . . her . . ." The woman shook her head furiously.

'Her what?' Louise wandered. She probably meant she didn't deserve to be the girl's guardian. But that wasn't true at all, Leafa had done nothing but put Yui's well being first.

"You can't keep thinking like that." Klein placed a hand on Leafa's shoulder. "You have to stay on the ball, Yui is a smart kid, she'll stay safe. We just need to find her."

Leafa nodded, "Un."

The Sylph Swordswoman didn't seem to find any comfort in Klein's words. In fact, she looked like she was trying hard not to cry. Louise knew because she had seen that expression on her own face in the mirror many times. More Faerie strangeness, Louise had thought that the woman was much stronger and more sure of herself than this. But every time Louise began to accept that fact, something would happen to shatter the image. First the way she shied away from Kirche's teasing despite her revealing dress. And then the way that she declined wine as if it was poison.

"Leafa-chan." KoKo said calmly, the Cait Syth stood, wiping her hands on her pants. "Listen, Yui must be alright. The Wild Pixies don't have any reason to hurt her."

Leafa nodded dully.

"Hey, listen!" KoKo snapped her fingers in front of the girl. "Keep it together Leafa-chan, remember you're a cool sempai, not some newbie. We need you. Yui-chan needs you." The hunter turned to Louise, "And she needs you too, Louise-chan."

"M-me?" Louise stuttered, what could she possible do to help.

"If the pixies took her. Then we'll find Yui by going ahead with our mission." Klein reasoned. "That's what you're trying to say?"

"Un." KoKo nodded. "Louise-chan, we'll be relying on you. There are things that you can help us with, things that only you can do."

Louise laughed inwardly, what a joke. She was just a third rate mage who couldn't even protect a person who was less than a hundredth her size. "Oh? What good am I."

"Plenty." KoKo insisted, "Look, our plan really hasn't changed. We still have to find the pixies and get them to stop attacking the village, now we just add rescuing Yui."

"Right." Klein said, crossing his arms. The Salamander had become all business as soon as the attacks had begun and hadn't reverted to his buffoonish behavior since. Louse supposed that even a mutt like him had his talents. "So lets keep with out plan from yesterday for now. Louise-san, once the sun comes up, you and Silica should go talk to the town healer, Silica said the healer used to send her daughter in to the forest for reagents so she probably knows about the lay of the forest. Maybe she can tell us something. Leafa and I will head out with Tabitha to search the forest. We can use sylphied to rest our wings."

"What about Kirche?" Louise asked.

"Eh, well . . . She can stay here and keep watch." Klein said, looking distinctly uncomfortable. "Yeah, that's pretty a good idea. Louise, would you mind telling her that?" The man was rubbing at the back of his head again. 'Now what's wrong with him. Is Tabitha's illness spreading?'

"The sooner we start. The better." Leafa said softly. Above them, Tabitha's dragon circled in the slowly lightening sky.

* * *

Yui opened her eyes and found herself in an unfamiliar place. Unlike a human, there was no confusion at this, she already knew exactly where she was and how she had come to be here, she had been perfectly aware of these facts from the moment her buffer had finished clearing thirty six seconds ago and she had completed her boot up sequence. She was in a large chamber, a communal sleeping room. All around her the still forms of Wild Pixies slumbered. The childish figures breathing softly and rolling about in their sleep, some curling up next to one another for warmth or comfort. The ceiling curved up high above her, the only source of illumination came from a few small portholes high above and the doorway on the far side of the chamber.

In the dimness, Yui reviewed the events from the night before, standing before the Knight that the others called Sayuri. The girl had held her needle sword to Yui's chest, a cool threat that promised swift punishment for any transgression. Yui had swallowed slowly, she was unaccustomed to this sense of fear for her life.

"Now, start with your name." Sayuri had begun her questioning.

"My name . . . My name is Yui." Yui replied quickly.

"And you are a bound pixie? One of the Faerie's tame guides?"

She hesitated for several milliseconds as subroutines ran through social scripts. The Pixies seemed to understand concepts from ALfheim, but there was no way to know yet how they would respond to the truth. Did they know ALfheim was a game? Did they understand what had happened?

"Y-yes!" Yui said. The Knight didn't fully believe her. She suspected something was amiss.

The Vespid Knights eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You came with the Faeries, didn't you."

"Yes." She nodded again.

"We counted four of them, and more 'being' magic users, a strong one who used fire, and a wind user with a dragon." Sayuri pressed, "Who were they?"

Yui blinked rapidly, she didn't know how to answer. If she told the truth it might lead to more questions and information that the Pixies could use to hurt her friends and Aunt Suguha. The needle tip pressed against her breast and she winced. But if she didn't answer . . .

"They're from the Tristain Academy of Magic, near the World Tree." Yui answered truthfully.

"They don't look like golems or trolls, are they some new type of Faerie?" Sayuri asked. "What are they doing in ALfheim? Did the Faeries bring them here?"

Yui shook her head, "They weren't brought anywhere. This is their home . . . Why are you attacking them?"

The Knights eyes narrowed and she leaned inwards. Yui understood why she was afraid, but she couldn't do anything about the feelings but accept them and continue to think rationally. She was eminently aware of just how much bigger, and likely stronger the other girl was.

"I am the one asking questions." Sayuri said coldly. "What do you mean this is their home?"

Yui looked to the other pixies. The smaller girls were watching anxiously, bright curious eyes waiting to see what their leader would do. How would they respond? It was clear that their behavior was unscripted, they were actual intelligences. But Yui couldn't be certain of what that entailed. Was their mind structure like a humans? Or more like her own? If so, how mature were they? How would they handle the revelation? Mob Mentality Yui thought, there was danger here. She didn't want to frighten them, or worse anger them.

"It's difficult." Yui stated nervously, "Please let me have time to explain." She pointed to the younger looking Pixies. "It may be upsetting." She warned.

Sayuri watched her closely and then gestured to one of the other Knights. The smaller pixies were ushered off by some of the Knights, departing with looks of curiosity and disappointment and leaving Yui standing among the remaining Knights and one of the robed girls.

"You can continue now." Sayuri said.

Yui formulated her reply and then began, watching the Knight carefully and adjusting her explanation as she went. She told Sayuri what had happened as best she could. First she told her about the transition that had brought ALfheim to this place, careful not to mention ALfheim's former existence as an MMO, even if the other girl could be made to understand, it would almost certainly be upsetting.

"The moons . . ." The robed girl had whispered thoughtfully when Yui had explained the world of Halkegenia. Yui had been stopped by the robed girl only long enough to ask about the World Tree. Yui's confirmation that the World Tree and its environs had been safely transported had greatly relieved the gathered pixies.

She had told them what little she knew about Tristain. She told them about the Tristanian people, many of whom could use magic but many of whom could not. She told them of the Academy located near the World Tree where the local magic users were taught. And she did her best to explain the village of Tarbes where the 'beings' lived. Sayuri had given her a look of disgust when she suggested that the Villagers were peaceful.

"The Princess sent us to find out why you're attacking the Villagers." Yui finished, tilting her head, "Why are you attacking them, Sayuri-san?"

The girl glared.

"I mean . . . Sayuri-Sama?" Yui offered shrinking away a little, "Knight-sama?"

The Knight's features cooled slowly. "You will refer to me as Sayuri-sama or as Eldest Sister." Sayuri replied, slowly, the Pixie lowered her needle and placed it back in the hoop of her belt. "Kigiku."

"Yes, Sayuri-sama?" One of the knights asked. Like her leader, the girl's hair was lighter than that of the wild pixies from earlier.

"At sunrise, I want you to take your sisters and go scout out 'Tarbes' from the edge of the forest. Find out if the Faeries are still there and what they are doing."

"Yes, Sayuri-sama." The girl bowed and stepped back.

Sayuri Crossed her arms and looked unhappily to Yui. "I don't believe you." She decided slowly. "But I don't think you're lying either." She shook her head, looking angry with herself. "There is no point in asking any more questions until I've seen for myself. Something will have to be done with you for now." The Knight regarded her coldly, her hand resting on her sword. Yui swallowed again.

"Sayuri-sama, if this Little Sister may offer a suggestion?" The robed girl spoke up.

It was the same girl who had spoken to Sayuri earlier, when she had first arrived. On closer inspection, her face was round and pale and her eyes were fringed by long eyelashes that drooped down over dark green eyes. Like the Knights, her wings were different from the Wild Pixies and Yui's own. They were larger and vaguely triangular, like those of a giant moth.

"As you wish Hinagiku-san." Sayuri nodded.

Hinagiku looked to Yui. "I would like to suggest that you place Yui-san under my care for now."

"I thought you were against her being here?" Sayuri said. Yui sensed the girl's curiosity, an almost tangible thing.

"I must always consider the well being of the Garden and the Little Sisters." Hinagiku said with a small dip of her whole body. "If she is to stay here, then it occurs to me that, tamed or not, she is still a Sister."

Sayuri frowned, "That may be, but the Knights can watch over her well enough. You have the Garden's new Little Sisters to care for."

"Six of them born just tonight." Hinagiku agreed, "It appears that the second moon has done them no ill. One more won't be any trouble at all. Besides, maybe I can help her."

The Knight mulled over the request and then nodded. "I will have more questions for her tomorrow." Sayuri glanced to Yui. "For tonight, I place her in your care Hinagiku-san."

For being their prisoner, Yui thought, the Wild Pixies treated her very kindly. After Sayuri had finished with her questions, stocking off looking deeply unsatisfied. The other Vespid Knights had surrounded her. Yui had wondered if they would toss her into some sort of miniature dungeon or a cage, but the only concession to restraining her had been a strand of silk tied around her waist in order to bind her wings flush with her back. Though Yui could still use her flight magic without moving her wings, it would be much more difficult and she would not be able to fly quickly or well.

The pixies had led her away, off of the tree stump where the Willow Wasps had landed and towards the dark bulk of a large tree. Hidden among the roots of the tree were many bulbous shapes. Yui's auto referencing functions had only a limited amount of data on such things, she was probably no better informed than a human child, but the shapes were reminiscent of termite mounds in their basic shape.

She had been lead inside the base of one of the mounds to find that it was a pixie sized building. The walls were constructed from some sort of mud or clay that had been smoothed by hand and the interior was lit by a luminescent material, not ore-lights but maybe something organic. Hypothesis Bio luminescence?

The few scrapes and bruises she had received in her abduction had been seen to by Hinagiku and she had been fed and given a place to sleep among the other girls in a communal room adjacent to the central chamber. Though the pixies looked distrustful of her and none seemed to want to sleep near her Hypothesis because of her scent? One had still stepped forward to offer her a blanket and shown her to her sleeping place.

Yui had lain awake for a long time after, mind racing with ideas on how to escape and get back to Tarbes. Most of these scenarios were discarded almost immediately. She couldn't escape with her wings bound, and a pair of Knights had been assigned to act as silent watchers, following her wherever she went. Getting free might be difficult, was their some way she could loosen the threads without being seen, and then make her escape when the guards were distracted? No, that wouldn't work either, she wasn't certain how far she was from Tarbes, but they must already be deep in the forest.

How long would she last on her own if she flew among the trees full of hungry birds and ferocious insects? And how long would she go undetected if she flew higher? The Knights were almost certainly faster than her, especially if they gave chase with their wasps. She likewise discarded changing into her human form and escaping on foot. It would simply make her a bigger, slower target and make her easy pray for the larger animals in the forest. She entertained the idea of stealing a wasp, but it wasn't like she would know how to control one, and the black feathered dragon from earlier was certainly too smart to let anyone but its master ride it. They didn't need to lock her up. Yui realized. The Pixies could catch her trivially if she tried to escape.

Yui curled up into a little ball. She was worried about Aunt Sugu. Suguha was a strong person even though she didn't think very highly of herself. Yui was sure that she would be blaming herself for her disappearance. She didn't want her Obasan to suffer because of her. The same went for Klein, the Salamander really cared about her Papa, and he would feel responsible if he thought he'd failed to protect her.

A deep sense of loneliness overtook Yui. Back in the other world, when Papa wasn't around, she could at least distract herself by reading about all sort of things or by processing her back log of acquired data. And in Arrun she'd always been with Leafa or Papa or someone else nice like Sakuya-chan or Alicia-obaasan.

Query What would Papa do? The answer was obvious, as much as he would hate it, Papa would collect as much information as he could and then move decisively. If something happened before he could devise a plan, he would improvise and fall back on his skills. Be cautious until it became necessary to be bold. That was what she would have to do. Hinagiku had seemed to have taken an interest in her, hopefully the robed girl wouldn't mind answering some of her questions. And maybe from there she could find a solution to get back to Aunt Sugu and the others.

The light spilling in from the portholes had gradually increased and the other pixies had begun to stir. The first ones to wake gently shook the others and soon the whole room was filled with stretching, yawning little girls and a soft fluttering as wings were flexed and folded.

Yui found herself swept along by the others, her guards remaining closely at her side but otherwise not interfering. It seemed that she would have to wait to get her answers, so Yui occupied herself by observing the other Pixies. As a group, the girls had made their way from the sleeping chamber into the common area of their nest where a large hearth, by pixie standards, had been constructed to hold a bed of carefully tended embers. The hearth was constructed beneath the tallest point in the nest and probably provided warmth during winter as well as a place to cook.

The girls had settled around the hearth, chattering and gossiping among themselves. Yui noted that the others tended to collect into social groups of seven or eight, usually centered around a single individual. Listening closely, the individual at the core of each group was consistently referred to by the others as 'Elder Sister' and these girls appeared fill a maternal role for the others, keeping them in line. Breakfast was served by the Elder Sisters and some of the robed girls who were deferred to by the Elder Sister as the other pixies deferred to them. Hierarchy Yui thought, reviewing what she knew of human social groups. The pixies were certainly very organized if that was the case.

The robed girls lead the others in a small ritual prior to distributing the food. Yui followed along politely lest she offend her hosts. "We give thanks for this bountiful meal." She finished just as the girl beside her handed Yui a small bowl fashioned from a nutshell and filled with porridge sweetened with honey. Yui ate quickly, not realizing how hungry she had been, hadn't she eaten enough the night before? And gladly accepted a second helping.

After breakfast the girls began to disperse, following their Elder Sisters to begin the day. Some collected the leftover bowls while others tended to the hearth. The rest departed for their own tasks outside or in other parts of the nest, leaving Yui sitting by herself with her two guards. She was wandering just what would happen next when her savior from the night before appeared.

"Good morning Yui-san." Hinagiku greeted warmly.

"Good morning, Hinagiku-san . . . Or is it Elder Sister?" Yui asked unsure.

Hinagiku smiled, "Normally Elder Sister is preferred, but you may call me whatever you like, Yui-san. The new Little Sisters are still sleeping so I thought this would be a good time to come and meet with you." The girl was examining Yui closely, eyes looking all over, it made Yui feel . . . Self Conscious.

"I've wanted to talk with you too, Hinagiku-san." Yui admitted. Hinagiku wasn't showing any signs of concealing her true intentions, Yui was sure the girl was sincere. She felt her spirits lifting, her patience was already starting to pay off. "Uhm, what did you want to talk about, Hinagiku-san."

"Oh, quite a few things, but I think its better if we do so someplace else, it gets much too noisy here, especially when the Little Sisters bring their sewing inside.

Hinagiku instructed the Knights to unbind Yui's wings before dismissing them, and after allowing her to stretch, led Yui up through the nest until they came to doorway that led to a tiny chamber with its own window looking out across the small clearing in which the nest had been built. Yui's eyes widened and she rushed to the window. She hadn't had a chance to see at night, but in the daylight the clearing was filled with beautiful flowers. A carpet of dazzling oranges, reds, and blues.

"Oh wow." Yui whispered.

"It's pretty, isn't it?" Hinagiku agreed, "Actually, that's why I choose to meditate here at night." A troubled frown graced the girl's face, "Sayuri-sama doesn't think its safe for us to be out in the Garden at night, so I must content myself with seeing it from here." The girl's smile returned and she gestured for Yui to sit down. The room was simply furnished with only a pair of rugs and a heavy blanket that had been folded neatly in one corner.

"Now isn't the time for all of that. I have so many questions for you Yui-san, and I'm sure you have questions for me." Yui nodded in agreement as she sat down cross legged and waited for Hinagiku to do the same. "First, I want to know all about you. I've never met a tame pixie before."

Yui blinked a few times as she thought. What could she tell Hinagiku? She still wasn't entirely sure how much the girl knew. Like Sayuri, and the girls she had met earlier, Hinagiku seemed to possess true intelligence. Her behavior was much too sophisticated to be scripted. Yui still could not remember when she had first gained actual intelligence and doubted she ever would. There had simply come a time in her logs where her experiences had become tinged with a sense of self that had not existed before, but those earliest memories were filled with errors and corrupted data. She couldn't imagine how Hinagiku and the others were able to cope. Yui decided to tell only the truth, and only so much of it as was asked, and nothing more. She didn't like lying, so she wouldn't lie.

"You already know, my name is Yui and I'm a tame . . . A navigation pixie". Both were true, strictly speaking, in this form, she was a nav pixie, she possessed all of the same functionality, she could just do other things as well. "I live in Arrun with my . . . Master who is a skilled swordsman and his sister who is a very beautiful swordswoman."

"Arrun? The Fae capital." Hinagiku nodded sagely. "

"You know about Arrun?" Yui asked, curiosity piqued.

"Only the stories from the times of the First Faerie Lords. Before the first union of the Fae was broken." Hinagiku said thoughtfully. "To live beneath the branches of Mother Yggdrasil, you are very lucky Yui-san." The girl sounded wistful but refused to allow herself to be diverted. "What else can you tell me about yourself?"

"Mmm." Yui frowned and then shook her head. "Not very much, my . . . Masters and I take good care of each other." She looked up desperately. "I want to get back to them soon!"

"I see." Hinagiku gave Yui a sympathetic look. "But that will be a decision for Sayuri-sama to make and one she will no doubt postpone until she feels the Garden isn't threatened." The girl apologized to Yui. "I will answer your questions after one more of my own."

Yui nodded.

"Yui-san, are you really deaf to Yggdrasil-sama? You can't here her song at all?"

Slowly, Yui shook her head. "I'm sorry Hinagiku-san, but I wouldn't even be sure what to listen for." Yui paused and raised her hands to her ears, recalling her trouble with Cardinal. "Though, sometimes I do hear a noise, but it doesn't sound like a song. It's like a buzzing, but underwater." That was the closest description = she could give for the corrupted transference of data between herself and Cardinal.

Hinagiku looked upset by this revelation. "At least then you can hear something . . . Perhaps you just don't know how to listen."

"Hinagiku-san. You said you would answer my questions now." Yui insisted.

"You're quite right." The girl agreed. "Ask whatever you like, I'll answer as best I can."

Yui wanted to ask why the Pixies were attacking Tarbes, but first, what the other girl had said about Yggdrasil's song had piqued her curiosity. "What is Yggdrasil's song like?"

Hinagiku's smile turned sad, "It's hard to explain to someone who has never heard it. Vast . . . And subtle . . . Its drums can shake your whole body . . . And its soft beat can make you feel perfectly safe. It is many things and not just one things. For Vespid Knights like Sayuri-sama it is Yggdrasil's Drums which thunder and bolster their courage in battle, for Shaman's such as myself it is Yggdrasil's chant, a beautiful harmony of light, and for the Little Sisters it is Yggdrasil's Lullaby, a protector that rocks them to sleep at night."

Yui looked down thinking hard. Cardinal had never seemed like any of those things to her.

"It sounds nice." Yui said politely.

"It is." Hinagiku closed her eyes and her smile turned sad. "I only wish you could hear it, Yui-san."

"Then, I have another question, Hinagiku-san." Yui thought how to asked the question carefully. "How far back can you remember?"

"Remember?" The other Faerie looked startled by the question. Yui fixed her with a serious gaze. Hinagiku's expression grew calm and she nodded. "I'm the Eldest Sister of the Garden, so I can remember back four seasons to last Spring, before then, there was nobody in this Garden. I was one of the first . . ." That didn't make any sense, Yui thought, it wasn't logical for Hinagiku-san to have memories that went back more than a couple of weeks. Unless like Yui, she had possessed some sort of limited autonomy prior to ALfheim's transition.

"But I think what you may be asking is something different." The girl looked down at her hands, frowning as she thought. "Up until only a little while ago, I can never remember thinking about the past. People would come here from time to time, and new Little Sisters would be born, and people would Leave, and Little Sisters would . . . Go away" She shook her head sadly. "But it has only been recently that the past has gained meaning to me and that I have found myself thinking about the future. It is as if everything has become more clear. Like I was dreaming before. The other Sisters have felt the same way, it is all so very strange."

"Hinaguki-san." Yui breathed softly. Looking at the girl's thoughtful expression, Yui could only be grateful that her birth had been less painful than her own.

"Tell me." Hinaguki tilted her head. "Do you feel this way too, Yui-san?"

Yui smiled, "Un. Its really exciting." She agreed, and she was genuinely glad for the existences that the Pixies had been given. "You said you're the Eldest sister, but that's what Sayuri told me to call her."

"That is correct." Hinagiku said and then explained. "In fact, Sayuri is the youngest after the new Little Sisters born last night, but she is an incredibly strong Knight and has earned the right to lead by defeating the other Vespid Knights in duels. Because of the happenings with the 'beings', the Knights lead the Garden right now." Hinagiku nodded her head in apology. "But I suppose you wouldn't know any of this if you were born away from your home Garden."

Yui shook her head. "I really don't know anything about being a Pixie." She admitted. "Sorry."

"That's alright Yui-san, like Sayuri-sama said, I am responsible for teaching the new Little Sisters, so explaining these things is no trouble at all." Hinagiku assured her. "In fact, if you like, you may accompany me to meet our new Sisters. I think you would learn a lot."

Learning more was about all Yui could do right now, she accepted the offer immediately. "I have one more question, and its really important I get an answer." Yui said. She wasn't sure how to broach the topic, but she needed to know if she hoped to find a way to be released. "Why are you attacking the Village?" Yui hesitated before voicing her suspicions. "Did the people do something to the Pixies."

Yui had expected a strong response if her guess was correct, but hadn't realized just how strong it might be. Hinagiku bit down on her lip and shook her head slowly. "Did they do something to us? Yes . . . The beings attacked us." Hinagiku seemed to be remembering something horrible. "At first they stole a few of our blossoms, but soon they came back for more. The Knights tried to protect the Gardens, but . . ." Hinagiku trailed off. "One of Yggdrasil's shoots lays not far from here. It was blessed with beautiful twin Gardens and many Sisters to care for it." Hinagiku swallowed and finished softly. "There is only one Garden now."

"Hinagiku-san." Yui whispered and reached out to take the others girls hands. "I'm so sorry."

The girl placed a hand on Yui's head. "Thank you for your concern, Yui-san, but I am an Elder Sister, this is a burden that I must carry if I am to protect Little Sisters." The girl smiled bravely, "Let that be your first lesson. Now, if you would like, you may accompany me to meet the New Little Sisters, they're all so curious, I'm sure they would be happy to meet you."

Yui felt herself beam despite the situation. Hinagiku was a good person and Yui had a premonition that the other Pixies were the same. Until she could find a way to escape or convince her captors to allow her release, she would simply have to do her best.

She smiled. "Sure!"

* * *

Before setting out for the home of Tarbes' solitary water mage, Louise had briefly spoken with the Village Chief to learn where she might find Siesta's family.

"Aye, you're in luck. They live not far from Florine's home. Founder Bless them, they and theirs help the poor woman from time to time." Roseau said.

"Help her? Does she need help?" Louise asked.

"A single water mage to look out for a hundred families?" Roseau asked rhetorically. "Aye, she's badly pressed at the best of times, and raising her daughter as well. It's only worse now, she's been saying she's short of reagents for healing and there's no way to get more from the forest."

"I understand." Louise said, perking up. "I'll talk to her about the reagents. If nothing else, I can probably spare the money to buy some of what she needs."

"That's very generous of you Miss Valliere." The Village Chief had said. After waving goodbye, Louise had set out along with Silica down a dirt road traveling west towards the home of the healer.

They tried not to talk too much as they traveled. Louise still hadn't forgiven herself for Yui, her only comfort was that she was doing everything that she could to make sure the mission would be a success. If she could do that, then there was still a chance that everything might turn out alright.

Louise glanced to Silica who was pacing along at her side. The girl was unflappable, be it in the midst of battle or dealing with Yui's disappearance, her face had set into a determined mask that was matched by her familiar as the miniature dragon hung off of her Master's shoulder. Pina's dislocated wing had been bound up and the wounds along her neck covered in bandages. KoKo had used some of her Faerie healing magic to see to the dragon's injuries, but it would still be a while before the wing was healed enough to fly. In the meantime the dragon looked like a proud warrior, returned from a hard battle. In better times it would have made Louise laugh.

The homesteads to the West of the center of Tarbes seemed much more peaceful than those to the North and East. Being furthest from the Forests, the Pixies had not yet reached them and the buildings and fields were almost pristine. Villagers were already working the near fields as they walked. Despite the attack the night before, a small village like Tarbes could not afford to be late in planting or tending to their harvest.

They found the home of Siesta's family exactly where the Village Chief had said it would be and Louise offered the letter to a brown haired commoner woman who had clearly been beautiful in her younger days and was still quite lively even as her hair began to gray and her face grew etched with laugh lines. Somehow, Louise had not been surprised to learn that this woman was Siesta's mother.

The woman had taken the letter gratefully and carefully opened it, reading while Louise and Silica Waited. She looked up shaking her head, "Bless that girl for thinking of her family at a time like this. Thank you Miss Valliere, this has been very generous of you."

"It's nothing at all." Louise insisted. Really, carrying a letter was hardly a difficult task. "We have to go speak with the village healer now, but we'll come by one our way back. If you have a response written, I'll take it back when we return to the academy."

The woman had bowed her head, fervently thanking Louise. "Then, you're off to see Florine?"

"Un, the Village chief said your family helps her out a lot." Silica replied.

"If you're heading that way, let me send my nephew along, there were some herbs from my garden that Florine wanted." The woman turned and walked to the back door, "Antoine!"

A moment later a young boy in rolled up trousers and shirt came stomping up to the doorway, boots covered in mud and face smudged with dirt.

"Y-You!" Louise pointed an accusing finger at the boy who stood stock still. It was the same boy who had struck Klein with a horseshoe. Louise couldn't imagine how such a violent boy could be related in any way to someone as meek as Siesta.

Antoine looked ready to bolt, but before he had a chance to flee, Siesta's mother grabbed the boy by the collar of his shirt. "Now then, Antoine, I'd like you take some herbs to Florine, these girls are looking for her as well, so you'll guide them. Am I understood?"

"Yes'm." The boy mumbled.

"Your words." Siesta's mother said testily.

"Yes Ma'am." The boy repeated, enunciating carefully.

The trip to the healer's house took only a few more minutes, Antoine walking ahead of Louise and Silica with a wooden crate in his arms. A small cottage lay along the roadway, its walls built of stone and wood. A fenced in garden sat adjacent to the building filled a bewildering array of plants and flowers. Louise recognized many of them as having medicinal uses either on their own or as magical reagents. No doubt Florine grew many of her essential reagents but there were many more she would need to collect in the wild.

They were greeted at the door by a golden haired little girl who couldn't have been any older than Antoine, the boy had blushed and offered the contents of the crate to her with a small mumble of "Brought these for you and your Mum." Louise felt her brow twitch, if this girl was the daughter of a mage, what did this commoner boy think he was doing?

The girl didn't seem bothered by this impropriety and instead accepted the crate, placing it down on a table beside the door. As she bent down, Louise noticed the handle of a simple wand protruding the pocket of her skirt. So the daughter was a mage as well. The girl looked to Louise and Silica, pausing to stare at Silica and her ears.

"Ahem. We're here to speak with Florine the healer." Louise said.

"Oh, right, mother is in back seeing to some of her patients." The girl ushered them in and lead the way through the small kitchen to a back room filled with cots. The room had to be the largest in the cottage, easily taking up half of the interior. Even so, it was crowded with villagers, Florine's patients. Louise stifled a gasp. The room was filled with the eye watering smell of medicinal herbs mixed with blood. Only the worst hurt of the villagers had been brought here. The men who had held the line as best they could before the Faeries had arrived.

The ones laying on the cots were the worst. They were swaddled in bandages concealing deep lacerations caused by the Pixies winds spells and the attacks made by the Dagger Dogs. One man had broken out in a cold sweat and was trembling, pale, a victim of the Willow Wasp venom that they hadn't been able to reach in time. And these were just the worst cases. Thankfully, Leafa and KoKo knew enough Faerie healing magic to treat most of the minor wounds, otherwise the whole cottage would likely be filled up with villagers awaiting treatment.

They found Florine at the back of the room, leaning over a stooped man as she bandaged his head. The Village healer was a middle aged woman, thin, with careworn features and tired eyes. She hardly noticed them as she worked on the man, making him drink a brackish green liquid and then casting a brief enchantment with her wand. "I want you to lay here for the rest of the day Jacques, or you'll just make it worse."

"Aye, but the fields . . ."

"If you try and leave before nightfall, I'll tell your wife." The healer threatened before forcing the man to recline back in his cot. She looked about the room to her other patients and then, seeing nobody else in need of immediate care, turned to Louise and Silica.

"You must be Louise Valliere, and you're the girl from yesterday, Silica, right?" Florine smiled sincerely. "I could hardly forget you."

"Un." Silica nodded.

"Thank you for all the help you've given the Village." Florine said, "I'm hard pressed to keep up as it is. I don't know how I would have managed without the help from the other Fae and that young mage that was with your yesterday."

"Tabitha-san and others were glad to help." Silica smiled.

"Ahem?" Louise said with a hint of annoyance, she had to admit that she was feeling a little shown up. "In any case, we're here today about those reagents you said you needed. And then we wanted to talk to you about the forest."

"Ah, yes." Florine nodded, "Well, I rarely entertain a member of the titled nobility, why don't we speak of this over some tea?"

"Tea?" Louise blinked, she was a little surprised that a humble petty noble would have such a luxury.

"Yes, a gift from the Count of Tarbes, bless his soul" Florine answered leading them back out of her makeshift infirmary. She soon had a pot heating over the cottage fireplace as they were seated around a small table.

Louise looked about for a conversation starter. The cottage was better built and furnished than the homes of the commoner villagers, but that was to be expected, even in a small village a healer's services would be in high demand and it was likely that Florine also worked for the Lord of Tarbes when had need of a water mage. Her eyes wandered to the windowsill overlooking the houses small garden.

"Those are lovely flowers." Louise commented, noting a Trio of vibrant blue blossoms that sat in small clay pots beside the window.

"My, do you like them?" Florine asked, "Euphrasie brought them back with her from the forest a couple of weeks ago and I've been quite taken by them. They only just bloomed."

Both girls nodded, the flowers certainly were beautiful, each blossom the size of a teacup and delicately ruffled. "If you don't mind my asking, what are they?" Louise asked.

"I don't rightly know." Florine confessed, "I'm fairly knowledgeable about the common herbal plants and flowers but I found nothing in my books about them. Though it wouldn't be the first time. Truthfully, the Lord of Tarbes is a much more devoted botanist than I. In fact, he was very interested in those flower when last we spoke and I gave him one to study. These tea leaves were a gift of thanks . . . Euphrasie? What do you think you're doing?"

Florine's daughter, the girl named Euphrasie, had taken a jar and a loaf of bread from the pantry and was halfway to the door when her mother had noticed her.

"A-Antoine is helping me with the garden chores mother. So it's only right that we should feed him." The girl said a little too quickly, Louise detected the distinct chords of a lie.

"Oh, and since when have we needed to feed Antoine honey? You know he is being reprimanded for what he did yesterday." Florine glanced apologetically to Louise and Silica.

"But . . ." The girl started.

"You can give him some bread for his work, but his mother wouldn't be too happy with me if she learned we were rewarding him when he is supposed to be being punished."

"Yes mother." The girl said glumly." Louise noticed that as soon as Florine had turned back around, Euphrasie dabbed a little bit of honey onto the top of the bread before hurrying back outside.

"Now then." Florine said as she served Louise and Silica, Pina taking an experimental sniff at the steaming cup of tea set before her master,"You wanted to ask me about medicinal supplies?"

The healer was suddenly all business. For any physician, the basic medicinal supplies were as essential as they were difficult to obtain. Herbs to promote healing or to help balance the body in the presence of healing magic, certain rare mushrooms, their toxins useful in producing numbing agents or easing the symptoms of fever in the right dosages. Some spells even required reagents to function properly. A mage would be hard pressed to do her work without these supplies.

"Yes. We would like to know what reagents are in shortest supply." Louise said, "I've been given permission to use funds provided by the Crown, and with the wind dragon that brought us here, we can travel to the nearest market town and return by the end of the day."

Florine leaned back in her chair, she seemed to be conducting some sort of mental tally. "Feverfew . . . I'm running short due to all of the insect stings." She nodded to Silica, "Your anti venom is amazing but there simply isn't enough to go around and I also use Feverfew in treating normal sickness as well. But I've used up almost of the flowers in my garden."

"What else?" Louise asked.

"Aloe Vera?" Florine asked cautiously, "I use it in some of the burn ointments . . . Though . . . It's expensive."

Louise nodded in agreement, the plant would grow in Tristain, but the most potent samples were traded for from caravans from Rub Al'Khali.

"And also some Horsetail for helping with the bites and lacerations." Florine finished. "Normally I can grow all of these, or ask some of the village wives to grow them in their own gardens. But with the attacks I've used up almost everything I have."

"What about herbs from the forest?" Silica asked, "We heard you used to send your daughter to forage for them."

"Well, yes." Florine admitted. "But with the monsters I haven't dared to send her, even with Antoine to help. I need to check my stocks, but I'm short on the wild berries that I used to treat pneumonia, and also there are mushroom that I use to treat a heart condition."

"We'll be heading into the forest later." Silica explained, "If you want, you can lend us your familiar and we'll try to find what you need."

Florine smiled, "That is very generous of you Miss Silica. And it would do Marco some good to get out of the garden."

"Speaking of the Forest." Louise interrupted, "We were hoping you could tell us some more about it, since you and your daughter have gone their so often."

"Oh. Of course. What would you like to know?" Florine asked as she took a sip of her tea.

Louise and Silica exchanged glances.

"Well." Silica said. "First we're curious if you know about anything that's happened in the forest recently."

"Happened?" Florine looked confused.

"Anything that might make the animals act strange. Was there an earthquake recently, or a forest fire . . ." Silica started to list off.

The healer looked thoughtful for a moment. "A fire? Why yes, there was a small forest fire not too long ago. I saw the smoke from the near forest when I went to church. It happened a couple of days after the light and earthquake that accompanied the arrival of you Faeries." Florine swirled her tea cup, "Some of the men went to investigate, but the fires had already died down to embers by the time they arrived. I'm afraid I don't know much beyond that." Rubbing her eyes, Florine smiled tiredly, "The monsters started their attacks not long after that, and I've been busy ever since. I'm sorry I can't be more help than that."

"I see." Silica said, looking down at her tea cup. "Well, thank you anyways. If there's anything else you can think of . . ."

Florine gave a helpless look. "I'm sorry but the forest has changed very much recently. With the monsters I can hardly say what else might have changed."

"We understand." Louise said comfortingly. "We should probably get going now. If you could write down the quantities of the herbs you'll need, Tabitha and I can go get them later."

"Of course." Florine hurried to find pen and and paper, returning with a hastily scribbled note. Louise squinted, the woman's hand writing was atrocious, did all physicians write so poorly?

On their way out the door, they saw Antoine and Euphrasie sitting near the back of the garden next to a small birdhouse hidden among some of the flowering plants. Both children turn quickly and closed ranks, looking nervous. Louise's eyes narrowed, what were they hiding?

Well . . . it was probably just some childish game or . . . or were they old enough to be doing 'this and that' kissing and the like, and with a commoner no less! Louise shook her head angrily, no of course not, they were just children! She'd been around Zerbst for too long. No it was certainly just some childish thing.

"Thank you again for doing this Miss Valliere, Miss Silica." Florine said.

"It's what we're here for." Silica assured, smiling brightly.

"Kya!" Pina agreed at her master's shoulder.

"Antoine!" Florine called to the boy, "Thank you for your help, but your Aunt probably expects you back. Now hurry along."

Antoine looked apologetically to Euphrasie before turning to follow Louise and Silica, he barely made a sound while they made their way back down the road towards the village center, instead looking lost in thought.

* * *

"The first rule." Hinagiku said as she sat cross legged atop a stone before the new Little Sisters. "Little Sisters must obey Elder Sisters, and Elder Sisters must protect Little Sisters. Always remember this rule. For now, you are the youngest in the Garden, but a day will come when you will have your own Little Sisters to care for." The girl, who Yui had learned was referred to as a 'Shaman' (Query Spiritual Leader? Priest? Pope? Priest King? Cleric? Religious Authority) swept her gaze seriously across the gathered girls. The new Little Sisters, all dressed in thin, milk white gowns, nodded their heads obediently and Yui quickly mimicked.

They were seated near the center of the garden. The stocks of many flowers and herbs rising up around them like a forest in miniature. Despite the thick vegetation that surrounded them, Yui knew that they were perfectly safe. All around them, dozens of other Pixies were busily at work. The Little Sisters, the basic Wild Pixies, tending to the plants, collecting herbs, and giving special care to the Yggdrasil blossoms, under the watchful supervision of the other Shamans and protection of the Vespid Knights. Hinagiku said she had chosen this place to teach a lesson to the new Little Sisters and show them about their life in the Garden.

Though each girl had been born fully formed, able to walk, talk, and fly, Yui had soon realized that this was about the limit of their inherited Rasa. The rest would have to be taught to them. For the time being the girl's were very much blank slates, waiting for Hinagiku to inscribe the rules of the Garden upon them. Yui listened closely, this was the perfect way to learn more about the miniature society that had been created by the phenomena that had materialized ALfheim.

"This rule is very important." Hinagiku continued. "Understand, Yggdrasil-sama is not forgiving and the world is very dangerous for us." The Little Sisters had looked frightened and shied away before the Shaman's expression softened. "But Yggdrasil-sama is also not cruel. Listen well to your Elder Sisters and listen well to Yggdrasil-sama's song, and you will be safe here."

The Shaman had continued her lecture, explaining the importance of the garden and the Yggdrasil blossoms, and also the sacred task of the pixies to care for the Yggdrasil-shoot that lay a little deeper into the forest. A place that only the eldest of the Little Sisters were allowed to tend to. From what Yui could gather, the Little Sisters were only brought to the Shoot for very specific ceremonies. In fact, much of what Hinagiku taught the little sisters that morning were lessons in ceremony and propriety. Tribal Culture Social Regulation Yui had run through what she knew of humans, the ceremonies were a regulating mechanism, but more than that, they probably held significantly more power among the pixies as the ceremonies were tied closely with their life cycles.

The Pixies were married to their Gardens, literally. Hinagiku had explained how new Little Sisters were born from the Yggdrasil blossoms, blooming on the night of a full moon. She had expressed great relief that the Little Sisters had been born healthy given the strangeness of the new night sky. It was in fact due to uncertainty about the moons that the Vespid Knights had struck so rapidly and viciously the night before, searching for their stolen Yggdrasil blossoms before the Pixies within were born into captivity.

The girls born the night before were the first children of Spring but they would not be the last. The blossoms that had not yet been ready on the night of the first full moons would continue to grow and swell up until they were ready for the next. Hinagiku had teased that it was a good sign that the next group of Little Sisters would be born strong.

Hearing all of this, Yui began to understand the anger and distrust that the Pixies felt for Tarbes. If the villagers had truly destroyed one of their Gardens, it would be as if their children had died unborn. The former mental care AI struggled to understand the grief that they must have felt, the pain that was still tangible in Hinagiku when she had spoken of the other Garden.

Yui quailed and quickly ceased that line of reasoning. Down that path lead the despair and madness that had caused her fragmentation once before, she didn't know if she was strong enough to face it again. What could be done to heal such a scar? Dilemma. Surely nothing that Yui knew of, even if the Pixies had been human, especially if they had been human, there were some wounds that could not be healed. Futility. But doing so might be the only way to bring peace. So difficult! Frustration.

Eventually, Hinagiku had ceased in her lesson as a group of older Little Sisters arrived bringing lunch and a special treat for the new Little Sisters.

"What is this?" Yui asked as she examined the golden liquid that had been pored into a small blossom. The mysterious substance glinted warmly in the sunlight, its surface bulging upwards due to surface tension.

"It's a sweet syrup made from some the flowers found near the edge of the Garden." Hinagiku explained as she took a sip of her own. "The Little Sisters love sweet things, so I thought it would be a nice gift." All around them the Little Sisters were eating and chattering happily to themselves. Yui watched, noticing the way that the newborn Pixies began to cluster around some of the girl's who had brought food. Question. Was there anything that attracted them to gather around a particular Elder Sister?

Yui spent several thousand milliseconds hypothesizing and comparing her theories to what she could observe. Sadly the social sciences were highly statistical and she hardly had a large enough sample base. She would have to . . . Alert! A rock struck her on the head.

"Ow." Yui said softly, more out of surprise than any real pain. Nav Pixies were tougher than they looked, being so small, few things on the same scale could harm them. Yui looked about for the source of the debris and then heard the soft pants and huffs coming from beyond a low ridge, little more than a rise in the earth around the stem of one of the plants.

"Yui-san?" Hinagiku asked.

"I just want to look over here." The girl said. "I promise I won't leave your sight."

Hinagiku had allowed her to go reluctantly, watching cautiously as Yui climbed up and peaked over the lip of the earth. No sooner had she done so, then she as forced to duck back down as another stone was sent flying through the air, nearly striking her in the face.

A pixie girl was standing at the base of one of the flowers, in her hand she waved a sewing needle, but unlike the iron or bone needles wielded by the Knights, hers was a simple one of lacquered wood. She swung the needle around determinedly, fighting invisible enemies, and Yui could think of it as nothing but a needle. In the hands of the Vespid Knights the needles had been transformed into swords, but this girl didn't look like she could frighten, much less hurt, a fly.

The girl blocked a strike and then countered attacked, rushing in with a series of thrusts before spinning around to guard against a second assailant. She caught sight of Yui as she turned. "Wah!" The girl jumped, fumbling her needle and nearly dropping it in surprise.

"No, don't stop, you were doing so well!" Yui encouraged.

"H-how much did you see?" The girl stuttered.

"Mmm. Just the last part." Yui said, watching the pixies face go red. Even by the standards of pixies she was tiny, smaller even than Yui, with soft brown hair cropped raggedly around her head and big brown eyes filled with curiosity. Recognition Yui identified the girl as the one from the night before. The girl who had hugged her and then recoiled saying that she smelt of 'beings'. The girl recognized Yui as well and began to back away.

Yui wondered if that was the response she would get from all of the Pixies. Hinagiku didn't seem to mind her strange sent, and the new Little Sisters didn't know any better. But would the other girls continue to shun her, or could they grow to accept? She decided to find out.

Smiling as warmly as she could Yui stood up straight, placing hands on hips. "I'm Yui, what's your name?"

The girl looked at her. "Everyone calls me B-botan." The girl stuttered.

"It's nice to meet you Botan-san." Yui bowed. "I'm sorry I frightened you last night."

Botan seemed fixed in place but then nodded shyly, "N-no, I was just startled. It was . . . Rude . . . Hinagiku-sama says we should all be nice to you because . . ." She looked about "Because you're a Little Sister too, even if you look and smell different. We all forgot that last night."

"Its okay." Yui assured, "Uhm, just what were you doing down here?"

The girl wrapped her arms tighter around her needle. "Practicing."

Yui tilted her head. "Practicing? You're a Knight?" She certainly didn't look like one of the Knights from earlier. For one thing, on average, the Vespid Knights were fifty percent larger than the Little Sisters and twenty percent larger than the shamans, with physical development in line with post pubescence. hypothesis Pixies do not reproduce sexually, were these features an authority display?

Botan stiffened up, eyes growing wide. "Of course not! I'm not brave enough to be a Knight!" The girl sank down. "I . . . I'm just . . . I'm just practicing is all . . ." The girl looked down at her 'sword', looking embarrassed. "It's just something I do."

Yui understood that prodding the girl would only cause more alienation, besides it was clear as day what she had been doing. "Do you like the Knights, Botan-san?" Yui asked.

"Like?" The girl breathed. "The Vespid Knights are amazing! Sayuri-sama protects all of us." The girl said quickly, suddenly waving her sword all around. "You saw her black feathered dragon, right?"

"Un." Yui nodded.

"Sayuri-sama captured him all by herself without using any magic. Just her sword and some silk to lay a trap." Botan recited. "And then she stayed on his back until he stopped fighting and tamed him for herself. She's the strongest sword fighter there is!"

"No she's not!" Yui shot back reflexively, "The strongest swordsmen is my Papa!"

"Papa?" Botan asked, shaking her head. "What's a . . . Papa?"

Yui slapped her hands over her mouth, somehow, whenever she talked about Mama or Papa she had tendency to forget herself. "He's . . . uhm, my Master, he treats me like his daughter so he's like my dad." Botan looked confused. "It's . . . like an Elder Sister who looks after you and who you have all to yourself."

The girl seemed satisfied with this explanation and shook her head. "Well, Sayuri-sama is much stronger than him!"

"No she's not!" Yui snapped back, Sayuri was only twelve centimeters tall, regardless of her fighting ability she was objectively weaker than Papa.

"Well, that's only because your . . . Papa . . . Is a Faery. If they were the same size, Sayuri-sama would beat him every time. She already beat all of the other Knights."

"Oh no she wouldn't. Nobodies ever beaten Papa in a fair fight! Papa is the Black Swordsman of Aincrad, he fought a giant Minotaur all be himself and he can even fight with two swords! "

Botan's expression soured. "Yui, you shouldn't tell fibs!"

"I'm not lying!" Yui said, jumping and sliding down to stand beside the other girl. Looking around, Yui found some grass blades that were about the right size and demonstrated. "Papa's skill is called dual blades. He learned to fight with two swords, and when he uses it, nobody can beat him!"

"Well Sayuri-sama can outfly a willow wasp!"

"Papa can fly faster than a Sylph!"

"Sayuri-sama beat a 'being' magic user!"

"Papa fought a whole team of Salamanders, and won!" Yui carefully omitted that she and Aunt Suguha had helped.

The girl scowled at Yui and shook her head, but the important part was that she participated. She was annoyed with Yui, but she wasn't frightened of her anymore.

"Yui!" Hinagiku called as she came over ridge. Her expression grew serious. "And Botan! You should be tending to the blossoms! Do you want your Little Sisters to be born sick?"

"U-un! N-no, I'm sorry Hinagiku-sama, I stopped for lunch and then . . . I'm sorry." The girl quickly stuffed her needle into a string hoop that she wore as a scabbard and extended her wings. With a last glance at Yui she flitted off to return to her work.

Hinagiku shook her head. "Such an uncertain girl." The shaman muttered.

"Hinagiku-san?" Yui asked curiously. "Do you mean Botan-san?"

The Shaman smiled, "She's a protege of Sayuri-sama. A Little Sister that wants very badly to become a Knight." confirmation Yui thought. Hinagiku shook her head. "Such a troubled Little Sister. She'll never blossom like that."

"You care about her a lot." Yui observed.

Hinagiku giggled, "Only as much as a care about all the Little Sisters, including you Yui-san. Now come along, I want you to see the blossoms up close."

The shaman had led the new Little Sisters and Yui to see the Yggdrasil blossoms that were tended carefully near the heart of the garden. There were hundreds of them, all a beautiful blue. Yui spotted dozens of open flowers and when she asked Hinagiku the Elder Sister explained that not all blossoms would give birth to a Pixie. Some were simply beautiful flowers, but even so they contributed in their own way, their scents drawing pollinating insects to the garden and moderating the behavior of the larger animals. Hypothesis Pheromones?

The new Little Sisters had been shown one of the blossoms, swelling up heavily as if pregnant, placing their hands against its waxy outer surface reverently.

"I was inside one like this . . ." One of the girl's next to Yui whispered and then smiled. "I hope you're born soon."

They had traveled through the garden until late in the afternoon, stopping among the flowers so that Hinagiku could explain the tasks that the others were performing. Some were responsible for keeping insects from harming the blossoms, while others tended to and collected the other plants for various uses.

There were other tasks performed by the pixies. Traveling out into the forest and finding wounded or sick animals, treating those that could be healed and comforting those that were near the end of their life, hunting down predatory insects that grew too numerous, or pollinating rare plants if the pollinating insects had not found them. Directing herbivorous animals to construct firebreaks by eating the vegetation and foliage, or clearing out rotting trees so that new saplings could receive sunlight.

Hypothesis The Pixies served some sort of regulatory function for the mobs and flora of ALfheim. Yui couldn't even begin to imagine how the transition to Halkegenia and introduction into an alien ecosystem had effected their task.

But these duties were reserved for the Elder Sisters and Eldest of the Little Sisters who could be trusted to take care of themselves. The new Little Sisters would be given tasks around the Garden and Nest until they had proven themselves.

That night the new Little Sisters had gathered around the hearth for dinner, speaking excitedly. Hinagiku had assigned them all to their new groups and they were taking this last opportunity to tell one another what their news jobs would be. Hinagiku had even given Yui a 'job' of sorts. She was to stay with the Shaman under her tutelage to learn all she could about being a proper Pixie. Hinagiku hoped that with time, Yui would be able to hear Yggdrasil's song properly. The former mental care AI didn't know if such a thing was possible but the opportunity to learn more about the Pixies from Hinagiku, and the freedom to explore the Nest and Garden would be invaluable.

It had almost been enough to make her forget, almost, truly forgetting was not a simple thing for her, that Sayuri had promised to speak with her again. Yui had felt the dread from their first meeting well up again after dinner as she was taken to very top of the nest by her escorts and led out onto a roost for Willow Wasps and Feathered Dragons, like miniature Arrun Tower. Only a single mount was present, Sayuri's black feathered dragon, yellows eyes watching calmly.

Sayuri was waiting. Yui swallowed. Even with her armor removed, dressed in a blood red blouse and her vibrantly colored skirt, and without even her sword, Sayuri was terrifying. The Knight sat with one leg pulled up, the other hanging off the edge of the nest. Her four angular wings reminiscent of those of a Sylph were stretched out behind her. She resembled some predatory insect, like a dragonfly. Fast and ruthless and singularly refined in purpose. Maybe Botan was right. If Sayuri had been a Faerie, maybe she could beat Papa. The expression on Sayuri's face was one of complete disinterest.

"Uhm, good evening Sayuri-sama." Yui said cautiously.

Sayuri waved for the other Knights to leave. Only after they had departed did she speak. "Kigiku's patrol returned at sunset. They said the Faeries are still in Tarbes and that some of them even traveled into the Forest today."

Yui took a chance. "They're looking for me. They won't stop until they find me." She stepped forward, "Sayuri-sama, Leafa-chan and the others are good people. They want to help. That's why we were sent here. We can help you!"

"Help?" Sayuri tilted her head. "The only way the Fae can help is if they help get rid of the beings. But instead, they help them, they heal them, they drive off our attacks. They've allied themselves with the 'beings'. That makes them our enemies."

"They're not your enemies Sayuri-sama. Leafa-chan and the others would never help people who were hurting you."

"Never?" Sayuri chuckled softly. "The Faeries found my Garden today. Or rather, my Sisters' pyre. They're still helping the beings."

"Y-your Garden?" Yui asked. Hinagiku had mentioned twin gardens, and suddenly Yui's heart sank. She doubted very much that she would ever be able to convince the Pixies to stop attacking, not on her own, not as long as Sayuri was leader.

The girl smiled viciously. "I should never have been born . . ."

Yui looked up, an array of her mental care subroutines came online at once and began to meticulously analyze her interactions with Sayuri for signs of suicidal ideation. Yui found nothing. What did Sayuri's statement mean?

The Knight stood up and turned to glare at Yui. "Hinagiku says that you wanted to know why we're attacking the 'beings'."

"U-un." Yui said cautiously, she had pieced together much of the story for herself, but she had been afraid to ask the others lest she antagonize them. It could not be an easy topic for any of them.

"The reason we burn down their homes is because they burned ours." The pixie Knight bit off. "There were once two beautiful Gardens in this forest. Now there is only one. I saw the other die. The first thing I ever smelled was the smoke and ash as my Garden burned around me." The words were spoken with complete calm. There was no hint of quavering in the girl's voice. There was nothing. Literally nothing, even with her enhanced senses, Yui could detect no hint of emotion.

Yui bowed her head, knowing what was coming next.

"The 'Beings' attacked us, and what they couldn't take, they simply destroyed. Even the Fae aren't so vicious as that." Sayuri spat out. "We won't be safe until they are gone."

"There are more beings then you can fight." Yui warned.

"I don't have to fight them all." Sayuri responded, "Just enough to make them leave this place."

Yui shook her head, that would never happen. Humans would never back down. "It might not have been the villagers." Yui offered carefully.

"It was them." The Knight said suddenly voice confident. "It was them. I've seen them clearing their fields for planting. Burning away the brush. They did the same to my Garden." Sayuri ran a hand through her long silver blonde hair, pulling gently at her bangs. "You wouldn't understand Yui." Sayuri explained calmly. "You've been tamed by your Fae masters. You've been tricked, convinced to see them how they see themselves. That's why I am allowing Hinagiku to teach you. So that she may bring you back to us." The Knight regarded Yui with cool blue eyes and Yui took an involuntary step back. "In the mean time, you are going to tell me everything you know, about those being 'mages', the beast tamers, and the wind and fire Fae."


	37. Chapter 11 Part 5: The Steel Toothed

PLEASE READ - For those who missed the last announcement. This is part of a set of nine snips that will be posted three at a time. We will then return to our regularly scheduled race to find Asuna in another Castle.

Again, sorry for the spelling and grammar errors, I could really use a beta to proofread these before pasting to . Also, I've been made aware recently that has a tendency to eat parts of my formatting which is rather frustrating consider how Yui actually expresses her feelings. Needless to say. In the original postings of this chapter, the random capitalized words in Yui's thoughts are supposed to be bracketed like so Word . This is supposed to be a reference to the fact that her mind follows a top down architecture. Even if she is now an organic being her thought processes are not really human, if they were it would be fridge horror for a whole lot of reasons. However, posting function is, shall we say, MORONIC. If anyone knows how to turn this off it would be appreciated.

Anyways, enjoy and I'll try to get the other two promised chapters up in the next little while. As always, criticism is fine, I know this story is incredibly glacially paced and has some consistent spelling errors. But then again I'm not a professional author and personally like this pacing, it's something I could only do in an online format.

Finally. Please be considerate and if you post reviews, place a review for each chapter so that I can figure out what you're talking about.

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Halkegenia Online Chapter 11 – Part 5

Kirche felt her face twist up in distaste. 'I'm going to get wrinkles way too soon at this rate', the young fire mage thought. But what else could she do? Looking at what was laid about before her, she could hardly smile. It was midday and their small group, consisting of Silica, Louise, KoKo, and herself, found themselves standing in the middle of a clearing near the edge of the forest. It was obvious to Kirche that this place had been the sight of an intense and highly localized blaze no more than a couple of weeks ago. The local plant life was only just now beginning to reclaim the charred earth, the first hints of vibrant green sprouting up through the ash.

At the center of the clearing, KoKo was slowly turning around, taking the whole scene in. The Cait Syth didn't look happy. Her ears were folded flush with her skull and the hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end. When Kirche had been a child, she had had a pet cat that looked just like so whenever the prospect of a bath had come up.

"This is the place?" KoKo asked, "You're sure, Louise?"

Louise nodded, "Florine said she was confident that Marco would be able to lead us back to the place where Euphrasie found the flowers."

Louise held up what appeared to be a small roughly cut pendant made from some sort of dull, unpolished stone. The thing fit in the palm of Louise's hand without any trouble and a small cord had been wrapped around it so that it could be worn around ones neck. A moment later, a head and four short legs poked out and looked around sleepily. The small turtle opened and closed its mouth, making soft gurgling noises and pointed its nose unwaveringly towards the center of the clearing. No matter where Louise moved, the turtle kept facing the clearing center, obeying his master's instructions to take them to where he had first smelled the flowers.

"What do you think about this, Kirche-san?" KoKo asked.

Kirche gave the clearing another look over before she felt satisfied. "Fire mage. Or a fire dragon, a really powerful one. They'd need to be. This place wasn't just burned, it was incinerated, and the way it just cuts off at the edges means it must have been a very brief and intense blaze."

"You're sure?" KoKo looked her in the eyes.

Kirche tossed her hair casually, "My affinity is fire, I know what kind of damage my element can do." Flames were passionate, they were also incredibly dangerous and destructive, as she had told Louise.

"I was afraid of that." KoKo said shaking her head. A bitter look was pulling at the face of the normally cheerful woman.

"What's the matter?" Kirche asked.

To answer, KoKo walked across the garden to the charred remains of an old growth tree. Beneath the few remaining blackened branches, a half dozen large earthen mounds had been erected. They looked like some sort of insect colony, but the details were far too fine for that. Though now charred and blackened, and crumbling to dust, every inch of the outside of each mound seemed to have once been smoothed and rounded. Simple lines and logos had been shaped into the surfaces like giant pieces of pottery.

"What is that?" Louise asked.

"It's a pixy nest." KoKo said. "In ALfheim, they were an important part of Pixie Gardens. The spawned pixies would nest here during the night and they would all swarm out if the nest was attacked or the Pixies outside were agroed. I guess here in Halkegenia it would be like their home. This place is why the Pixies are attacking Tarbes."

"Well that's good isn't it? Now we know why they're angry." The pink haired mage said. "Now we can find a way to calm them down." Louise decided. The expression on KoKo's face caused Louise to falter. "We can calm them down. R-right?"

KoKo shook her head sadly. The hunter didn't look herself, Kirche thought. It would be like Tabitha smiling, or Louise being calm and reasonable. Some of her, "KoKo-ness" seemed to have rubbed off, and for a moment Kirche saw sorrow and grief that just didn't fit on that always happy face with its fanged smile and bright golden eyes.

"Louise. We can't . . . Fix this." KoKo said quietly.

Louise paused, frowning, she looked about. "What do you mean? Isn't it obvious? They're angry that something destroyed their homes. But they're just big pots, surely we can find someone to fix or replace them." Louise crossed her arms and shook her head, "Honestly, such unreasonable children."

"Louise . . . " KoKo breathed softly, "Its not the nests . . . It's the Garden."

"Garden?" Louise asked.

"The Garden?" Kirche repeated, looking over to Silica who shook her head, she didn't know either.

KoKo gestured across what was left of the clearing. "This whole place, it would have been filled with flowers cared for by the Pixies, thousands of them, and all sorts. Spring flowers, and summer flowers, and autumn blooming herbs. It would have been beautiful."

Silica nodded in agreement, seemingly recalling some fond memory. Kirche had to admit, a garden tended by hundreds of Yuis, she would like to see something like that.

Louise shook her head, "But Tarbes is full of Flowers, there must be someplace else that the pixies could live." That was a good point, Kirche thought, but she didn't think KoKo would look so upset if it was that simple.

"I've been giving this some thought." The hunter said. "You know that part of our mission here is to investigate the change in mob behavior, right?"

Kirche nodded. "The mobs were Golems back in your world, and now they've become the things they're supposed to imitate."

"Yeah, that's pretty much it." KoKo said thoughtfully. "Well, now that they're real. They've been getting smarter, you already know about that, but they've been doing other things like real animals too, like breeding. Pixies have a very unique reproductive cycle."

"They're all girls, aren't they?" Silica's cheeks reddened and her ears twitched in embarrassment before shaking her head. "I mean, insect hives are like that, right? All of the workers are female. But they still have drones that mate with the queens . . ." Silica squirmed awkwardly. "There aren't any boy pixies, right?"

"That's right." KoKo agreed, "Pixies reproduce symbiotically. Their gardens are filled with special flowers called Yggdrasil Blossoms. They'll only sprout in a forest that has an Yggdrasil shoot in it. The Pixies care for the blossoms, and when the blossoms bloom, they give birth to new Pixies."

"Like Thumbalina?" Silica asked. "I loved that story when I was little. So the flowers are like their . . . Oh . . ." The catgirl trailed off. The dragon on her shoulder coked her head, and gently nuzzled her master's cheek comfortingly.

"Oh." KoKo repeated softly.

Kirche felt something inside of her go dark. Even though the sun was shinning, she felt like she'd never be warm again. The Pixies were born from their Gardens. This place wasn't just a burnt field, it was the remains of a funeral pyre, and somebody had used a nursery as kindling. No wonder the Pixies attacked the Village so relentlessly. If they thought the villagers were responsible, they probably wouldn't ever stop.

"KoKo, are you alright?" Louise asked walking up to the woman. The Cait Syth had turned away from them, bowing her head to hide her face.

"It's nothing, don't worry about it." KoKo said quickly, "Louise? Those flowers you said Florine had. I think . . . I'm pretty sure they're Yggdrasil blossoms. It sounds like Euphrasie and Antoine must have found them just after the Transition. They were probably running back home after the light and shaking cleared and came across the Garden. The Pixies would have tried to repel them, but if it was just after the Transition, they might have all been inside their nests, still stunned."

"But the flowers at Florine's house have already bloomed and there aren't any Wild Pixies." Louise said, "Don't you think Florine would have mentioned that? And that wouldn't explain how the Garden was burned"

"Not all Yggdrasil blossoms will give birth to a Pixie." KoKo said. "Its pretty hit or miss actually and the exact stats were varied based on a lot of factors. It's entirely possible that the ones Florine has are just flowers . . . But the Pixies don't know that. It explains why they were so systematic in their attacks, and why they took Yui. They were searching."

"They thought they were rescuing her." Silica realized.

"Un." KoKo nodded. "So Yui is probably safe with them for now." Even so, the Cait Syth didn't seem happy with that revelation. Kirche could hear the leather of KoKo's fingerless gloves creaking as the woman balled her hands into fists. "As for the fire, you said it happened a few days after the last time Euphrasie came into the forest. We need to go talk to Florine and Euphrasie again. We need to find out who's responsible for this. And when we do . . ."

Something had changed in KoKo. The subtle feline features that were almost cute when she was smiling or laughing, now lent her a disturbing gauntness. And the blacks of her golden eyes had grown ever so slightly wider. The fire mage found herself starring at the small fangs in the woman's mouth. They weren't particularly large, but they looked needle sharp. Even Louise seemed to understand that she needed to step back.

"When we do?" Kirche asked.

"When we do . . ." KoKo breathed slowly. "We'll see . . ."

* * *

When Silica and Louise had returned to the healer's cottage, this time with KoKo and Kirche. Florine had been quite surprised to see them again so soon. Surprise had turned to worry, and perhaps even outright fear as KoKo pressed her for everything she knew about the blue flowers her daughter had brought back from the forest. Even Louise had been a little frightened. The kind sweet spirited woman who had protected her the night before, seemed far away now.

Florine had listened as KoKo explained everything. Face slowly turning pale with worry as she realized fully what had happened.

"This is . . . This is terrible." Florine shook her head. "Euphrasie would never have done something like that if she'd known!" The healer pulled her daughter close to her. The girl, having listened to the whole story, looked miserable.

KoKo had taken a breath. "We . . . We know. It was just an accident that Euphrasie picked the blossoms. She couldn't have known they were anything but pretty flowers." KoKo said giving the girl and her mother a reassuring look. "And maybe if that's all that happened, then we could make things right. But the fact is, someone burned that Garden to the ground not long after it appeared here. We need to find out who."

Kirche had described the damage to the clearing in detail. Offering her conclusion that the damage could only have been so carefully contained by a skilled fire mage.

"The only fire mage I can think of like that is the Count." Florine offered. "I believe I once heard he was a triangle and was quite the duelist in his younger years."

"Where is your Lord anyways?" Louise asked. "We haven't heard a single peep from him this whole time and when I asked the Village Chief he just said it was of no concern. Shouldn't he be here helping to defend Tarbes?"

Florine's expression softened. "He would if only he could, I'm sure. That would be because the Count is something of a recluse. He's quite terrified of people you see. He only ever comes here in the evenings as the farmers are finishing in their fields and I've never seen him approach the village during the day."

"He sounds like he isn't taking his responsibilities seriously." Louise said out loud. Should she report this to Henrietta? Even if the Count was not responsible for inciting the Faeries, he was still the steward of these lands on behalf of the crown. That implied certain privileges and also obligations.

"He does well enough by the people of Tarbes." Florine insisted. "He barely taxes the Village anything, just enough to feed himself and his servants. Mostly he just tends to his gardens these days. He's the source of many of my rarer herbs. I don't have the time or expertise to raise them all myself."

"So, he has a thing for flowers, and he's a fire mage." KoKo said. The Cait Syth's tail lashed about as she stood beside the healer. "I think we've found our number one suspect."

Florine shook her head, "But that doesn't make any sense. The Count loves botany, and he can barely stand to hurt anyone, he'd never burn away a field of flowers!"

"Maybe not deliberately." Kirche said. The Fire mage leaned against the wall beside the doorway leading to Florine's infirmary. Her eyes had fallen upon one of the patients, clinically observing a victim of the pixies who had been badly burned in one of the attacks. "But if he's a fire mage it would be easy for things to get out of hand. So, you give him a few of the flowers when he last visits, then he decides he'd like to go get some more for his collection. By then the Pixies are awake and ready to defend their Garden. Things escalate . . ." Kirche shrugged.

Louise frowned, she was getting used to seeing this side of Kirche as time went on, but it still made her uncomfortable. Things has been easier when she was just the Germanian Harlot. She was still that too, but there was more going on. It made things too complicated.

"If that's the case. I want to go talk to this Count." KoKo said.

Florine had been reluctant to leave her patients but after checking on all of them, she had grudgingly left her daughter to keep an eye on the infirmary. The girl was too young to perform any but the most basic of healing spells, but she already knew how to treat basic wounds and change bandages, and had gained plenty of experience at her mother's side.

The Count's manor was on the far western side of Tarbes. The journey on foot took them over an hour from Florine's home and Louise briefly wished that Klein and Leafa hadn't taken Tabitha with them.

"This is the home of a Count?" Louise asked in disbelief.

Before them lay the manor of the count of Tarbes. The building would have been quite grand for a country estate, if anyone had thought to care for it. But at least outwardly, no one had bothered for quite a long time. The stone walls appeared weathered, and the roof was badly in need of repair along the Manor's entire eastern wing. Though there were signs that the building was not being completely neglected.

Though appearing abandoned, the windows of the Eastern Wing had been shuttered up to protect them. And the wooden window frames appeared well maintained. The windows of the western wing were also clean and open, and a few faint curls of smoke rose from one of the chimneys near the rear of the house. But most of all, there was the garden.

Simply put. It was beautiful. Louise hadn't known that so many varieties of flowers existed in the world. She recognized most of the roses and other common flowers like any young noble woman should, and even many of the wild flowers that her sister Cattleya loved. But for every one she could name, there were a dozen that alluded her. There were carpets of brilliant orange starbursts, lime green blossoms that drooped like little bells, tiny buds of pure white, and at a place of honor near the heart of the garden, a beautiful tree covered in delicate pink blossoms. Louise was so taken by the sight that she didn't notice the way that both Silica and KoKo paused upon seeing it.

"KoKo-san . . ." Silica whispered.

"Its probably just a coincidence." The woman had whispered back. "We'll ask about it later."

"This is the home of Sir Radley Count of Tarbes." Florine confirmed as she came up beside Louise. The healer pulled a stray strand of hair back behind her ear and looked on pensively.

Louise shook her head. "Well, it's very . . . Rural." She decided. Right. Time to get to bottom of all of this. The youngest Valliere daughter set out, storming through the garden and up the steps to the wide oaken front doors. Taking one of the knockers in her hand, she beat quickly three times.

When no answer came, Louise felt her anger build and beat again. "Grr! A nobleman shouldn't keep his guests waiting!"

"Maybe he's out?" Silicia suggested.

"He should still have servants to answer the door." Louise replied, crossing her arms in irritation.

"Excuse me! Hello? Hello over there! Who might you be?" As a group, the three mages and two Faeries turned their attention to the sound of a voice coming from the direction of a small guest house nestled in the far corner of the gardens. An older gray haired man was pacing towards them dressed in clothes suited for a petty nobleman. Though his face was unshaven and scraggly with the beginnings of a beard, he moved with surprising ease and grace for a man of his apparent years.

"Are you the Count of Tarbes?" Louise asked. Beside her, Florine shook her head.

The man stopped in his tracks and then chuckled. "I'm afraid not Miss, my name is Fernand, I am the Count's majordomo, or I suppose that is what you would call me if Arthur kept much of a household these days. Alas, the man has lost his stomach for such things."

Louise recoiled at how flippantly the man regarded his master. Did he have no sense of propriety? She was about to reprimand him when KoKo stepped forward. "We seek an audience with the Count." The Cait Syth said quickly. The way the woman moved and spoke, it seemed she was forcing herself to be civil.

The majordomo looked the Faerie over. "So, one of the Fae we've been hearing about? Then you must be the investigators the Village Chief spoke of. But I'm afraid the count doesn't receive Guests these days. Not without an invitation."

"And I was under the impression that the invitation was always open for myself and Euphrasie." Florine said.

"Naturally, but for your guests . . ." Fernand gestured to the others and gave a helpless shrug.

This was going nowhere. Annoying people, getting in the way. Louise stepped forward. "I am Louise de la Valliere, third daughter of the Valliere Family, I have been empowered by the crown to see to the matter of the attacks on Tarbes. It would do you well to tell your master that I must speak with him immediately as part of my investigation."

"A Valliere?" The majordomo said with a hint of surprise. "I see then. I must be mistaken. I'm sure the master can find time to see you. Though you will have to wait briefly. The Count doesn't take easily to new faces. Please, follow me."

Fernand led them around to the back of the manor and Louise found herself entering through the Kitchen of another noble's estate. As if she were a common servant! Along the way, Louise spotted only two others. An elderly commoner wearing a wide brimmed hat, carefully tending to part of the garden. And a young woman preparing game hen for dinner in the kitchen. Were these the extent of the Count's servants? Louise wondered.

"The Count has had most of the house closed off. He only keeps the west wing open now." Fernand explained as they traveled down a tiled hallway. As they walked, Louise found her attention drawn to the many glass cases that lined the wall like paintings. She stopped in her tracks, something horrible occurring to her as she recognized the contents and recalled Yui and her tiny wings.

"Fernand." Louise almost shouted.

"Yes, Miss Valliere?" The majordomo asked.

"Does the Count have any other hobbies, other than his gardening?"

"Louise?" KoKo asked, suddenly becoming aware of just what the girl was looking at. The Cait Syth's hackles suddenly stood on end and her tail pointed straight up. Sitting in the glass cases in artfully arranged rows were were dozens of butterflies. Each insect lay, pinned in place to the cork backing of the case, their beautiful wings spread wide. A tiny piece of card had been pasted beneath each specimen, identifying its species and date of capture.

"Oh, you've noticed those?" Fernand asked. "The Count is quite the accomplished entomologist as well. Actually, I believe its an offshoot of his interest in botany. He has been closed away all day framing some of his latest samples."

KoKo and Louise exchanged looks. In the blink of the eye KoKo had the majordomo by the collar of his shirt and was dragging the confused man down the hallway, Louise storming after her, leaving the others to run to catch up.

"Please, I'm sure this is all just a misunderstanding!" Florine shouted as she trailed behind. Nobody was listening to her.

"Which way?" KoKo shouted at Fernand.

"I – What?"

"Which way to the Count? NAOW!" KoKo barred her teeth.

"Down that hallway, last door on the right. In the old dining room." Fernand said. KoKo released him and raced down the hall with Louise in tow. "What do you intend to do?" Fernand called.

"Have a chat!" Louise shouted back.

Together, Louise and KoKo threw open the wide double doors and rushed into a brightly lit room. Tall windows lined the far wall, allowing in the afternoon light. A faint chemical smell filled the air, a mixture of alcohol, preservatives, and alchemic reagents. The room was filled with long tables and benches. A variety of projects appeared to be in the works, many of which wouldn't have looked out of place in Professor Colbert's laboratory. Louise swept the room spying trays and beakers, delicate looking glassware, and what appeared to be a tiny greenhouse filled with spindly looking flowers and connected to a peculiar arrangement of tubes and burners.

"Fernand, is that you?" A voice came from the far side of the room. "I told you I wasn't to be disturbed. This is all much too fascinating. Please, get out, get out!"

Louise and KoKo moved forward, they could see the Count now, hunched over a table set before the window. A cork board filled with pins was set at his side and as Louise watched, the man plucked up a pin and . . . Handed it . . . to a Pixie.

"See? When you arrange them, you insert the pins just like so. With this one we want the wings spread so we can see both pair. This species is native to Germania and you can see how it differs from the common Tristanian moth. Germania is a cold climate and is home to many fire mages, so the local moth population survives mostly in the cities where they can find refuge. Most people think its the soot that makes their outer wings black, but I suspect its an adaptation."

"Adaptation?" A small voice asked. "That's a funny word." Another Pixie was sitting atop a book at the Count's side.

"Yes, you see, insects can breed very quickly, and like all animals they inherit traits from their parents." The man explained.

Louise could only see the side of the man's face, but from what she could see, he appeared old. His hair had long lost the battle with gray and was now moving to white and his skin was deeply lines like that of a Commoner who had spent long days in the sun. A pair of silver spectacles hung from a chain around his neck.

"What I suspect is that certain traits are selected for based on pressures applied by the environment. The moths that have traits most suitable for survival live long enough to breed and thus their beneficial traits become more common in the general population. In Germania where many of the trees near the cities, and many of the buildings, are soot stained, the black outer wings will camouflage the moths from predators. But in Tristain, the climate is warmer the trees have white bark, so naturally, the Tristanian variety of these moths have white outer wings. Do you understand that Celandine? Iris? Olive?

"Yes Arthur!" Three small voices answered.

"Oh, very good my girls, very good!" The man chuckled warmly.

Louise exchanged another glance with KoKo. To her relief, the Cait Syth seemed as confused as she was. "Excuse me. Count . . ." Louise began.

Suddenly the man spun around with speed that bellied his apparent age, eyes going wide first with surprise and then confusion. "Who are you? W-What are you doing here?! Fernand! Did you let these people in?!" The scholarly warmth from a moment earlier was replaced with near stuttering terror and as Louise watched, the Count carefully spread his arms to shield the trio of tiny figures that stood atop the table. Three little Pixie girls dressed in pure white gowns. For their part, the pixies observed curiously. One girl with short, sandy hair, flitted up from the table to sit on the Count's shoulder.

"I'm sorry Arthur." The Count's majordomo came rushing through the door followed by Kirche, Silica, and Florine. "I'm afraid they caught me by surprise. They asked to meet with you, the young girl there is a member of the Valliere family sent to investigate the incidents in Tarbes . . ." Fernand's stopped in his tracks and starred at his master. Three pairs of calmly curious eyes starred back. "I don't imagine an explanation will be forthcoming." Fernand decided aloud.

"A Valliere? To see me?" The Count appeared to be on the verge of hyperventilating. "I see. Yes, yes, you must be the agents sent by the Crown. I suppose you must meet with me." The man glanced about nervously. "If it isn't too much, could I ask, that perhaps some of you wait outside? Oh, Florine, you're here too? Yes, wonderful, more people!" The Count de Tarbes caught sight of the healer squeezing her way past Silica and Kirche. "I hope those herbs I sent along have been of use."

"They've been wonderfully helpful." Florine said in a reassuring voice before she too paused to stare at the Pixies.

"Oh, good, yes, wonderful. But like I asked, perhaps just one or two of you would suffice? I'm not terribly good with strangers you see." Not terribly good? Louise wondered. The poor man was white as a sheet. No wonder he wasn't out protecting his estates. He was barely functional in a small group, much less a crowd. This was their number one suspect?

Everyone but Fernand and Florine looked on with disbelief but it wasn't long before Kirch and Silica were ushered away to wait outside, leaving the Count with the familiar faces of his majordomo and Florine, along with Louise and KoKo.

The conversation was awkward at first as things were sorted out. The Count de Tarbes proved to be as shy as Florine had warned. His replies coming in stuttered starts and stops whenever Louise pressed him for answers. After the first few question, KoKo took over. The Cait Syth's demeanor had swung back to its more mellow default after meeting the Count, and where Louise's needled probing failed, KoKo was able to start coaxing answers from the man.

"The Pixies?" The count asked, eyes brightening up. "Oh yes. Marvelous creatures aren't they? Imagine my surprise when I found them this morning! They were hiding among some of my herbs. The poor dears were terrified. But I found that a sugar cube was all it took to coax them out." As he spoke, the Pixies had gathered themselves on the Count's left shoulder, leaning against the man, and one another. "I've spent the whole day talking with them, truly fascinating, and so curious about everything."

"Erm . . . Well, that's wonderful." KoKo said, carefully giving an awkward, closed lipped smile. She'd been building up to face a villain, and instead they found nothing but a shy old man.

"Actually, its the pixies we've come to talk to you about." Louise said.

"Oh?" The count asked.

"Yes." Florine leaned over and gently patted the Count's hand. "Arthur, those girls came from the flowers I gave you."

The Count's eyes widened, "Truly? And I thought I'd misunderstood them!" The man looked terribly pleased with this revelation. "What fascinating creatures! I would love to observe them in the wild." His expression soured. "Alas, their brethren seem non too pleased with us right now."

"Actually, this all might have something to do with that." KoKo explained. "You see. The flowers that they were born from were picked from a Pixie Garden, and that Garden was burned down not long after. We think . . . It was done by a mage."

Fernand's eyes narrowed and the Count's countenance suddenly drained of color. "Oh no, oh no no no, I didn't want this, I didn't want this at all!"

"Arthur." Florine urged gently. "Do you know something?"

"Tell us." KoKo said quietly. She didn't look angry, Louise thought, she looked . . . She looked sort of like her father when she confessed that she'd done something that mother would be mad at. The Duke had rarely had a hand in raising his daughters, much preferring to hunt or see to the families political affairs. But he had been a loving if at times distant man. The few times she could remember, he had always tried to understand why she had misbehaved and tailored the punishment accordingly.

"Florine was gracious enough to give me several of the flowers when I asked about them." The Count confirmed. "I was quite curious. I could find nothing about them in my texts and they are very unique among the flowers I've seen over the years. I was hoping to collect a few more so that I might send samples to colleagues in the Tristain Academia."

"I fear that fault lays with me." Fernand spoke up. The majordomo stood and bowed deeply. "By the time my master had grown interested in collecting more of the flowers, word had reached us of the strange monsters that were beginning to inhabit the forest. Rather than ask Florine or Euphrasie to brave the forest, I hired a small group of mages, former army troops fallen on hard times, to travel into the forest and collect more. When they returned, they demanded twice what we had negotiated. I thought they must have run across some of the monsters. But it seems I was wrong."

"The Pixies will defend their Gardens to the last breath." KoKo explained, shaking her head. "Your men must have angered them, and when they swarmed . . ."

"Oh please, no, I didn't want this, I didn't want this." The count said, covering his face with his hands.

"Are you hurt, Arthur?" One of the girl's asked, standing up, she wiped a forearm across the Count's damp cheek. "I'm quite alright Celandine. Thank you. I just . . . Do you understand what has happened to your home?"

"Our home?" The small sandy haired girl named Olive asked.

"Yes. Yes I suppose you wouldn't know anything about it." The count said mournfully.

"Because of that. We think the burning of the garden is what has all of the other pixies agroed." KoKo finished. "It's why they're attacking the Village, and I don't know if there's anything we can do to make them stop."

The Count sank down in his chair. "Is there anything at all I can do to make this right with them?" He asked.

"Short of offering your head on a platter?" KoKo said and then waved her hands quickly when it looked like the Count was seriously considering it. "Maybe if we can show them that we've tried to take care of the survivors? Last night, the Pixies stole away a Nav Pixie who came with us. They must have thought she was one of their missing newborns. I don't know if it will work. But if they'll even bother to talk to us for a few seconds, maybe we can try to explain whats happened."

The Count looked to his shoulder and the pixies looked back. The man shivered softly. "Girls? Would you like to help me for just a little while longer?"

The pixies all nodded simultaneously and the Count in turn nodded to himself before looking across the table to Louise and KoKo. "Then, I suppose that would be best. We should do as you say." The count decided, looking between KoKo and Louise. "Miss Valliere, I only hope the Crown can forgive the trouble I've caused."

"Well, that will remain to be seen." Louise said carefully. Really, she didn't know what the consequences would be for the Count of Tarbes. It would all depend on the outcome of this incident.

"No matter." The Count said, gathering up what courage he could muster. "Fernand, would you please go ready my horse. We'll depart presently."

"Are you sure, Arthur?" Florine asked with concern. "Most of the Villagers are out in the fields right now. It won't be a problem, will it?"

"Oh, no trouble, no trouble at all." The Count waved his hand. "I can do this much at least. Yes, from atop a horse it shouldn't be so bad." He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

Louise shook her head in disbelief. This man was a Count?

While waiting for Fernand to prepare the Count's horse. Louise occupied herself looking around the room. The Count, though still on edge, had caught sight of Pina's familiar and been immediately fascinated by the pigmy dragon. Pina had in turn fixated upon the three Pixie girls who had stroked her fur and offered her sugar cubes. The dragon basked in the lavished affection.

"What kind of flowers are these?" Louise asked, examining the miniature greenhouse setup on the table.

"Oh. Yes. Do you like them?" The Count was suddenly in his element once more, the shyness fading as he spoke. "Those are Lastbreath. Incredibly poisonous. Its toxins can cause the muscles of the chest to go lax, leaving a person unable to breath" The Count said, noticing Louise's surprise. "Though those same toxins can also save a life in the right dosage. Healers use them to treat chronic respiratory ailments, but only the wealthiest nobles can afford treatment. The flower is very hard to raise outside of its native habitat, a deep ravine in Romalia. I think I've determined the reason why."

The count looked excited as he explained. "Its all thanks to Fernand as a matter of fact. I realized that the ravine is a low point that collects exhaled vapors. These vapors settle along the bottom of the canyon in a layer roughly a mail deep. Any animal that can't keep its head above this layer will find itself asphyxiated almost immediately, but Lastbreath needs these concentrations to grow and produce its toxins in the proper purity." The Count gestured to the glass apparatus beside the greenhouse. "Now naturally, a wind mage of sufficient skill could gather and concentrate these Vapers, but such a task is tedious and difficult to do with magic for long periods of time. So Fernand and I used our expertise, my fire affinity and his wind affinity, to develop an alchemic process to do so without further interference. With this device we'll be able to grow Lastbreath here in Tristain."

Louise understood almost immediately. "Its a medicinal plant, but right now we have to get it from Romalia. But with this we can grow it for ourselves." She could appreciate the value of such an invention.

"Indeed." The Count seemed pleased. "If my experiments with cultivating it meet with success, I should be able to raise enough money to expand my research."

'More than that.' Louise thought. She would have to remember to tell Professor Colbert about this. It wasn't his field of expertise, but he would likely feel like he'd found a kindred spirit.

"Arthur." Fernand returned in the company of the elderly servant from the garden. "Your horse is prepared."

The Count nodded and took a deep breath, steeling himself for what he was about to do. "Come along girls, we . . . we have business to attend to." The Pixies gathered themselves on the Counts shoulders, flitting about on gossamer wings.

Louise fell in behind the Count and his servants, walking just beside KoKo. "He's not what I expected." Louise whispered under her breath, but she was sure KoKo would be able to hear it.

"I know." KoKo agreed, smiling gently as she watched the Count carefully transfer the pixies into his shirt pocket where they would be safe while riding on horseback. "He's just an old man who's found some friends."

Somehow, Louise didn't think the Pixies would see it that way.

* * *

"Yui-chan!" Leafa called. "Yui-chan!"

Klein looked over to the girl and then looked away. Damn it, she shouldn't be beating herself up like this. She was just a kid, it wasn't her fault that Yui had been kidnapped. He should have kept a better eye on Yui, or have shot down Lady Sakuya when she considered Leafa for this job. It should have been safe enough, a milk run.

'Yeah. Knock on wood.' Klein thought.

They were standing in the deep forest, miles from the furthest fields of Tarbes. KoKo hadn't been sure how far in the Pixie's might be, but the Yggdrasil Shoot would probably be near the heart of the Forest, so it was as good a place as any to start looking. Old growth trees rose around them, blotting out the light and obscuring everything in shadow. Whichever direction he looked, his vision was cut off within fifty meters and if it hadn't been for their wings, they would have been hard pressed to travel at even a walking pace without getting caught up in the bushes, brambles, and low hanging branches. Klein had thought he knew what to expect from from a forest after some of Aincrad's fields, but this was nuts!

"Leafa-san, I'd lay off on it for now." Klein suggested, receiving an angered glare from the green eyed girl. When she was angry, she had the uncomfortable tendency to look her apparent age. "Look." Klein rubbed at the back of his neck. "If Yui is with the other Pixies, they're not going to just let her run off, right? Hell, shouting would just scare them away." An uncomfortable silence passed between them.

When they had divided up responsibility that morning, Leafa had leaped at the opportunity to travel into the deep forest in search of any sign of the Pixies. Naturally, Klein had jumped in right after her. Leafa was doing the right thing for the right reasons, but she was still a kid, and she didn't have the experience that he and Silica had collected in SAO. She was bound to do something foolish if somebody didn't go with her.

At least they had Tabitha as backup. Klein had grown convinced over the past day that there was a lot more to the girl then she was letting on. There was something in her, an inner steel that shouldn't exist in someone that young, but that Klein had seen too often in Kirito and Asuna to not pick up on. And besides, she had a dragon, and it wasn't a runt like Pina.

Leafa's glare softened and her eyes turned downwards. "You're right." The Sylph girl mumbled unhappily. "Sorry."

"Leafa." Klein said. The girl stiffened up and looked at him a little surprised. "Look, we'll find her." He beat a fist against his shoulder and grinned confidently. "That's a promise."

"Un . . . I know that . . . But at the same time . . . What if she's hurt, or the Pixies do something to her?" Leafa brought her hands together before her chest. "Yui . . . Before all of this . . . She asked me if I was her Aunt."

Klein blinked in surprise. Yui was an AI right? Did she even have a concept of family like that? Well, obviously she thought of Kirito as her 'Papa' and Asuna as her 'Mama', but it was weird to hear that it went further than that. Leafa looked like she was on the verge of tearing up. 'Crap . . . Don't let her cry. Think of an answer!' "O-okay?" 'Real smooth, real smooth.'

"Honestly, I would have rather she thought of me as her Onee-san." Leafa continued. "It would have been fun to have a little sister. But, I think she needed me more this way. And really, I felt honored that Yui-chan would even think of me that way . . ." Leafa looked up and smiled desperately. "I was supposed to protect her! And instead I led her here. I betrayed her trust! I betrayed Onii-chan's trust!" Leafa leaned against the side of a nearby tree. "This is my fault." She whispered.

'No . . . Its not your fault.' Klein thought angrily. 'Don't you go down this road too. Don't you dare go and be like Kirito. I'm done seeing people do that to themselves!'

Klein had been lucky, in a fashion. In SAO, his guild, Furinkanzen, had been unique. They were among the clearers, but it was not their status among the elite, or their success in battle that had made them special. Furinkanzen had started with seven members, and it had ended with those same seven. At no point in SAO did they lose a single man, even as others fell in battle around them.

He had payed for that privilege with sweat and tears, and long nights spent awake, starring up at the ceiling and wondering how a goofball like him . . . Tsuboi Ryotaro . . . salary man at a small imports company and newbie to SAO . . . Managed to stand and survive when so many others had fallen around him. Succumbing to fatal mistakes, overconfidence, or simple bad luck. And yet, that still made him one of the lucky ones.

The Tsuboi Ryotaro that had woken up after two years in the game . . . in the World of SAO, shared a lot with the Tsuboi Ryotaro of before. He was a little older, much wiser, and much much more weary, but he hadn't been a stranger to his parents, and he'd been able to cry with genuine gratitude when his asshole of a boss had visited his hospital room and told him that he wanted to hire him back as soon as he was well enough to work.

It hadn't been the same for Kirito. At some point over those two years the boy who had shown Klein the ropes on that first day had died, and the person who had taken his place had been left scarred in a way that left the older man wandering how Kirito could stand to breath, much less fight, laugh, and live on. That anguish wasn't something he ever wanted to see another person feel. Hating himself, just a little, for letting it happen to Kirito was about the only way Klein could hope to understand.

"Hey, Leafa . . . Look, I know we're not really friends or anything and you don't have any reason to trust what I'm telling you." Damn, why did words have to be so hard? "But . . . I know your brother well enough to say he won't think you've betrayed him. And if Yui is his little girl, than she'll be thinking the exact same thing. And that's because its the truth. You couldn't have expected this. You left her someplace you thought was safe, with people to protect her." Klein walked over and patted the girl's hair. Leafa squeezed her eyes shut and leaned her head against his palm. "There's plenty of blame to go around, but you'd be at the back of the line."

"I can't forgive myself for this." Leafa said.

"Sure you can." Klein replied, causing the girl to look up. "All we have to do is get Yui back safe and make sure it never happens again." Klein took his hand from Leafa's head and stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Of course . . . You're brother will probably still be pretty mad . . . He'll probably punch me for not knowing better and then tell you off for not being a little more careful. But the point is, it won't change who you are to him. And he definitely will still trust you."

That didn't mean there would be any consequence, oh no. Klein thought to himself darkly. Yeah, if something happened to that girl . . . It might just be the final thing to push Kirito over the edge.

Leafa looked thoughtful, but slowly, she nodded. "Okay."

Klein felt relieved, she wasn't exactly snapping back to herself, but as long as they found Yui, she'd be able to work through this. 'And the battle is won. Now where's the victory BGM? . . . No seriously . . . Where's the BGM?' The whole forest had just gone deathly silent.

Both Faeries were immediately on guard. Klein drawing his Katana just as Leafa brought out her own longsword. Both of them glanced about. Ears straining for any clues, eyes scanning the shadows for motion. Their wings materialized without a second thought. High above, Tabitha's dragon circled slowly, keeping watch from the skies. But with the forest being so thick, it was unlikely that Sylphied or her master could see anything.

"Do you hear that?" Leafa asked. One of her long ears twitched as if listening to something far away.

"Eh? I think your hearing is better." Klein replied.

"It sounds like . . . Wolves or . . . Dogs?" Leafa trailed off. Klein could hear it now too, rapid fire staccato barks accompanied by the high pitched whines that they'd heard the night before.

"Airborne. Now!" Klein said, but Leafa was already kicking off into the sky. Rising up through a gap in the thick canopy above them and into the safety of the air. It was harder to hear up above the trees. The wind interfered, and also the canopy seemed to trap much of the sound. But Leafa was able to find the source, pointing to the east, deeper into the forest.

They climbed back up to Tabitha and Sylphied, settling on the dragon's neck to rest their wings. "There's something going on to the East of here. Mind if we check it out?" Klein asked.

The girl had shaken her head and without a word, gently directed the dragon to fly Eastward towards the source of the disturbance.

"What is that?" Klein asked as the barking grew louder. Between the brief gaps in the trees, the Salamander swordsman could make out the sleek blue shapes of dagger dogs running along an animal path. A whole pack of the highly coordinated mobs were chasing something through the forest, actually, a lot of somethings. Brown gray and covered in bristled fur. They looked sort of familiar to Klein but he wasn't quite sure from the air.

"Boar." Tabitha confirmed a moment later.

"You mean like wild pigs?" Leafa asked.

"Then they're just hunting?" Klein asked. After all, even mobs had to eat. Still, it might be a Pixie controlled pack, in which case, following them couldn't hurt.

The blue haired mage frowned, squinting behind her glasses. "Not hunting. Herding."

"Herding?" Klein asked, like they're corralling the pigs? Wait, what had KoKo said? The Pixies tended to the forest, boar did lots of damage and ate pretty much everything in their path, so were the Pixies trying to evict them? They hadn't so much as spotted a Wild Pixie since entering the forest, so this might just be a lead.

"Oy, Tabitha, follow those swine!" Klein shouted to be heard. Sylphied let out a cry and banked, gliding just above the tree tops.

It wasn't long before the forest began to widen beneath them and Klein could see the whole herd. At least a dozen boar were running beneath them, and as he watched another group emerged from the north, being chased by still more dagger dogs. Then, almost as soon as the two groups of boar came together, the dogs stopped howling and began to split off, racing back into the forest and leaving the combined herd confused and milling about near the center of a clearing.

"What the hell was that about?" Klein asked to no one in particular.

"Should we check it out?" Leafa asked, "There must be a reason they were herding them here."

"Un." Klein nodded and patted Tabitha on the shoulder. "Keep an eye out for us, okay?" The girl nodded.

Descending from Sylphied, the two Faeries came down a short distance from the heard which was now milling about and sniffing around for food. Klein didn't know much about IRL boar, but in SAO they had a tendency to agroe pretty easily, and he wasn't much interested in fighting trash mobs when he had a job to do.

"Heh. Wish Enya were here, we could have a barbecue."

"Klein!" Leafa snapped.

"Alright, alright. Being serious." The Salamander said, looking around. What reason could the dogs have had to herd them here? There was almost nothing around. They were in a semi open space near the heart of the forest. At some point long ago the area must have been cleared by some natural disaster, or judging by the low, semi earth covered lip that encircle half the clearing, and taking into account the sunken elevation, had once been the bed of a pond or shallow lake.

They spent a little time examining the clearing while Tabitha kept watch above. The open space left Klein feeling a lot more at ease. They'd definitely be able to see something coming, especially with their eye in the sky. After their first sweep of the clearing turned up nothing, both Faeries found themselves crouching down in the shade provided by the low earthen ridge, taking a moment to rest and think.

"Say, Klein." Leafa said as she stood beside him. "Thanks."

"Oh? Its no big deal." Klein said. "You're a good kid to worry about her. I think Yui is lucky to have an aunt like you."

"Not just about that." Leafa said. "I mean, thanks for everything. For looking out for Onii-chan and me." Leafa smiled sincerely, "You may not look it, but you're a really nice guy Klein."

Klein's head sank down, now if only he could get someone a bit older to say something like that to him.

Well, there was that fire mage chick . . . No, on the other hand, bad idea.

'Eh, Why not?'

Because she looked like she was going to eat him alive!

'So, wouldn't that be a worthy death?'

And besides, she was still too young to go drinking with.

'Not by the local standards.'

Damn it! He had to uphold his own standards. 'Come on Klein, where's your honor as a Samurai!'

'Technically, the adherence to Bushido portrayed in modern fiction greatly exaggerates the honor of the warrior class in Japanese history. Much of the modern idealization of the code of Bushido is the result of efforts taken by the Japanese government prior to WWII to bolster moral within the armed forces and . . '

'Damn it brain!' Where in the hell had he even learned that?

Klein shook his head and turned his attention back to Leafa. "Like I said, it's no problem." Klein insisted. "I owe your brother a lot. We're comrades after all. Don't go acting like its some big inconvenience for me . . . Leafa. We will get her back."

"I know." The Sylph said quietly as she leaned against the stony surface.

A soft low hiss filled the clearing and both Klein and Leafa shot bolt upright. The boar seemed equally confused and began to look about in fright.

"What is this, what's going on?" Leafa already had her sword in her hands.

They felt it before they heard it. A faint shaking that turned to rumbling and then grinding like stone against stone. Immediately, both Faeries were back on guard. The ground began to tremble, pebbles dancing at their feet.

"What is that?" Klein asked to no one in particular.

"Definitely not more dogs. Is it . . . " Leafa began

Suddenly, a jet of hot acrid air burst from the earthen wall that Leafa had been standing against, passing just between the two Faeries, and leaving hole as Large as a human head. Klein caught only a brief whiff. But whatever it was, it was pretty powerful. He felt his eyes watering at what could only be described as the overwhelming stench of rotting meat, carried on hot and humid breath . . . Breath?

The earth shuddered again, and Klein felt his heart stop as shards of rock began to crack and brake away. A trio of silver ovoids, each about a meter long, clustered tightly together in a triangular pattern, were revealed centered at just above head level on the earthen barrier. Then, in a single rippling motion, the mirrored surfaces withdrew revealing three ovoids of vivid green. The green orbs spun about smoothly, each containing a single, blood red, slitted pupil.

"Okay . . . That's bad!" Klein said as two years of SAO and twenty three years of common sense kicked in. "Leafa?"

The girl was frozen in place at his side. The ground shook again more violently. The whole earthen wall rippling. Dirt and stones falling away, grass and plants tearing loose. Slowly the eyes rose up, and up, and up. More earth and roots fell away. A milk white head revealed itself, rising up into the air, undeniably conical and reptilian, but something in the line of the jaw and mouth reminded Klein of pictures he had seen of wales. Hell, the thing almost looked cute. A series of questioning chirps rose from someplace deep within the creature's skull.

By now the boar had fled back into the forest in an attempt to take refuge.

"Leafa!" Klein gritted out.

The girl was shaking now, completely transfixed by the eyes. She'd handled herself well enough against the mobs last night, but this was something else entirely. The Whale-Snake headed monster began to open its mouth and all sense of cuteness vanished in an instant. Muscles trembled as jaw unhinged and unfolded, and the sleekly conical head was transformed into a nightmare of gaping maw and sword like teeth. The chirping cry from earlier was replaced by a vicious hiss.

The earthen wall was revealed for what it actually was, the body of an immense white serpent, rising from the earth and wrapping around most of the clearing. The serpent began to coil up, turning menacingly towards Leafa. Klein didn't even bother calling out to the girl this time. Like a spring coming unwound, the serpent lunged forward. Its mouth and sword teeth fit to swallow a grown man and turn him into sashimi in a single gulp. Klein slammed into Leafa, dropping his sword and sweeping the girl off of her feet before kicking off with all of his might. The serpent rocketed past beneath them, its long body flowing like water before circling back around, angered that it had just missed its meal.

"Kyuuii!" Sylphied cried as from on high Tabitha raised her staff and a hail of icicle projectiles materialized to rain down on the unsuspecting serpent below. Ice shards, sharp enough to shred flesh and hard and heavy enough to batter apart armor, fell like rain across the serpents hide. Tabitha might as well have been hitting it with spitballs. The serpent doubled back on itself and fought back. A short sharp jet of some clear viscous fluid shot from its mouth, narrowly missing the dragon. It would have been a pretty week boss if it was land bound and couldn't fight back.

"Get clear!" Klein shouted to Tabitha. "That thing's at least a field boss!" If this area had been a forest in ALfheim as well, it might be a formerly quest related dungeon boss. Considering that it had been laying dormant the latter seemed likely.

Klein and Sylphied rose back up until they were well out of the Serpent's range. The monster turned and lashed about for a while longer before its body described a figure eight and glided off into the forest, leaving only the upturned earth and thoroughly destroyed clearing to mark its passage. As they watched, the trees began to ripple and sway, describing a path off to North West.

Only as his breathing slowed and he took account of his senses did Klein realize that he was still holding Leafa in his arms. The girl's face was bone white and she trembled softly. There was a world of difference between fighting normal mobs and facing down something like that. Leafa was a tough kid, she was Kirito's sister after all, but Klein had seen plenty of strong players freeze up the first time they faced something like that. Especially when death was a real possibility.

"Hey, Leafa . . . Are you okay?"

The girl shook her head slowly. "I . . . I'll be fine." He felt her shiver one last time as she got herself under control. A little bit of color returned to her cheeks. "Uhm, Thank you." She said, and then, "You can put me down now."

"What? Oh. Right!" Klein carefully released the Sylph as she materialized her wings and took to the skies beside him. Klein looked down and noticed his empty scabbard for the first time. Glancing about, far below he could see where he and Leafa had been standing. The Serpent had cut a deep trench through the earth, scraping the ground as it went. There was no sign of his Katana. "Damn! It ate my sword!"

"Sorry. That's my fault." Leafa shook her head. "I promise I'll make it up to you!" She added quickly.

Well, he hadn't made a habit of blaming people for things that were his own fault, and he wasn't about to start now. "It's fine. You can chip in for a new one we get back to Arrun." He offered. Damn, he'd really liked that sword.

"What was that?" Tabitha asked as they returned to Sylphied. The small mage looked off in the direction that the serpent had traveled.

"I have no clue." Klein replied, "Leafa?"

"Mmm. I don't know much about boss monsters outside of the Sylph territory." The Sylph apologized.

"The Dogs . . . Feeding it?" Tabitha asked.

The Dogs had herded the boar very carefully to this area before retreating. That meant they must have known the boss was lying dormant here. Were the Pixies taking care of the boss? Klein wondered. Damn, KoKo had told them lots about the Pixies but maybe he should have had her write it all down.

"I can hear more barking." Leafa said suddenly.

"What? Which way?" Klein asked.

The Sylph placed her hands to her ears and closed her eyes in concentration. "It's . . . To the west. The dogs are definitely to the west." In the distance, Klein saw one of the old growth trees shudder and snap like a twig, the Serpent ramming through anything it couldn't avoid. Sylphied turned to the west, overflying the serpent's path and allowing the Mage and Faeries to observe from the sky.

They only caught brief glimpses, Tabitha didn't dare to bring Sylphied too low. A flash of serpentine white, and out ahead, bolts of blue fur herding the boar from earlier back together. The dogs didn't try to stop the boar. The wild pigs would likely have simply charged through the Dagger Dogs if they tried to prevent their escape from the monster at their backs. But the pack type mobs weren't trying to stop them, and the serpent wouldn't have needed their help even if they had. The serpent descended upon the rear most boar like lightning. What Klein saw through the tree's was like watching the Shinkansen passing through the station. The squealing cries of boar gradually grew fewer and then vanished altogether.

The dagger dogs went silent, scattering off into the woods. Having already been fed the Serpent seemed uninterested in chasing after the remaining morsels. For a brief moment Klein saw something small, yellow and black, flying above the dogs. A Willow Wasp, and no doubt a Pixie rider. What could the Pixies be trying to do by waking up a boss and then leading it along with food? They were leading it. Leading it West . . . Away from something? Or towards . . .towards Tarbes! It suddenly occurred to Klein what was happening.

"They're luring it." He muttered.

Tabitha glanced to him and Leafa perked up.

"What do you mean?" Leafa asked.

"Look, pixies have a taming ability, but it only works on small mobs and bosses are supposed to be pretty much impossible to tame on top of that. Maybe it can be done now, but it would be incredibly hard and dangerous, right?"

"Right." Leafa agreed and then suddenly understood. "But they don't need to tame it. They just need it to go where they want it to go." Leafa's face was set into a look of dawning horror. Up until now. The Pixies had possessed only their small mobs with which to attack Tarbes. But with something like that on the way, if they were successful in directing it towards Tarbes, they'd be able to wipe the village out.

"Leafa, are your wings good?" Klein snapped around. Stupid question, Sylphs were among the best fliers, and Leafa was one of the most skilled Sylphs.

"Un." The Sylph nodded determinedly, understanding what he was about to ask her.

"We're going to track this thing for a while longer. You head back to Tarbes and warn everyone." Why couldn't towns still be safe zones? Klein thought bitterly. Yeah, an invincible town wall to hide behind would be pretty sweet right now. "Tell KoKo what we saw and then tell the Village Chief to get everyone together. They need to get ready to evacuate."

* * *

"Clear your mind of everything." Hinagiku said. "Your own feelings and thoughts can color Yggdrasil-sama's song."

"That's bad, right?" Yui asked.

"No . . . Not bad." Hinagiku shook her head as she offered Yui a cup filled with a sort of milky white tea. "But you must be aware of it and how it colors your perceptions."

Yui scrunched up her face. This was all too unspecific. She didn't suppose the Pixies might have an address code or some sort of console command to open their link with Cardinal? If that were the case, their ceremonies would probably be much more superficial.

Hinagiku had come to collect her after her talk with Sayuri. The Vespid Knight had wanted to know everything about the Fae and mages, what kind of attacks they used, their fighting styles, and which ones were the strongest. Fortunately for Yui's policy of honesty, other than Sayuri's natural paranoia, she didn't appear to be an expert interrogator and there were lots of questions which Yui couldn't answer besides. For instance, Yui had only witnessed Aunt Sugu in battle, and that had been back when ALfheim was a game. The others were almost completely unknown to her. What little Yui had been able to tell her were things that the Knight had likely already known. She had been able to answer quite honestly that she simply didn't have the information Sayuri wanted. Though frustrated, the Vespid Knight had believed her.

Instead of being taken back to the sleep chambers with all of the other Little Sisters, Hinagiku led Yui back to her own small cell in the upper portion of the nest. Yui watched as the Shaman began to lay out a pair of mats and pillows, preparing a sitting place for the two of them. Hypothesis Yui had noted a great deal of detail within the Pixie nest. Blankets, pillows, small pots and clay mugs. Was this an artifact from ALFheim? The furniture and items might largely be miniaturized game assets. Prior to the transition. Could players have peaked inside of a Pixie nest and seen all of this? Or were the nests originally nothing but spawn points for the Wild Pixies? Had the transition filled in the blanks like it had with the Pixies' intelligence and personalities?

Interrogative This was well beyond the capabilities of Cardinal's synthesis functions. Cardinal was immensely powerful, both in terms of its decision making processes and authority over the game world, but ultimately, Cardinal was simply a machine, not a god. Its ability to synthesize and create new content, while impressive, was limited by the availability of external databases and per-existing game assets and did not reach the complexity necessary to construct the fully functioning minds and bodies of the mobs. It could not have been the source of the actualization of ALFheim in Halkegenia.

From what Yui could determine, Hinagiku earnestly believed that she had lived in the Garden for over a year, conducting all of her varied ceremonies and rituals and caring for the Little Sisters. As sophisticated as Cardinal was, it was doubtful that the GM AI could synthesize such an elaborate society and populate it with so many varied personalities.

Correction Cardinal had been altered in some way by the Transition, this was evident in Yui's own inability to properly interface with the GM AI. What was the extent of this alteration. If Cardinal was not the source of the Transition, but rather subject to it just as everything else from ALFheim, then perhaps Cardinal was now in fact some sort of god or deity spirit

Meanwhile, Yui's own mind structure appeared to be largely unaltered save for a considerable increase in sensory input from her body Distracting. Otherwise, she had detected no abnormalities despite checking and rechecking her main logic cluster. Insufficient InformationPrediction FailureConcern. Was this because she had already been a fully realized intelligence? And how had this criteria been reached?

Hypothesis Emergent Behavior? Yui considered this possibility. When the Pixies' minds had been created, had they simply filled in the blanks from information provided to them during the Transition? Humans were known to fabricate entire memories in response to stressful situations. Yui had done something similar as a result of the Trauma of her own birth, the cascading failures that had led to the emergence of hew own mind had forced the MHCP program to purge large portions of its internal database including parts of Yui's own nascent mind structure. These components had only been restored after coming into contact with the GM console in the hidden dungeon beneath Aincrad's starting city.

Yui watched as Hinagiku hummed to herself, feeling worry. Would Hinagiku be able to believe the truth? Would it damage her if she learned that her memories were fabrications?

Hinagiku noticed Yui starring and patted the pillow beside her. "Please, come and sit down Yui-san. "I'd like to try something with you."

Yui nodded slowly. Regardless of anything else, she had to play the part of a good Little Sister so that she could keep learning more about the Pixies.

"You said that you can hear something that you think is Yggdrasil-sama's song." Hinagiku observed as Yui made herself comfortable.

"Un." Yui said, sitting cross legged before the Shaman. "But, I can't make anything out. It doesn't sound like anything at all to me."

Hinagiku gave her a worried look. "I think perhaps you are trying too hard. Yggdrasil-sama doesn't expect us to listen to every part of her song, only the parts meant for us, and even among Pixies there are certain parts of the song that are emphasized more than others."

Yui nodded, "You said you listen to chanting, and Sayuri-sama listens to drums." Yui looked thoughtful. "Then I should be listening to the lullaby"

"Yes and no." Hinagiku said, elaborating as she offered Yui a mug. "Even a Little Sister can hear Yggdrasil-sama's chant and drums, but they are distant things, just as the drums are very distant for me, and chant is distant for Sayuri-sama. First you must find what Yggdrasil-sama wishes for you to hear." Hinagiku took her own mug and carefully rotated it once in a counterclockwise fashion before lifting it in both hands and sipping at the contents. She nodded for Yui to do the same. "There's nothing to worry about, it's merely an herbal tea."

Yui took an experimental sip. The flavor was bitter, but Papa would probably have teased her if she complained, so she hid her distaste and took another sip. She noticed the way Hinagiku smiled. Slowly Yui felt a sensation that could only be described as Calm passing over her.

"For tonight, we will try some simple meditative exercises." The Shaman explained before taking up a folded arms, straight backed posture. She closed her eyes and began to describe what she wanted Yui to do.

Trying to meditate honestly felt strange to Yui. She knew of meditation, and why humans partook of it. For stress relief, or for spiritual purposes, sometimes simply as a method of focus and physical health. But the idea of regulating her body, controlling her breathing, slowing her heartbeat, relaxing her arms and legs, was a new experience.

Query Had she been mistaken in her conclusion earlier? Was her physical existence beginning to have an effect on her state of mind? Worry Yui began yet another self diagnostic of her main logic cluster but again the results were inconclusive.

"You must clear your mind, Yui-san. All that there should be, is yourself, and Yggdrasil-sama." Hinagiku explained.

"I understand . . . But . . ." The girl shook her head. "I'm sorry but its a lot harder than I thought." Yui admitted.

She couldn't stop thinking no matter what she did. Yui was an AI after all, at least, by technical definition, though she did not consider herself to be a human like intelligence or "virtual human being" in the way that popular fiction depicted them.

"That's alright Yui-san." Hinagiku reassured her. "We'll try for a little longer tonight and then rest."

Though Yui tried to follow Hinagiku's advice, her link to Cardinal remained unswervingly incomprehensible. Noise and junk code that from time to time would resolve itself into incomplete bits of command line information. Query Perhaps what Yui and Hinagiku heard were two different things entirely.

Eventually they finished for the night. The end of their session coming as the shaman finished her second cup of tea. Yui had stood, stretching slowly, and feeling a yawn coming on. She felt stiff, her legs had cramped up while sitting. Like she'd told Klein, a physical body could be pretty inconvenient.

Hinagiku showed Yui across the small cell to a narrow doorway that lead into an even smaller room. Blankets and pillows had been laid out on an elevated platform. "Since you will under my care for the time being, you will sleep here with me from now on." The shaman explained.

Yui nodded slowly and climbed up onto the platform. There would be more than enough space for both girls and Yui see that a sleeping place had been prepared for her. The day had given her lots to think about and exhaustion that was creeping into her body was a constant reminder that 'sleep' was probably a good idea.

"Goodnight, Hinagiku-san." Yui offered.

"Goodnight, Yui-san." The shaman replied.

Yui cralwed beneath the blankets and closed her eyes, but she didn't enter her standby state right away. She was still thinking. Mulling over everything she had seen today. A few thoughts would always come to her late, and it was best to allow the last conclusions to trickle in then to risk losing them when her buffer was cleared.

She listened to the sounds of Hinagiku moving around in the other room. Unlike Sayuri who barely seemed to think of her at all, Hinagiku had been nothing but kind. Conclusion Mama would like her. Yui Thought. Query Does Hinagiku hate humans? The few times that the subject had almost been brought up, the girl had seemed unsure. From what Yui had gathered, only the Vespid Knights and some of the Shaman and Eldest Little Sisters had been near to Tarbes, and then only to do battle.

Information Control That was a possibility. Hinagiku was the senior shaman and the Pixie Garden was hierarchical in nature. Even if Sayuri was the leader, Hinagiku would have some voice. Maybe she could convince the Shaman to see things for herself. If Hinagiku would just agree to talk to talk with the humans, then she would definitely understand that the people of Tarbes weren't bad. For the villagers, their fields were their life, just like the Garden was for the Pixies. They should be able to understand each other. Conclusion They don't have to hurt each other.

Hinagiku peaked in briefly and whispered Yui's name. However, the former MHCP AI was so lost in thought that she barely noticed and Hinagiku must have concluded that she had already fallen asleep. Yui's primary thought process came to a crash stop a moment later as her audio analysis subroutine triggered a keyword alert.

"Sayuri-sama?" Hinagiku said with surprise before her voice softened. "You're here for that again, Elder Sister?"

Yui's eyes opened just a crack. Pretending to be asleep, hidden in the shadows and beneath the covers, Yui watched through the doorway as the Vespid Knight stepped into Hinagiku's chamber. Something was wrong. The way Sayuri moved was different from before. The smooth, graceful motions were missing. She seemed slower, wearier than she had whenever she appeared before the other Pixies.

Sayuri nodded her head, refusing to look Hinagiku in the eye. "Kigiku keeps insisting that I rest. But the song is keeping me awake again." The Knight said tiredly.

Hinagiku looked about to say something, but her expression changed to one of simple concern. "I can prepare the infusion I gave you last time, it should help quiet the song. But the dreamless sleep you've been having . . . " Hinagiku shook her head. "It isn't healthy. You need proper rest Sayuri-sama."

The Knight took an offered seat atop one of Hinagiku's pillows, raising a hand to rub at one temple. "Rest? I'll be able to rest in just a few more days. Once . . ." Sayuri grimaced for a moment as if in pain. The tension in her face and complaints of being unable to sleep Migraine? Yui wondered. " . . . Once the beings are gone and this Garden is safe."

"Then you are going forward with that?" The Shaman asked.

Query That? Yui wondered about this. Hinagiku wasn't articulating which probably meant she was uncomfortable with the subjects that the two were discussing. Taken in context, it seemed Sayuri was planning something. A new phase in her ongoing campaign against the Village? What form would it take? She seemed confident that it would drive the Villagers off, or even destroy Tarbes. Too many unknowns with too many immediate consequences filled Yui's mind. Blossoming, iterating, she forced herself to to pause her current train of thougt.

Hinagiku turned around and removed something from an earthen jar, a few small flower buds, tiny even in the hands of a Pixie, and went to work mashing them into a paste with a grinding stone. She murmured as she worked, speaking in a soft, soothing tone, that appeared to set Sayuri at ease. Yui had been frightened by the other girl both times she had confronted her. But now, she didn't look scary at all, simply tired.

The Shaman next lifted a small pot atop a miniature hearth filling the hearth with a few dry leaves with which to start a fire and several piece of an almost amber like material. Yui had seen the pixie who fed the central hearth using the same small stones, though she wasn't entirely sure what they were. Hypothesis Some sort of sap?

The Shaman lit the kindling with a fireball, so softly invoked that it emerged from her offered hand as nothing but a few small sparks. The stones began to heat and smolder, giving off a faintly pleasant, smoke filled aroma. "It will take a few moments." Hinagiku apologized. "In the mean time, let me see your back."

"Again?" Sayuri asked wearily.

When the other girl did not back down, the Knight turned around and pulled up her blouse, exposing her bare back for inspection. Beneath her blanket, Yui had to hold in a gasp. The Knight's back was covered in horrible bruises and welts that clustered all around the stems of her wings. What had happened to her?

"It's getting worse." Hinagiku observed.

"The pain is not a problem." Sayuri winced as the Shaman probed with her fingers.

"You may not think so. But if you ignore it, you'll end up pushing yourself too far." Hinagiku warned softly. "What will your Little Sisters think if that happens?"

"If something happens to me. I trust Kigiku to finish what I've started." Sayuri stated flatly.

Hinagiku gave a small nod, closing her eyes. "That may be." The shaman stood and returned to her pot, ladling some heated water into a nutshell and mixing it with the flower paste. "But it would still be a great trouble to all of us." She offered the contents to Sayuri who took the shell reluctantly. "Please, just spend a little time to care for yourself. Nobody will think any less of you."

Sayuri didn't answer, instead drinking down the contents of the shell as quickly as she could. She made a disgusted face and Hinagiku giggled softly.

"You have no stomach for bitter things, do you Sayuri-sama? It betrays your inexperience." Hinagiku said with a hint of mirth. The Vespid Knight glared at her before standing slowly. "I meant no disrespect." The shaman said gently.

"Next time . . . mix it with something sweet please." The Knight said before turning to depart.

"Sayuri-sama. On that note." Hinagiku spoke up.

"Yes?" The Knight asked.

"The flowers I've been using to treat you . . . They don't bloom here in the garden and they don't keep well once they are picked. The other Shamans and I also use them in our ceremonies and for when a Little Sister's time comes, so they are very important for that reason as well. Tomorrow, I'd like to go find more."

Sayuri nodded. "I'll lend you Kigiku and her sisters for protection."

"I would also like to take Yui and Botan." The Shaman said quickly.

The Knight looked at her curiously. "You've chosen to take Yui under your wing, her I understand, but why Botan?"

The shaman smiled gently. "The girl is anxious right now. She's becoming less and less like a Little Sister and doesn't know her place anymore. I think it will come her time very soon, and I want to be sure she goes down the path that she and Yggdrasil-sama want for her."

"I see." For the first time, Yui saw Sayuri's real smile. It almost made her cry, it was so feeble, like a flame that was in danger of going out. "Do as you like, Hinagiku."

"Thank you, Sayuri-sama." The shaman bowed graciously.

Only after the other girl had left did Hinagiku shake her head softly and murmur something that even Yui couldn't make out. Her wings folded like a moth's behind her back as she placed the discarded nutshell back on her chamber's low table and sank down onto the mat she used for meditation. The girl closed her eyes and let out a long low sigh. Gradually her breathing became slow and steady and her form perfectly still. Meditation Yui thought. This was what Hinagiku had been trying to show her earlier.

Cautiously, Yui rolled over beneath her blanket, and thought about what she had just witnessed. So many new unknowns had just opened up before her. Queries What was Sayuri planning? What was wrong with Sayuri? What had Hinagiku meant about Botan's "time"? Yui thought she might be able to ask Hinagiku about the last one, but the first two were almost certainly forbidden subjects for her.

Yui knew only two things for certain. Sayuri was planning something terrible, and tomorrow Yui would go with Hinagiku beyond the boundaries of the Garden. They would be accompanied by only a few Knights and Botan. Aunt Suguha and the others would almost definitely be looking for her. If the opportunity came. She would have to try and escape.

Yui closed her eyes and placed herself into standby. The last thought processed by her primary logic cluster fading into oblivion with her sense of self.

'Papa, Mama, Aunt Sugu . . . I promise I'll try'


	38. Chapter 11 Part 6: Missing Children

PLEASE READ - For those who missed the last announcement. This is part of a set of nine snips that will be posted three at a time. We will then return to our regularly scheduled race to find Asuna in another Castle.

Again, sorry for the spelling and grammar errors, I could really use a beta to proofread these before pasting to . Also, I've been made aware recently that has a tendency to eat parts of my formatting which is rather frustrating consider how Yui actually expresses her feelings. Needless to say. In the original postings of this chapter, the random capitalized words in Yui's thoughts are supposed to be bracketed like so Word . This is supposed to be a reference to the fact that her mind follows a top down architecture. Even if she is now an organic being her thought processes are not really human, if they were it would be fridge horror for a whole lot of reasons. However, posting function is, shall we say, MORONIC. If anyone knows how to turn this off it would be appreciated.

Anyways, enjoy and I'll try to get the other two promised chapters up in the next little while. As always, criticism is fine, I know this story is incredibly glacially paced and has some consistent spelling errors. But then again I'm not a professional author and personally like this pacing, it's something I could only do in an online format.

Finally. Please be considerate and if you post reviews, place a review for each chapter so that I can figure out what you're talking about.

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Halkegenia Online – Chapter 11 – Part 6

Upon arriving at the home of the Village Chief and dismounting from his horse, the Count of Tarbes was met by looks of surprise, confusion, and outright shock by the Villagers. Louise recalled what Florine had said about the Count's eccentricities. The people of Tarbes were no more used to their Lord Walking among them then he was of doing so. It may also have had something to do with the three tiny girls peeking out from the pockets of his coat.

There were whispers, murmurs of concern among the villagers, wondering if something had happened to the Count. The men of Tarbes seemed uncertain whether they should bow or reach for the halberds that they had kept at the ready since the Pixie attacks had begun. The Count walked past them, glancing around and mumbling greetings, escorted by his majordomo and Florine while the Fae and Kirche cleared a path. The Village Chief was waiting for them when they reached his front door. Louise was a little surprised to find that Leafa was with him, eyes filled with worry. What had happened? Louise wondered, and where were Klein and Tabitha?

"My Lord. It is good to find you well." Roseau greeted before eying the Pixie girls that had climbed from the Count's pockets and now watched the Village Chief in turn.

The Count seemed lost for a moment having done his best to ignore everything around him as they had traveled past the fields and homes of the villagers. "Oh, oh, yes. I forget myself." The Nobleman apologized. "How have you been, Roseau? Well, I hope." The Count gently patted down the front of his shirt. "Girls, introduce yourselves to the Village Chief."

In perfect unison the pixies each performed a curtsey before Roseau, moving with the elegance of miniature dancers. "How do you do." The girls said as one.

"I am Celandine." The first Pixie, who had shoulder length black hair and soft brown eyes.

"And I'm Olive." The second girl, with short sandy hair, added.

"Iris." The last girl, the smallest of the three, and seemingly the shyest, said in a voice that was barely more than a whisper, even for a Pixie.

The Village Chief looked from one girl to the next, his expression a mixture of confusion and disbelief, before looking back to his Lord. The Count of Tarbes expression was pleading, almost pathetic, Louise thought. Roseau nodded slowly. "It is a pleasure to meet you girls. If you are a friends of our Lord, then I welcome you to Tarbes." The Pixies looked amongst one another, for Children, their reactions were quite subdued, but Louise thought they looked pleased. "My Lord? May I be so bold as to ask for an explanation?" Roseau gestured to the pixies.

The Count shifted uncomfortably. "They are . . . I suppose, the reason for all of this. For the trouble with the Pixies and with the mobs from the woods. Which is why we are here. It appears that fault lays with me, and now I must make things right."

"My Lord?" Roseau looked on in confusion. "What do you mean?" The murmurs grew among the villagers who had gathered at a respectable distance to greet the arrival of their Lord. The people looked uncertain, the Count was supposedly well liked, so it was hard for people to accept that he might be responsible.

"I fear that I have erred greatly in these past days." The Count began to explain, struggling to make himself understood.

"These girls came into the Count's stewardship by accident. Their home was destroyed in a fire, and we believe the Pixies think that they were stolen away." KoKo offered with a look of gratitude from the Nobleman. "That is why they have been attacking your village. From what we've learned, we think we might have a chance of getting the Pixies to listen with their help." Though her voice betrayed no doubt, the hunter didn't look confident. "We have to try anyways."

Roseau nodded sadly. "While that is wonderful news for your investigation. I fear that may no longer be enough." The Village Chief said, "Miss Leafa has come baring most terrible news."

"Leafa?" KoKo asked, suddenly the Cait Syth looked concerned. "What is it?" All attention turned to the Sylph who had listened quietly so far.

"A field boss." Leafa's eyes glinted. "There's a field boss in the woods. And from what we can tell, the Pixies are kiting it here to Tarbes."

The mages and Fae looked among themselves. The expressions on the Faeries faces suggested that this was cause for concern. Louise tried to remember what she had been told about "bosses". It was a term that the Faerie used to describe beasts of immense power. Strong enough to fight multiple mages and virtually un-tamable. Henrietta had told Louise of her run in with one such monster just before meeting the Salamander Lord and his brother and it had sounded terrifyingly strong. Supposedly it took whole squadrons of Fae and careful planning to defeat even one. Louise doubted they had the power to win with just their small group.

KoKo listened quietly as Leafa described the monster that had nearly swallowed her and Klein whole. Only when the Sylph was done speaking did KoKo cross her arms and close her eyes. "Lhamthanc the Steel Toothed." She breathed softly. The Cait Syth turned to Roseau. "Chief. You seem pretty organized from what I've seen, any chance you have an evacuation plan for the village?"

The Village Chief nodded slowly."Yes. Grandfather arranged it long ago, one of his better ideas as a matter of fact." Roseau said. The elderly man seemed to age by years before Louise's eyes. "I've already sent word to the families nearest the forest. I shall go see that everyone else prepares as well." The Village chief didn't look happy. Of course he wouldn't be. The Faeries were telling him that he and his people would have to abandon their homes. For the Villagers, their village and fields were their livelihoods. But looking at KoKo, Louise didn't think she would have suggested evacuating if she thought that there was another option.

"Lhamthanc the Steel Toothed?" Kirche asked. "Sounds pretty nasty if somebody decided it needed a name."

"It is." KoKo agreed, brow furrowed and eyes narrowed in thought. She shook her head sharply. "Stupid, stupid, stupid." She bit out. "We should have known it would be someplace around here, but nobody cared because it hadn't made a nuisance of itself. To think they'd dig up something like that." The Cait Syth began to explain. "This is bad. Lhamthanc's initial form is a serpent, a nasty one too, he'd probably consider Tabitha's dragon to be a hearty meal."

Louise blanched at the thought of something that could eat a dragon like so. Surely their were fiercer beasts, such as her own mother's manticore, but from the sound of it, this Lhamthanc might have just considered a manticore to be dessert.

"Excuse me, but what do you mean by 'initial form'?" The Count of Tarbes asked cautiously.

KoKo raised a hand to her chin and began to pace. "Basically, when Lhamthanc awakens from dormancy, its form is that of a serpent. In this form, Lhamthanc's hide is incredibly strong and it possesses strong melee and targeted poison based attacks."

"It nearly shot Sylphied from the sky." Leafa confirmed.

"Un." KoKo nodded. "His basic attack patterns in this stage aren't very complex. He'll move towards large concentrations of pl - . . . of Faeries or other mobs and try to consume them, and will attack anything that does enough damage to register as a threat. But really, he isn't that dangerous just yet. His attacks are strong, but easy to avoid, and he's fast, but ground bound. The problem is that, after enough time passes, Lhamthanc's form changes."

Leafa mumbled something about a "A multi-stage boss."

"So it undergoes a metamorphosis, like an insect?" The Count asked, appearing greatly curious. "Fascinating." How could he be thinking about something like that at time like this? Louise wondered.

"In its second form, Lhamthanc sheds its scales for feathers and develops a pair of wings. It transforms into an airborne boss. It also gets an upgraded area effect poison breath and powerful wind attack. Its defense is weaker in this form, but its even more mobile and its attack patterns become highly erratic." KoKo's eyes swept between those gathered. "It won't just be a danger to Tarbes, it will become a threat to every settlement in this region."

"Oh no." Leafa breathed, eyes widening. "Klein and Tabitha are still following it." She said. "They don't know that it can change its form!"

KoKo placed her hands on the young woman's shoulders. "Listen, Leafa, it'll be okay. I want you to go back and find them. Tell Klein and Tabitha what I just told you and to keep their distance if they're going to keep following it. I don't know when Lhamthanc may change to its second stage but we need to start getting ready. Evacuating the villagers isn't enough." The Elder Cait Syth turned to Silica. "Silica-chan. I have an important job for you."

The younger Fae nodded her head seriously. Her familiar gave a small, supportive, "Kyaa!"

"The Princess and Lady Sakuya both said that we should call for help if we found anything we didn't think we could handle." The hunter smiled, "I think this qualifies. I need you and Pina to head for Cadenza. There should be a Cait Syth squadron stationed their, including a squad of Dragoons. We're going to need all of them and any mages that the local garrison can offer."

"I understand." Silica said, the younger Cait Syth looked worried, "But it might be a while before they can organize and get here. Probably at least a day."

"That's okay," KoKo reassured."Just bring them here as fast as you can. In the mean time, we'll get to evacuating the village, and try to lead Lhamthanc back deeper into the forest. If the Pixies can Kite a boss, then so can we. Hopefully, even if his form changes, that will buy us some time. "Louise-chan, Kirche-san, we'll be trusting you as nobles to help lead the Villagers and get them away as quickly as possible."

Louise bit her lip, was that really all that she was good for? Shepherding commoners? But really, that was what they were here for, and it was obvious that Count couldn't lead them to safety on his own. "Alright." Louise said. "You can leave the Villagers to me and Kirche." Louise said.

"Okay then, we all have our jobs." The Cait Syth gave a brave smile. "Lets roll up our sleeves and get to work." KoKo said, she was already materializing her wings to follow after Leafa when the Count spoke up.

"Excuse me Miss KoKo, but is there really no way to avert this now? Perhaps I can still speak with the Pixies." The Count looked lost, to have gathered up his meager courage and to find it useless had left him defeated. For the first time, Louise felt she could empathize with the gentle old man and thought to speak some kind words.

"Maybe we still can." KoKo agreed. "In any case, they still have a friend of ours, so we'll need to talk to them to get her back. But first, we need to make sure the Villagers are safe and the boss is dealt with. Count, please look after those girls for now." The Cait Syth smiled, "I think they've taken a shine to you." Indeed, the three girls had returned to their places on the Count's shoulders and were gently leaning against him.

"Don't be sad Arthur." Celandine said.

"You're trying hard." Olive agreed.

The kind words seemed to fall on deaf ears as the count looked away glumly. "Y-yes If you think that's best. I shall do that." The Count said dully, "And I will try to be of what help I can."

Seeing her Lord's crushed expression, Florine stepped forward. "Come along Arthur, you can help me see to my patients." The healer gently took her Lord's hand. "They will need to be prepared if we are to move them."

"Y-yes. Quite." The Count agreed, "I can do that. Fernand, let us help see to Florine's patients. Then you should return to the manor and tell the servants. Tell them to pack their belonging and my notes."

"Of course, my Lord." The Major Domo replied.

"Louise." KoKo said, nodding with a small twitch of her ears. "I'll be trusting you to look after everyone. I know you''ll do your best." The lookin the woman's eyes was so sincere that for a moment Louise didn't feel like she was being left behind and was instead being assigned a vital task.

"R-right!" Louise agreed, watching as the Cait Syth kicked off and headed into the skies after Leafa.

Silica was already preparing to depart as well. The young cat girl had acquired a shawl offered by one of the Village women and was tying together a sling to hold her still wounded familiar while she flew the distance to Cadenza. It would be less than an hours journey, but as KoKo had said, it would be unlikely that help would be able to arrive before morning at earliest. They would need to work quickly and into the night for the villagers to ready to depart. Though owning few possessions, it would take the villagers time to gather what they did posses and the commoners would want to secure their homes in hopes that they could return.

Kirche and Louise found themselves traveling door to door, alerting those who had not yet herd the news and trying to dislodge those who refused to evacuate. Personally, Louise would rather have left anyone too stupid to listen to their fate. But again the Zerbst had surprised her, proving quite gentle and insistent in getting some of the worst offenders to begin packing their things

Eventually they had found there way back to Florine's cottage where a number of men were helping to prepare the worst wounded for travel. By now it was getting into early evening and the sky was growing dark. The only light came from candles and mage lights cast by the Count and his majordomo to allow the Villagers to continue their work, loading a large wagon with Florine's books and medical supplies.

"Florine, is there anything you need from us?" Louise asked as they got near.

"Oh, Miss Valliere, Miss Zerbst." Florine looked up from where she was working by a magelight cast by the Count to clean a particularly deep wound that looked in danger of becoming infected.

"Another attack?" Louise asked. She wondered if the pixies would bother again tonight. They were already bringing a giant serpent to the village, so she doubted it.

"No, this fool simply decided to try and plow his field without help." Florine sighed. "The attacks have been leaving too few to see to sewing the fields. As a matter of fact, are either of you qualified in healing magic?"

Louise felt something in her crack but shook her head honestly. "I'm sorry, but I'm not terribly good with healing." Louise looked over to Kirche.

"Hey, don't look at me!" The fire mage said with an uncharacteristic look of uncertainty. "Healing magic and I just don't seem to work out." This came as a surprise to Louise who had been finding the Zerbst's talent and ability increasingly irksome in the face of her own failures. The idea that there was something that the other girl simply wasn't good at was somehow a great comfort.

"Well then. Florine said. "You can help Euphrasie with packing some of our things. I asked her to gather the last of the herbs from the garden. Most lose potency once they are picked, but we may not have a chance to come back for them." The healer gave a helpless look.

The two mages found Eurphrasie in the garden, working by magelight with a knife to cut and gather the herbs, or alternatively, digging up the smaller plants and placing their roots into roughly woven sacks so that they could be brought along. Euphrasie looked up in surprise when they entered the garden, leaning protectively over a small wooden box. Probably some heirloom her mother had entrusted her with.

"What are you doing here?" She asked quickly.

"Hey now, there's no reason to be rude." Kirche pouted. "We're here to help."

"Your mother asked us to help you gather up the last of the herbs." Louise agreed. The girl looked at them suspiciously but nodded.

"We need to get the honey weed and then I have to get the mushroom trays from under the tree. You two can handle the first one." Euphrasie offered both Louise and Kirche a knife before lifting up her box and racing off to the back of the Garden.

Louise and Kirche worked quickly. The academy had taught some simple gardening skills as a matter of course. Things any mage would need to know to raise certain basic medical reagents. Of course, that didn't mean everyone had taken to the lessons well.

"Kirche! You're butchering it!" Louise accused while looking at the shrub that the fire mage had largely denuded.

"Well we're in a hurry, aren't we?" The Zerbst huffed shortly.

"That doesn't mean you can just tear up the whole plant! We only want the seed pods. Like this." Louise demonstrated with her own plant. Despite Kirche's inelegant technique, between the two of them, they made quick work of the honey weed that Euphrasie had specified, continuing their way through the garden as it grew entirely dark. When they returned to Florine with the gathered herbs they found the healer conversing with several of the farmers, her daughter close at her side, clutching her box to her chest.

"Damn these little terrors and damn the Fae for not helping." One of the farmers spat, Louise thought he was the man who had spoken out the night before.

"The Fae are helping plenty." Florine said. "It isn't their fault that this has happened."

"Aye, that would be the fault of . . . of . . ." The man had begun angrily before trailing off. Even a lowly commoner knew to catch himself before insulting his betters. "In any case, how can you say the Fae have helped? If they'd gone into the forest and destroyed those pests we wouldn't be running from some monster they'd managed to wake up."

"We aren't the only one who have been wronged." Florine replied, "This has been a horrible misunderstanding and the Fae have done everything in their power to do right by all of us."

"It is just as Florine has said." The Count offered shyly while looking about. The pixies on his shoulders gave small encouraging nods as if trying to bolster their friend's courage. "We . . . I mean to say, I, have . . . have done a great disservice to the Pixies. I promise that you will be able to return to your homes shortly, after I have explained everything to them, but for now you . . . You should evacuate as the Village Chief and Faeries have suggested." The Count nodded to himself. "Yes, that's what should be done."

"Gavin, please, that is enough for tonight." Florine said, "Go be with your wife and children. Gather them at the meeting place to the west of the Village. We'll be moving out at dawn towards Albi. We can find safe haven their until the danger has passed."

The farmer gave Florine an angered glare before glancing viciously to the Pixies sitting upon the Count's shoulders. "Should just burn the lot of them." The man muttered as he turned away. "Finish what the fires started." Euphrasie clutched her box close to her chest, looking upset.

Florine shook her head. "I'm sorry Arthur, you shouldn't have to see that."

"N-no-no-no." The Count shook his head, "Gavin has every right to be angry. This is my fault, I had the flowers taken from them. Once the village is evacuated, I'll go gather up my samples and take them with me back to the clearing, perhaps I can . . . I can find some Pixies that will listen . . . perhaps." The Count trailed off uncertainly.

"Arthur, you shouldn't go off into the woods, not on your own." Florine said. "Please, wait for that monster to be dealt with and go with the Faeries."

"I wouldn't be alone." The Count shook his head. "Heavens forbid. I would have Celandine, Olive, and Iris with me." He gestured to the girl's on his shoulders who only nodded in complete agreement with the Count.

"I was thinking more substantial escorts." Florine sighed.

"Fear not, Florine." Fernand said, stepping to stand beside his master. "I would hardly allow him to go alone."

Florine shook her head in disbelief. "Two old men to face monsters and pixies. Fools the lot of you!" The healer turned to her daughter. "Euphrasie, do you have your things? Your church dress and books?"

"Yes mother." The girl said sullenly.

Louise frowned, the girl seemed much too upset by all of this. Children her age were usually exited when something out of the ordinary happened. Weren't they? Not that such an attitude was appropriate. Perhaps she was just better behaved, Louise decided.

Suddenly Euphrasie looked up, "Mother, may I go help Antoine? His mother might need help with his little brothers?"

"Yes, you may, Euphrasie. Go help Claudia." The girl's mother said distractedly as she continued to speak with the Count and Fernand. Euphrasie turned, and raced off along the dark road towards the homesteads in the distance.

Work continued with carrying out the wounded from the the back of Claudia's cottage. Most were well enough to walk, while others were carried out on makeshift stretchers and loaded into the waiting wagons, covered in blankets to protect them against the surprisingly chill night. The farmers worked swiftly and with startling silence and efficiency. It had never occurred to Louise until now, but the common people had their own ways of seeing things done, and were certainly accustomed to working en mass such as during the sewing and harvesting seasons.

While wiping down the forehead of one feverish man, a victim of Willow Wasp venom, Louise listened to the distance, wandering if at any moment she would hear the distant roars of the terrible monster that KoKo had described. The hunter thought they might be able to divert it away from the town. But if that were the case, the Pixies would probably try to stop them. Louise could hardly imagine the hatred they must have felt to want to destroy an entire Village.

The youngest Valliere shook her head angrily. Unruly children! They ought to stop and listen to what the Villagers had to say. This could all be sorted out if only they would listen! That was the problem of course, nobody ever listened to the people who knew what was what. People like her mother, and Henrietta. Naturally that was why nobles were granted magic, to enforce the proper way of things.

It was as she thought this, while Kirche heated a pot of water to help clean bandages, that an anxious looking woman came hurrying down the road in the dark, holding the hand of a small boy while carrying an even younger one in her arms.

"Florine? Florine! Have you seen Antoine?" The woman called desperately, causing the healing to look up from her work.

"What is it Claudia?" Florine asked and then frowned as she noticed the children. "Wait, isn't Euphrasie helping you?"

"Helping me?" Claudia shook her head, "She came by saying that you needed Antoine's help." The woman's eyes widened, "You mean Antoine isn't here?"

The two mothers exchanges looks and then Florine glanced to the Count who's anxious expression had suddenly become much more focused and worried at the mention that Euphrasie's whereabouts were unknown.

"What? Why would Euphrasie . . ." A look of horror suddenly spread across the healers face and she raced back into the cottage. There came a shout from inside that caused Louise and Kirche to drop what they were doing and race after the healer, the Count following close behind.

In the dimly lit interior of the cottage, they found Florine standing stock still, starring at the windowsill where Louise had first admired the beautiful blue blossoms. They were missing.

"Oh no, oh no no no." The Count shook his head slowly. "Florine." Suddenly the Count was reaching out to the healer, struggling clumsily past Louise and Kirche. "Florine? What is it? Where is Euphrasie?"

"The flowers." Florine shook her head. "She took the flowers! That foolish girl. She's been listening this whole time. She must think . . . Arthur, we need to go after them now, Eurphrasie and Antoine, they're about to put themselves in danger!"

For once, Louise understood almost immediately and felt worry well up within her. Euphrasie had been the one to pick the flowers. The only reason the Count had even known about them was because of her and her mother. Of course she would think this was her fault and that perhaps like the Count had said, the Pixies would listen if only they could see the Village's good intentions.

"They'll be heading for the forest." Louise said. "Won't they." It wasn't a question. Louise already knew the answer. She knew what she would do in Euphrasie's place.

Florine nodded slowly. "They're probably . . . Probably going towards the clearing where she first picked them." She shook her head.

"The pixies come out at night. And so do their mobs." Kirche commented darkly.

From the doorway, Claudia let out a gasp. "Oh no, not my Antoine."

"The forest?" The Count muttered as he rubbed at his temples. "By herself . . . No no no." The man took a step back shaking his head.

"Arthur?" Celandine asked softly. "Arthur, you're worried about Euphrasie aren't you?"

The Count looked to the pixy girl, nodding slowly as he nearly hyperventilated.

"I like Euprhasie, she smells like a garden." Lily observed.

"Can we help her, Arthur?" Olive asked. "Let's help her."

"Help?" The Count blinked. "Y-yes. Yes, that's is what we must do. We must go and help Euphrasie and Antoine." He nodded to himself, standing a bit straighter, holding his chest out a bit further. "Then there's only one thing to do, isn't there? Right?" The Counts eyes were filled with terror. "We . . . We have to go and get her and Antoine before they get themselves hurt."

Louise politely refrained from mentioning that the Count had in fact been planning to do the self same thing before butting in. "But you heard what KoKo said about Lha-Lham- the big snake!" She snapped. "And if they've run off into the forest, how can you find them? What if the Pixies catch them in the forest?" Or worse, she thought.

"Marco knows Euphrasie's sent." Florine said with a note of determination creeping into her voice. Now that the initial shock had passed the woman had been set into motion, rushing out into the garden she returned with her turtle familiar, making ready to string the small animal around her neck.

"No, Florine, you mustn't." The Count said with surprising quickness. "I mean . . . The villagers need you." The man lost his certainty almost as soon as it had come.

"My daughter needs me more!" The healer said, glaring at her Lord in a fashion that she would be unable to get away with if the Count had been a sterner man.

"Which is why . . . Why I will go and retrieve her!" The Count stuttered. "Please, Florine, trust me with this much . . . It is . . . Is perhaps all I can do."

'All he could do?' Louise thought. She very much doubted the Nobleman could herd kittens back to their mother, much less two children lost in pixies infested woods.

"Arthur . . ." Florine began.

"Fear not Florine, as I said, I will go with him." Fernand said as he stood at the Counts side. "These years may have grayed my hair, but they have not dulled my skills, I am still a line of air and the Arthur is still well able to defend himself against the beasts of the wild."

Louise very much would like to see that. She couldn't imagine the Count harming a fly. Much less a giant knife wielding wolf or a swarm of giant wasps. But then again, Fernand did have the look of a soldier about him, despite his age. Louise had seen enough of her mother to know when she was looking at someone who had refused to go soft.

"The Count is right." Louise said, deciding to speak up. "The Villagers need you. Especially if all the injured are going to be moved." It seemed like the right thing to say.

"There are still the men that Anna and I have been taking care of." Claudia said. "And Anna's husband is almost too weak to move!"

"I'll go with them." Kirche offered. "What's better than one strong fire mage than two?" She nodded to the Count and Fernand. "Between us we should be enough. Right?" Kirche exchanged a small nod with Louise. As much as it hurt, Kirche was a pretty good fighter. There wasn't much Louise would be able to add.

"Three mages should be more than enough to find the children and bring them back safely." Fernand said confidently. "Please, Florine, care for the villagers, as you must do, and we will find the children."

The healer looked ready to protest, but looking between Arthur and Fernand she finally gave up, slowly handing Marco into the waiting hands of the Count. The Count of Tarbes took the familiar gently and strung him around his own neck.

"Bring her back safe, Arthur."

"It should hardly be any trouble." The Count mumbled shyly. "Fernand, quickly, take my horse and go get my staff. I . . . and M-miss Zerbst will meet you at the edge of the forest!"


	39. Chapter 11 Part 7: The Bellows

NOTE! Whelp, I'm now posting the last three parts of the Tarbes Arc. The updates after today will return to Kirito and Asuna. I'm posting todays snips with some spacing so that I can make some corrections though I'm sure I haven't caught everything. Again, for some reason tends to eat my formatting.

Halkegenia Online-Chapter 11-Part 7

Klein and Tabitha had followed behind the serpent for almost an hour. The boss was cruising at a much slower pace after filling its belly. Luckily, it was looking like the serpent type boss wasn't particular interested in moving much now that the only pray in sight was safely out of reach. Instead, it had taken to prowling, slithering slowly through the forest, hunting for its next meal.

"Well, so much for their big plan." Klein said more for his own benefit than any response it would net him from Tabitha. No sooner had he spoken than the sound of Dagger Dogs started up again. 'Me and my big mouth.' Klein thought.

Below them, the serpent began to pick up speed again, hearing the dogs, and smelling its next meal. Soon it was moving at its cruising speed once more, gliding and flowing between the trees like some segment of river that had come free from its banks. Ahead, another group of dagger dogs had gathered up a herd of dear to be the serpent's next snack.

Klein winced, it was like watching that infomercial where the announcer stuffed a whole steak into an industrial grade food processor. Now it's there, now it's gone. Except there wasn't any ground veal left over to make burgers, just a trench cut through the underbrush where the massive jaws had scraped along the forest floor. The only good news seemed to be that the Pixies were having a hell of a time leading the it in a straight line, and instead had to settle for just getting it to travel in the general direction that they wanted.

In the evening sky, Klein caught sight of two lights approaching from the direction of Tarbes, one green, and one yellow, either KoKo or Silica. His first guess proved right as they neared.

"Klein!" Leafa called. "Klein, we need to stay further back!"

"Oy, Leafa!" Klein called and then raised a hand to his ear. "What's that?"

"The boss! Get back!" The Sylph called again, "It can fly!" At mention of the monster's power of flight, Tabitha immediately pulled Sylphied up higher into the sky.

Klein bit down on a curse as he watched the serpent slink by below. Of course it could fly, being land bound, nearly indestructible, and able to shoot acid just made it too easy. It didn't look particularly airworthy at the moment. But he supposed that just meant it was a multi stage type boss. Then this was probably just a cocoon for a second stage that would be even stronger. That explained why its carcase was so tough.

"Care to fill us in?" Klein called to a fast approaching KoKo.

The Faeries gathered atop Sylphied, Tabitha listening in as the wind dragon slowly circled higher while keeping a close eye on the serpent.

"And that's all I know." KoKo finished going over what details she had on the boss type mob below them. "It's supposed to be incredibly tough. On top of that its really hard to find since it lays dormant until enough players or mobs gather to trigger its feeding frenzy. That must have been what the Pixies were doing when you found Lhamthanc in the clearing."

"Right." Klein grunted, "So what do we do now?" The trees below them rustled and cracked with the passage of Lhamthanc.

"We've got a Cait Syth squadron on their way." KoKo said. "If we can play keep away until the end of the night . . . Then hopefully by morning they'll have arrived and we can either destroy the boss or drive him back into hibernation."

"Plan until then?" Tabitha asked.

"If the Pixies can Kite him, then so can we." KoKo supplied with a fanged grin. "You said they're herding animals into its path?"

"Yeah." Klein agreed. "Its been an all you can eat buffet down their." In fact, irritatingly so considering the portions that Klein had been satisfying himself with. Not that he could complain, but fighting took a lot of energy. All that meat going to waste in the digestive tract of a giant snake when it could be filling his own belly hardly seemed fair.

"Then, I think we have our bait." KoKo said, ears piquing as the sound of more Dogs could be heard in the distance. "Lets try to see if we can't lead it North, towards the mountains." The Cait Syth suggested as she notched her first arrow and rolled off of Sylphied's back, followed a moment later by Leafa and then a reluctant Klein.

"Something wrong?" Leafa called to him as they went lower.

"I'm really missing my sword right now." Klein admitted, damn he'd payed extra to get that sword along with the account.

Leafa looked thoughtful and then shrugged, "Here." She unsheathed her blade and handed it to Klein.

"Eh, but doesn't that leave you without a weapon?" Klein asked.

Leafa smiled confidently, "I can handle myself well enough with magic. You need this more than me."

Klein shrugged, he had to admit, Leafa's taste in swords wasn't half bad as he hefted the blade experimentally. ALO might have been a game where magic was supreme, but he had grown used to fighting in the environment of SAO and would take a sword any day over some chanting, lights, and SFX.

"There they are!" KoKo pointed to where a pack of Dagger Dogs could be seen racing beneath the trees. The trio of Faeries spread their wings to steady themselves before KoKo and Leafa let loose with their first attacks. Leafa lead with a short spell, wind magic that shot forth from her hand and shredded the earth to the side of one of the Dogs. The mob yelped in surprise and broke away. At the same time, KoKo loosed her first arrow with a whispered chant, aiming to the left of the latest herd of boar.

The arrow struck with a small explosion and a concussive blast. Klein whistled at the elemental based attack and KoKo gave a little wink. The herd veered off, squealing in fright and now heading almost due north as the Dagger Dogs tried to get them back under control. At their back, Lhamthanc had sensed the change in its prey's heading and began to follow.

"If we can keep this up we might be able to keep him away from Tarbes until the reinforcements arrive." Leafa said with a growing note of confidence.

"What about when it starts to fly?" Klein asked.

KoKo chuckled nervously and gave her fanged smile. "Well . . . If that happens . . . There should be a little warning before hand at least. He'll have to stop to shed his skin. So uhm yeah . . . When that happens, basically, run."

'Great advice.' Klein thought dryly. Well it was a boss, and none of them were crazy duel wielding freaks of nature, so what else could they do?

"Heads up, Klein, KoKo." Leafa pointed to the west. A half dozen shapes were rising to meet them, with more approaching from the north and south. Each as large as a volleyball and striped yellow and black. Willow Wasps. An ill aimed fireball seared past Klein to the right. Correction, Willow Waps and Pixie riders.

"Man, because the giant snake would be too easy." Klein grunted. 'Why couldn't we ever get a fight that was easier than expected. Like a giant slime made of tapioca?'

Bringing his borrowed sword up, Klein charged into the breach. At the moment, he was the only melee fighter in their group with Leafa acting as support and KoKo keeping the pressure up on the mobs below to try and redirect Lhamthanc's movements.

Klein rushed straight for the first Willow Wasp, their combined velocity eating up distance too fast for the over sized insect to evade. His borrowed sword flashed forward in a strike that cleanly severed the Wasp's right pair of wings, sending the giant bug plummeting to the ground with a chittering hiss. The pixy rider separated from its mount, launching a flurry of magic attacks in retaliation. Miniature fireballs and a rapid fire wind spell like one of Leafa's own attacks.

The salamander weaved about but hesitated to land the final blow. Damn it! It was like trying to smack Yui's twin out of the sky! A dazzling flash of electric blue light shot past him and struck the Pixie dead on. The tiny figure went stiff, wings stretching out wide before fluttering limply towards the ground far below. Klein glanced over his shoulder to see Leafa at his back, hand extended, a look of complete focus on her face. Before the stricken Pixie had fallen more than a half dozen meters, a second Wasp swooped down to retrieve her and fled back into the forest.

More Wasps closed in. 'Some days you just can't win.' Klein thought as he spun out of the way and rattled off a rapid fire blast of magic. He wasn't a pro like Enya, or even Leafa, but the resulting small fireball was still enough to knock another angered Willow Wasp from the sky and send its rider fleeing. But there were just more behind that one, and the faint glow of Pixie wings in the evening sky warned of even more threats than could easily be seen.

Klein grimaced. This world wasn't like SAO, there wasn't any game balance to ensure that a fight was fair Sometimes a battle was just unwinnable, as much as he'd hate to admit it.

No sooner had he begun to think this, then an icy gale pressed down from above accompanied by a shower of hale. The hailstorm spell which had done nothing to the flanks of Lhamthanc was a hell of a lot more devastating when turned against Wasps and Pixies. One Wasp struggled to hold its course in mid air and was immediately splatted by a hail stone the size and general shape of a traffic cone.

"Oy, they're dropping like flies!" Klein laughed, receiving glares and groans from both women. "Nice shot Tabi-chan!" He shouted up to the circling dragon. The only reply was another blast of icy air and rain of razor like hail. Klein's grin faded and his face set back into a mask. The Pixies weren't going to let them spoil their plan without a fight. They weren't fighting a game AI designed to be beaten any more, there opponents were living creatures that were out for blood and wanted it as badly as Klein and his comrades wanted to stop them.

Looking back to the shadow filled forest below. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

"Yui, come over here and help me with this." Hinagiku called.

Yui stifled a yawn and looked about sleepily. Having overheard Hinagiku's conversation with Sayuri the night before, she had been expecting to be asked to accompany the Shaman the next morning. She had not been expecting to be woken before dawn, quickly fed a meal of porridge and placed on the back of a Willow Wasp, clinging to one of a Trio of Vespid Knights as they took flight into the forest.

Yui noted with interest that they had headed south west, not quite towards Tarbes but in the general direction. Good. The closer she got to the Village, the better the chance that she could escape and warn everyone that something terrible was about to happen. She would rather have learned more, but other than a few mysterious comments made by the Knights during breakfast, she had learned nothing that she could decipher.

They had traveled away from the nest for about nine hundred seconds before settling down among a small grove of trees that grew beside a fast flowing stream filled with water so clear that Yui almost thought it had to be digital. Snow Melt She thought, reviewing what little was available about the water cycle in her internal database, again, not much more than what a human child would know. Well, it was spring after all, and there were mountains not too far from here.

A vibrant green moss grew along the banks of the stream, clinging to stones and crevices, its surface soft and spongy. And among the moss were the tiny white flowers that Yui had seen the night before.

"These are what we came for?" Botan asked curiously as she stood beside Yui.

"Yes, Maiden's Tears, they are a very important medicinal flower." The Shaman hesitated, shaking her head. "Among other things, we use them to quiet Yggdrasil-sama's song." Hinagaku explained as she began to carefully pluck the small white blossoms and place them in a bag at her feet.

"Quiet the song?" Yui asked, "But isn't that a bad thing Hinagiku-san?" Yui had determined that Yggdrasil's song carried significant religious and psychological importance for the Pixies. Was she mistaken? Extrapolation Shouldn't quieting the song be viewed as a form of a Heresy or Sin ?

"Sometimes it is done in rituals so that a Shaman can practice listening carefully." Hinagiku explained. "By dulling our senses, we are forced to pay close attention to what once seemed obvious. This is an important practice for Shamans such as myself." Yui couldn't help but notice the way that Hinagiku glanced to Botan. "It also finds uses in a Little Sister's blossoming."

"Blossoming?" Yui asked, noting that Botan's attention had wandered, the other girl was eyeing some of the birds in the trees above. Hand resting on her wooden sewing needle. She always looked so anxious, like she would jump at her own shadow.

Hinagiku smiled and gestured to Yui to begin picking the Maiden's Tears as she explained. "Yui-san, you understand that Little Sisters are born from the Yggdrasil Blossoms, correct? Botan, you come and help too." The Wild Pixie reluctantly complied.

"Un, every full moon." Yui said. "And then they're raised in groups centered around an Elder Little Sister." That had been one of her first deductions about the hierarchy of the Pixie Gardens. All else branched from there. Always, an Elder Sister led her younger siblings. hierarchy Even Hinagiku was deferred to by the other Shamans, although unlike the little Sisters, the Shamans tended to congregate in smaller groups of two or three at most times.

"That is correct, these Elder Sisters are made responsible for their Little Sisters as we are in turn responsible for them. Above Little Sisters and Elder Little Sisters are Elder Sisters, the Vespid Knights and Shamans such as myself. Normally the Vespid Knights are treated as junior to the Shamans, but the Knights must be deferred to in protecting the Garden." Hinagiku explained as she carefully showed Yui how to tell if a bud was appropriate for picking.

Yui glanced up to the trees above them where the Willow Wasps and their riders clung to the branches, standing calm watch over them. No chance of escape had so far presented itself. "So where do Knights and Shamans come from?" Yui asked, "They grow up from Little Sisters, right?"

"Yes and no." Hinagiku said, and smiled kindly as she saw Yui's frown. For a being born from a digital existence, Hinagiku could be annoyingly non binary. "You are correct that I was once a Little Sister, just like Botan, but not all Little Sisters blossom, most simply become Elder Little Sisters." Hinagiku wiped her hands together. "And there is nothing wrong with that." There was a hint of emphasis in those last words which appeared to be aimed at Botan.

"But if you can become a Knight or Shaman, then shouldn't you want to?" Botan mumbled under her breath. The girl looked unsure.

Hinagiku sat, legs folded beneath her, "That depends entirely on if it is what you desire. A Little Sister's blossoming is between themselves and Yggdrasil-sama. It should never be forced on them."

Yui pondered this for a time. Hypothesis Blossoming was some sort of metamorphosis in the Pixie life cycle. But how did Hinagiku know about this? It was an opportunity to probe about Hinagiku's false memories, and perhaps learn more about Pixies.

"Hinagiku-san, what was it like to blossom?" Yui asked.

The shaman cocked her head, her smile had grown amused, "So curious, Yui-san." She observed. "But to be honest, I can remember very little about my blossoming. It is a very confusing and delirious state."

Hypothesis Was the blossoming some sort of coming of age? But only specific Pixies underwent this transformation. Tribal Ceremony Selection of Chieftan/Shamam/War Leader Query

"What was Sayuri's blossoming like?"

"That is something I do not know." Hinagiku admitted, sounding greatly troubled. "Sayuri-sama was born in . . . In the other Garden. She claims that her first memories are of waking as a Vespid Knight, in which case, she is unique in my recollections."

Yui found this information alarming. She had no information on Pixie psychological development, but having their mental or physical development truncated could not be healthy. She reviewed again what she had seen the night before. Sayuri was showing signs of extreme fatigue, mental and physical deterioration. How much longer could she last like that?

"Sayuri-sama really is amazing, isn't she?" Botan said suddenly. "She was born a Knight, and she protects all of us." The girl looked thoughtful. "And she's brave. Much braver than me."

"Botan, you are plenty brave." Hinagiku insisted gently, "You don't need to force yourself ."

Yui finished with the last of the flowers, handing them to Hinagiku who inspected them before placing them in her bag. "If Sayuri-sama is so young, why is she still called Eldest Sister?" Yui asked. Query Official Title? "There are older Knights in the garden, aren't their?"

"That is because she is the leader of the Vespid Knights and because she is deferred to in dealing with the beings." Hinagiku explained, "She won that right after defeating Kigiku in a duel. It happened only a couple of days after she arrived. The poor dear wondered into our garden covered in ash and burns. Everyone was confused at that time. Strange new animals had appeared in the forest and the lay of the land had changed. It took time for us to discern what Yggdrasil-sama wanted us to do. To learn about our Sister Garden's demise was upsetting news." Hinagiku fell silent as if gathering her thoughts. "Kigiku and I decided to accept Sayuri into the Garden. Then, she challenged Kigiku for leadership almost immediately upon learning of the Beings." Hinagiku shook her head sadly, "The Knights have been fighting them since."

"Sayuri-sama is so angry all of the time." Yui said, casting her eyes down. Sorrow "Can't we do something to help her?"

Yui already knew the answer, there was nothing that she could do alone. From Sayuri's perspective, Yui was just a Little Sister , worse, she was Tainted . Even knowing exactly what to say, Yui was powerless, her words would not reach Sayuri.

Hinagiku looked unsure, Yui thought that these same thoughts had crossed the Shaman's mind before. Hinagiku knew more than anyone else about Sayuri's physical and mental condition, so why wouldn't she do anything? Hypothesis Was the hierarchy of the Garden stopping her?

The Shaman was obsessed with propriety. Yui had noted a number of Obsessive Compulsive Tendencies as the girl conducted her ceremonies. Conclusion Hinagiku was trapped, her own beliefs and personality prevented her from acting. Empathy welled up within Yui, she understood all too well what it was like for part of herself to prevent her from doing what she knew was right.

"Sayuri-sama isn't angry." Botan shook her head. "She's really nice to all of the little sisters." The girl rubbed at her eyes. "After . . . After we learned about the other Garden and what happened, none of the Little Sisters could sleep. Sayuri-sama came down and stayed with us until we all fell asleep. And then she stayed up all night watching over us!"

Hinagiku nodded, "It is just so." She agreed. "Sayuri-sama loves us all deeply. Her burden is already very great, we mustn't cause her trouble." There was silence between the three Pixies for a moment, filled only by the soft gurgling of the stream at their backs.

"Hinagiku-san, Botan-san." Yui paused, "Do you hate . . . Beings?" It was a delicate subject, but if there was ever a time to bring it up, it was now when they were far from the Garden.

"Un." Botan nodded, "They're the worst, especially after what they did to Sayuri-sama's Garden, right Hinagiku-sama?" The Wild Pixie looked startled to see her Elder Sister looking thoughtful.

"I do not know." Hinagiku confessed. "I have to accept that they are part of the world. And certainly I have never met a being to say for sure whether they are worthy of scorn." Yui felt her hopes lift only to be shattered. "However," Hinagiku's expression grew dark, her long eyelashes hooding her eyes, "That does not mean I do not feel anger for what they have done."

As Yui mulled over the Shaman's words her senses suddenly came to full alert. In the distance, the former Mental Health Counseling AI could detect a faint knocking sound, like wood against wood. Yui examined her audio logs in an effort to understand why this had triggered a high level response. She soon realized that it wasn't the noise that had alerted her, it was its absence, the forest had grown silent. Something unfamiliar had come.

Botan and Hinagiku had sensed it as well. The Shaman edged closer to Yui while Hinagiku drew her needle. Above them, the Knights standing watch in the trees prepared themselves. The knocking noise grew closer, and closer. Two forms came crashing through the brush. Yui's heart skipped as she saw the two children, human children, a boy and a young girl. She quickly matched the boy to the name Antoine, the child who had struck Klein when they had arrived in Tarbes. The other, a golden haired young girl, was not in her database, Yui did not know her.

"Antoine!" The girl cried. "Are you sure this is the right way?"

"Course it's the right way!" The boy responded as he knocked the hefty looking wooden branch in his hands against another tree trunk. "Dah always said if'nyer lost in th' forest you jus' have tah . . . -"

"Antoine, your words!" The girl chastised.

"Oy, are you me Mum?" The boy glared at the girl and when she glared back he swallowed and repeated more carefully. "Dad always said if you were ever lost in the forest, find a stream or river and follow it as far as you can. See, the forest thins out to the South and this stream is going that way. Should be easy to find our way back then."

"I should have brought Marco." The girl decided as she followed after her companion. "Then we wouldn't have gotten lost in the dark."

"But then yer . . . Your mother would have been able to find us and stop us, right? Mage's can see through their familiars." Antoine said.

"It doesn't work quite like that . . ." The girl shook her head.

Yui felt Botan tensing up at her side, Hinagiku placing a hand on the girl's shoulder. The Wild Pixie was holding her wooden sewing needle like a sword, but at the same time, she was trembling like a leaf. From this position, the children hadn't seen them as they walked beside the stream. Yui heard a faint clicking and looked up.

Rather than taking flight and revealing their position with the sound of their wings, the three Vespid Knights had spurred their wasps to climb through the branches of the trees above them. Two of the huge insects now clung upside down to a branch overhanging the path that the children were taking. As Yui watched, the Knight leader, Kigiku, raised her sword. They were going to hurt the children!

Priority! "Look out!" Yui shouted, taking flight before she had fully made sense of what she was doing.

"Yui!" Hinagiku shouted, trying to grab hold of her, but reacting much too late.

This body had no offensive capabilities, even her human form possessed only the physical strength and abilities of an average ten year old child. It had not been, in retrospect, a rational decision, but something arising by instinct .

The Children were alerted by Yui's voice and looked up just as Kigiku swung her sword down. The Wasps let go of the branches and plummeted downwards, wings buzzing angrily in a low pitched drone. The warning had given the children a fraction of a second to respond. The boy, Antoine, swung his tree branch, batting one of the Wasps aside and causing the insect to stagger away, clicking and chittering angrily but otherwise unharmed.

The girl had drawn a small wand from her pocket and with a clumsily performed incantation, shot a short jet of water at the second wasp before breaking into a run. She made it barely more than six steps before Kigiku's stun spell struck her in the back, causing her to tumble to the ground, dropping a small wooden box she had been carrying in her hands.

Antoine rushed to the girl's side, holding his branch like a weapon as the trio of Wasps closed in. Riders and insects made the same soft clicking noises. It had all happened so quickly, less than ten seconds by Yui's internal clock. She felt Hinagiku throwing her arms around her from behind, Botan with her. At the same time Kigiku and her sisters descended on Antoine and the girl. One of the Wasps landed on each child's chest, holding their stingers menacingly over the children's hearts.

"No don't do it!" Yui shouted, "Please!" Desperation

"Yui, what are you doing? Why did warn them?" Hinagiku looked not angry, but confused, almost hurt. Yui Sympathized with the shaman, from her perspective, Yui had suddenly and harshly betrayed her trust.

"Please, Hinagiku-san. They're just children, they're human Little Sisters, don't let Kigiku hurt them!" Hinagiku looked between Yui and the unfolding scene between the children and the Knights.

"No! Don't hurt Euphrasie and Antoine!" A small voice cried out, sounding exactly like the soft, high pitched voices of the Little Sisters that Yui had met the day before. Where Yui's own pleas were ignored, the Knights hesitated upon hearing that shout.

Crawling from the box that Euphrasie had been carrying was a beautiful little girl dressed in the pale white flower gown of a newborn Little Sister. The girl's hair was all golden curls and her eyes were big pools of bright blue. "Don't hurt them!" The girl repeated in a pleading voice.

For a moment, the Vespid Knights and the children were frozen in combined shock.

"A newborn?" Even Hinagiku seemed stunned and slowly let go of Yui, shaking her head in confusion. "But . . . How? She can't be from our Garden. Is she . . . Was she stolen from Sayuri-sama's?" Hinagiku raised a hand to Kigiku, gesturing for the Knight to wait.

The Shaman descended to the Pixie girl's side reaching out reassuringly. "Hello little one. Don't worry, you're safe now." She offered to the newborn. The golden haired Pixie looked at her uncertainly and took a step back, covering her face with her arms as if hiding. Hinagiku looked shocked at this behavior coming from a Little Sister. "There, there, everything will be all right." She tried to reassure.

"Nnnnnnn." The girl shook her head back and forth angrily.

Hinagiku starred at the girl, expression growing troubled, and then looked back to the Knights who still had the children pinned. "Kigiku, could you perhaps release them?"

"Release them, Hinagiku-sama?" The Vespide Knight sounded uncertain. "Hina . . . These are beings. They're dangerous!"

"They're not dangerous, they're nice!" The girl beside Hinagiku shouted, "And your being mean to them! You're just . . . You're just bullies!" She said, stamping her foot down, the girl was starting to tremble and tear up.

"Lily!" Euhrasie tried to sit up, despite the weight of the wasp resting on her chest. "Lily, don't cry, it will be alright."

"Kigiku, please." Hinagiku said. "For the little one."

Seeing a Little Sister on the verge of crying seemed to be the last straw for the Knights. Reluctantly the Knights and their Wasps took to the air, taking up guarding positions above the children. As a precaution, Kigiku's wasp grabbed hold of Florine's wand and carried it away. The children sat up slowly and scooted closer to one another as Hinagiku approached, arms rapped around Lily.

"There, there, see, there's no need to cry Little Sister." The Shaman said soothingly before watching in surprise as Lily pulled loose and ran into Euphrasie's waiting hands. The human girl brought the Pixie close to her chest protectively.

"Yui. What's going on?" Botan asked. The smaller girl looked utterly at a loss. "Why did you warn the beings? Is it because . . . Because you're a Tame Pixie?" She looked angrily at Yui, scowling. "Sayuri-sama was right to be suspicious about you!"

Correction "No she wasn't." Yui gave Botan a determined expression that stopped the girl in her tracks. "Hurting people without even knowing anything about them isn't right Botan-san! It doesn't matter if they're Pixies, or Faeries, or humans." Yui leaned forward and put a hand to her chest, "My friends and I came here to help everyone, not just the humans. Sayuri-sama is making a mistake!"

Botan shook her head angrily, "No, Sayuri-sama wouldn't make a mistake! You're wrong!"

Turning to Hinagiku, Yui pleaded, clasping her hands before her. "Please Hinagiku-san, talk to them, I'm sure there's an explanation for everything!"

Yui hoped that the Shaman would listen. Hinagiku really was a genuinely good person. Yui was sure of that. The Shaman looked the children over, eyes serious, she spread her wings and drifted up close to Antoine and then Euphrasie. Pausing, she leaned closer and breathed deeply. "You . . . smell of flowers." The Shaman said surprised.

Euphrasie nodded slowly. "My mother and I raise lots of herbs and flowers in our garden." The girl closed her eyes and sank down until her head almost touched the ground. "Please. We're sorry. We're sorry we stole your babies." She whispered softly. "This is all our fault, we're so sorry." Euphrasie's whole body began to tremble.

Yui watched with anticipation, Hinagiku was conflicted, torn between wanting to be angry or trying to comfort these giants that so much resembled her Little Sisters. The children were still in terrible danger. One wrong move could cause the Knights to attack.

"Hinagiku-sama?" Kigiku appeared openly agitated. "Are they saying what I think they are? Did they . . ." The Knight's Wasp picked up on its rider's mood, buzzing angrily.

"Kigiku, if you will simply wait." The Shaman said, looking back to Antoine and Euphrasie. "Let us hear what they have to say for themselves."

"She didn't mean to do it!" Antoine said, leaning over Euphrasie protectively. "There weren't any Pixies around when we took them. We just thought that they were flowers and took some back to Euphrasie's mother. We didn't mean to take your babies from you."

"Euphrasie. Don't cry Euphrasie!" Lily said, hugging the girl's cheek and struggling not to start crying herself.

"And, the fire?" Hinagiku asked quietly in a tone that was very unusual for her. "Was that you?"

Euphrasie shook her head, "That happened after we left. My mother gave some of the Flowers to the Count, and then he sent people to get more. But he didn't know about the Pixies either. The men he sent probably did that and didn't tell him." The girl seemed to realize something. "Oh, and he has three little Pixies too, he's taking good care of them! He was really upset about what happened and wants to try and make things right." Euphrasie added. "Arthur loves flowers the most, he would never have let this happen if he had known!"

Hinagiku's gaze swept over to the fallen box that Euphrasie had been carrying, catching sight of blue blossoms. "We brought back all of the flowers we had. But Lily is the only Pixie we found." Antoine said.

"I . . . see." The Shaman said, eyes closed in thought. The girl took another breath. "Kigiku, send a messenger back to the Garden. Tell them to find Sayuri-sama and tell her that we have found beings in the forest. Tell her that they took flowers from her Garden."

"Hinagiku-san." Yui asked anxiously. Alarm! Was she going to hand the children over to Sayuri for punishment? There was no doubt in Yui's mind what the Vespid Knight would do if she thought she had found the ones responsible for the destruction of her home.

"Also." Hinagiku added. "Tell the other Shamans to gather. It appears that we have another New Little Sister to welcome. I will speak with Sayuri-sama about the beings."

"Yes, Hinagiku-sama!" Kigiku nodded, "Ajisai!"

"Un." One of the knights clicked to her wasp and departed, heading rapidly east, deeper into the forest.

The Shaman smiled up to Euphrasie and Antoine. "Thank you, for bringing Lily back here, and for protecting her. It must have been very frightening to travel in the forest alone. I promise that you will be kept safe and be allowed to explain yourselves. As for the rest, we will see. But for now." The Shaman waved to Yui and Botan. "Please, come here. Yui-san, you have experience with beings, perhaps you can help to comfort Lily. And Botan, you should meet the new Little Sister as well."

Both girls approached and introduced themselves. Botan stepped forward cautiously, eyes never leaving Euphrasie as she inched up to Lily. "H-hello." She stuttered shyly.

The other girl leaned in sniffing at Botan the way that Botan had done with Yui two nights before. "You smell like Euphrasie." She smiled, some of the worry in her tiny body draining as she leaned almost instinctively into a hug. Hypothesis Imprinting on Botan's scent?

Botan smiled shyly. "And you smell like Sayuri-sama." Slowly, Botan untangled herself from her new Sister and walked up to Euphrasie. Sniffing at the air cautiously, "Hinagiku-san is right . . . She smells like a Garden." Botan mumbled and shook her head. "Why . . . Did you come into the forest?"

Euphrasie and Antoine exchanged glances. "Well, because we wanted to bring Lily back to her family." Euphrasie explained. "And the Count wants to do the same thing, he feels awful about what happened. So can you please stop destroying our home?"

"Your home?" Botan asked, "The Village?"

"Uhuh." Euphrasie nodded, "The attack a couple of nights ago almost burned down the vineyards. Tarbes' wine is important, its how the villagers make their living and care for their children."

"She means its how they take care of their Little Sisters." Yui explained to Botan. "That's why they keep fighting when Sayuri and the other Pixies attack. Their fields are important to them." The other girl still didn't seem to understand. Or rather didn't want to understand.

"Please, don't hurt the Village for our mistake." Euphrasie looked down, "That isn't fair."

Botan shook her head, looking lost.

As Kigiku and her fellow Knight watched from high up among the trees. Euphrasie and Antoine settled down down to wait. With a little encouragement, Yui was able to get a conversation started between the children and Hinagiku. The shaman and Euphrasie found common ground almost immediately in discussing medicinal plants, and even Botan seemed to grow curious as she held her new Little Sister closely, patting the girl on the head and assuring her that nobody in the Garden would be mean to her or Euphrasie.

Yui felt relief washing over her even as Ajisai returned and reported that Sayuri was busy on a mission, but that she had been sent for. The Pixies and humans settled down to wait. In the distance, Yui heard a faint, cry, far deeper and louder than anything else in the forest, but so far away that she payed it little mind.

The children began to chatter among themselves, and even Botan was drawn into the conversation as she realized that Antoine and Euphrasie were not too different from her own siblings.

"They really are like Little Sisters." Hinagiku said to herself, "Or rather like young Fae . . ." She shook her head.

Yui smiled, if Hinagiku could be made to believe, there was still hope. She almost didn't notice the sound of wood cracking or brush being scattered aside. Only when the Knights gave a warning whistle did she look up.

Something was moving along the side of the stream, retracing the path that Euphrasie and Antoine had followed. It was slightly larger than a grown man, its body was covered in glossy black feathers and its face a pale white circle set with two enormous black eyes and small, hooked beak. It emerged from the bushes, moving with a slow mincing gate. The movements of its head were fast and smooth, like the owl it resembled, but that head was attached to a long thick neck and and body that was more like that of a dragon.

"Euphrasie, Antoine, get up slowly." Hinagiku breathed softly. Yui suddenly felt worried as the Shaman raised her hands as if preparing to cast.

The Owl-Dragon creature looked up from the path it had been following and cocked its head to the side as its eyes fell on Euphrasie and Antoine.

"What is that?" Antoine asked as he slowly reached for his tree branch.

"A Lesser Archeopterror." Hinagiku breathed, "What is it doing here? The Dagger Dogs should have been keeping them out of this part of the forest . . . Kigiku?"

"It's okay." Botan reassured Yui. "It won't attack Pixies . . . " The girl's face paled and she looked over to Antoine and Euprhasie. "Oh no." The Archeopterror's eyes never left the two human children.

"Hinagiku-sama, take flight with the Little Sisters, now." The Knight called.

"And what about Euphrasie and Antoine?" The Shaman asked, "No, we can't leave them."

Before the Knight could answer, the mob made up its mind. "Screeee!" The Archeopterror let out its shriek, clawing at the ground at its feet, it began to accelerate smoothly forward with surprising grace, half spreading its wings for balance.

"Euphrasie!" Antoine shouted, grabbing the girl's hand and breaking into a run, Hinagiku, Yui, and Botan following closely behind.

Yui looked over her shoulder. To her surprise, Kigiku and her Knights were trying to draw the mob away. Willow Wasps let out their angry chittering and rushed towards the gigantic bird. Kigiku's own wasp stabbing it in the neck before being beaten away by the razor sharp claws at the end of one of the mob's wingtips. Ajisai meanwhile swung in low, letting loose with a stun spell and then wind magic which tore at the belly of the mob but failed to penetrate its glossy feathers.

The Archeopterror screeched, bringing one of its powerful talons down on Ajisai and her wasp. The unfortunate willow wasp was smashed into the ground, its carapace crushed as it let out one last pained cry. Ajisai was sent tumbling through the air, her tiny body intersecting the arc of one of the mob's razor like wing tips. Yui let out a gasp as she saw the Vespid Knight fall to the ground, two of her dragonfly wings severed from her back.

"Yui, don't look!" Hinagiku shouted. But she couldn't, she couldn't look away. Guilt Kigiku and her Knights had no reason to help. If they hadn't attacked, like Botan had said, they wouldn't have agroed the mob. They were endangering themselves because of Hinagiku's concern for the children.

The Archeopterror decided it was done with the small pests and turned to pursue the more filling meal of the fleeing children. There wasn't enough room among the tree's for the bird to spread its wings, but it was plenty fast enough on the ground. The creature rushed along the forest floor, powerful legs bounding over fallen logs and between forked tree trunks, razor wings slicing away any brush that it couldn't duck beneath. Compared to the mobs progress, the Children almost seemed to be standing still.

Hinagiku turned around in midair and began to chant. A wind spell erupted forth from her outstretched arms, grazing the mob across is cheek. "Screeeee!" The monster simply ducked lower and began to move from side to side, its whole body snaking to offer a harder target. "Quick, go that way!" Lily shouted as she clung to Euphrasie's shoulder. The Pixie girl was pointing to a thick grouping of trees. The larger mob would have a hard time traveling in a confined space. Even if they didn't lose it, they might be able to find shelter until it lost interest.

The children dove in, followed by the Pixies. The Archeopterror almost smashed into the trees. Body flowing up the side of one trunk before crashing back down. The mob began to squeeze its body though the narrow gaps, stretching and elongating so that it would fit, but its legs became tripped up and slowed its progress. The mob began to snap and bite out, trying to reach the children using its longs neck, pushing them back further into the brush and closely packed tree trunks. "Screeee!"

The Archeopterror loomed above them, partially scaling the tree trunks so that it could squeeze through a wider gap and strike from above. Even if Hinagiku and Botan had wanted to run, the mob was perfectly positioned to swat them from the sky

The Archeopterror's beak grazed at Euphrasie as Antoine struggled to shield his friend. The mob's next attack was blocked briefly as a barrier spell was cast by Hinagiku, but the defensive bubble shattered after only one strike. Pixies just weren't strong enough to fight anything but the smallest mobs on their own. Hinagiku was thrown back, already chanting another barrier spell. Again the tiny mage cast and again her spell was overwhelmed. The shaman couldn't keep this up for long.

"Botan?" Yui looked to the Wild Pixie at her side. The girl had collapsed, her wings fluttering involuntarily in Fight or Flight reflex.

"I . . . I can't feel my legs!" Botan whimpered.

Unacceptable Yui thought. With Euphrasie's wand missing, Botan was the only one other than Hinagiku who could cast magic, she couldn't freeze right now, not when they were all in danger!

"Botan! You have to help." Yui shook the other girl, "Please, Hinagiku can't fight it on her own!"

"B-but." Botan stuttered, "I'm not brave enough! I'm not a Knight! I can't do that Yui . . . I can't!"

Query What wold Papa do? Answer He'd do whatever he could.

"Then I will!" Yui shouted as she grabbed Botan's needle sword. This body had no offensive abilities, or rather it had no special combat abilities. But this reality was more akin to the physical world than a VR game environment. Yui wasn't limited by what the system told her she Could and Could Not do.

Hefting the sewing needle for the first time, it was only pointed at the end, so it was only good for thrusting attacks. Yui thought. It would be best to think of it like Mama's rapier and use it like that.

"Y-Yui!" Botan cried as the Nav Pixie took flight straight for the mob. She was small, but that just meant she was hard to hit and that she would have to aim for weak points. Yui shot forward like a tiny comet, leading with the sewing needle in an imitation of a Linear sword skill as she stabbed into the mobs left eye. "Screee!" The Archeopterror recoiled in pain, swinging its head about and clawing at its face with its wings. Yui was batted away, crashing into a tree trunk and sent to the ground in a daze as the mob dropped down from its purchase in the trees right beside her.

The Archeopterror turned to examine the morsel on the forest floor, beak opening wide. Yui struggled to get to her feet and spread her wings but her body wasn't responding like it it should, she stumbled forward trying to balance herself. Pain throbbed through her, worse than anything she had ever felt before, nearly paralyzing her. Yui felt hollow inside, her whole body growing numb with Fear as the mob came for her.

"Scree!" A wind spell struck the mob alongside its left cheek, coming from its blind side. The more delicate feathers around the mob's cheek were shredded and the skin beneath was whipped and bloodied.

Yui looked up to see Botan darting through the air evasively. The Wild Pixie was already rattling off another spell, even as she cried in terror. "Yui! Run!" She shouted. Yui nodded as her head at last began to clear enough to think straight. Hinagiku had been right, Botan was plenty brave.

The Wild Pixie proved shockingly nimble, ducking and dodging about as the Archeopterror tried to swipe her from the sky. A wing batted her against a tree, but Botan remained tenacious, coming back with a shout as she cast a buff on herself, her speed increasing even further. The Pixie wind spells were barely pinpricks to the mob, but they were distracting pinpricks, buying time for Euphrasie and Antoine to crawl back deeper into the trees.

Excitement She's really doing it! Yui thought. Even as tiny as she was, Botan was proving more than the Archeopterror had bargained for. It had expected a few quick morsels and then a filling meal. If it were an ordinary predator, the monster bird would have given up by now, deciding its prey was too much work. But the Archeopterror was a former mob, while its behavior had grown more sophisticated, it was also much more aggressive than a normal animal once agroed.

A lucky strike from the mob nipped at one of Botan's wings, sending the Pixie girl spinning. "No, Botan!" Yui shouted.

"Leave her alone!" Antoine, who had untangled himself from among the brush, appeared from behind and swung his branch down atop the mob's neck with all his might.

"Scree!" The Archeopterror cried, turning to face the boy and lashing out. Antoine caught the mob's first attack with his branch, wedging its beak open. A muffled "Scree!" came from deep within the mob's throat as it bit down, the branch cracked and splintered as it was bitten in two and Antoine leaped back as a scythe like wingtip came down, tearing at his shoulder. Red splashed everywhere as the mob's hooked claws tore into flesh and muscle. Antoine screamed, clutching at his arm as he fell backward.

Yui's eyes widened. She had seen cuts and bruises, and gotten knocked around badly herself, but real pain, real injury, was something very different from what she was accustomed to. The sight of it sent Error signals cascading through her whole being. Antoine kicked away desperately, trying to distance himself from the mob.

A blue barrier appeared over Antoine, and then another as the first broke under the Archeopterror's attack. Hinagiku and Botan casting in rapid succession. The mob sank lower, its feathers ruffling in anger. Yui went on high alert, the motions were too programmed, too scripted, this was the beginning of a special attack! The mobs throat expanded as it took in hair and then. "SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Yui clutched at her ears, even though the attack wasn't aimed at her she was nearly sent tumbling into darkness.

It was worse for Hinagiku and Antoine who had taken the brunt of the Sonic Scream . Hinagiku had fallen from the air and now lay limply atop Antoine, the boy still clutching at his own ringing ears. Somehow, Botan had remained conscious and airborne, and instead of fleeing the Pixie girl spread her arms wide, like she could somehow shield the stricken Shaman and the human boy.

Yui looked around, for something, anything she could use to fight with, but there was barely a twig or stick suitable as a replacement for Botan's needle sword. Searching Where had it fallen?

"Gyaah!" Yui looked up. A jet black shape came from above and covered the Archeopterror's pale face. The mob shrieked in surprise and pain as a black feathered dragon clawed at its eyes and beak, clinging tightly even as the mob attempted to beat it off with its wings.

"Botan!" Dropping free from the back of her mount, Sayuri grabbed hold of the injured Wild Pixie as her wings gave out on her.

"S-Sayuri-sama!" Botan stuttered and pressed her head against the Knight's shoulder.

As frightened as she was of the Vespid Knight, at that moment, Yui was grateful she had arrived. Sayuri was a warrior, she would know what do do better than anyone else.

"I came as soon as I heard about the beings." She glanced down at Antoine and the recovering Hinagiku. "What is happening . . . Why is an Archeopterror attacking you?" Sayuri asked quickly and then added suspiciously. "Did you anger it?"

Before either Yui or Botan could answer, Sayuri shook her head. The Knight's expression darkened and she made an agitated clicking noise with her teeth. "No, that isn't important now. It shouldn't be here . . . Damn the Fae for interfering and forcing me to thin the Packs." Turning back to Yui the Knight gave a small nod. "Botan, Yui, we're going to have to lead it away from here, its too close to the Garden and, its too dangerous to leave it alive now, but there is a way to defeat it. Follow me."

Sayuri let go of Botan and whistled to her dragon, causing it to release its hold on the mob. Vision restored, the Archeopterror's first sight was Sayuri laying tauntingly out of reach. The Pixie launched her own wind attack, unlike the weaker spells used by Botan and the other Knights, this one sent the mob reeling back, blowing holes in the feathers along its neck and wings. "Scree!" It raced after the Pixies.

Sayuri kept them low to the ground, always just out of reach the Archeopterror. They were approaching a thick section of forest, the tree's were closing in all around them. Suddenly Sayuri pulled up, almost losing Yui and Botan. The Archeopterror raced by below and began to stagger and trip. Yui looked down. It was like the mob had struck some invisible barrier. Extending her senses as a Navigation Pixie, Yui soon realized what was really happening.

Slender threads were strung among the trees around them. Hundreds of them. The Archeopterror had tripped as it struck the first strands, braking them, but as it continued to stumble forward, it became caught up on more and more of the lines. Soon the mob was tangled up and helpless. The Archeopterror "Screed!" angrily as mottled, eight legged shapes, each nearly a meter long, began to descend delicately from the branches.

The spiders went to work. Some acting as counterweights to hoist their struggling prey into the air as others swiftly cocooned it. Yui swallowed, this was the food chain in action, and today the Archeopterror wasn't at the top. There was one last angered "Scree!" and then the Archeopterror disappeared completely beneath a layer of spider silk. The silk bag continued to twitch and bulge for a time before finally growing still.

"Gyaah!" Sayuri's dragon called as he landed on a tree branch beside the trio of Pixies.

Yui suddenly realized that her heart was pounding inside of her chest, she'd never been so scarred in her life. She looked to Sayuri. Sayuri looked back. The Knight's breathing slowed and Yui noted how for the briefest moment the other Pixie winced and one of her wings trembled involuntarily, but the moment of weakness passed so quickly that a human would have missed it.

The Knight gave both girls a chance to catch their breath. "Yui? Botan? What happened? Where are Kigiku and the others?"

Botan didn't seem to hear the words, instead, the girl wrapped her arms around herself, shivering softly as her wings trembled and began to twitch in a slow, steady fashion. Yui detected a change in the Wild Pixies heartbeat and breathing but Sayuri's questions were much more pressing.

Despite her gratitude, Yui swallowed. She was sure Sayuri would be angry, and she didn't know how she would take what had just happened. Worse, Yui wasn't confident that Hinagiku would still be inclined to view the children favorably now that Pixies had been hurt protecting them.

When they arrived back where they had parted company with Hinagiku, they found the other Knights had already arrived. The two surviving Willow Wasps sat in the trees above while Hinagiku tended to Ajisai. The Knight was even more badly injured than Yui had thought, One of her arms was covered in blood, at her size, it was miracle it hadn't been cleanly severed. As soon as Hinagiku saw Yui, she gave the girl a troubled look, but said nothing. Backed up against a tree trunk, Antoine and Euphrasie clung to one another, still recovering from the frightening ordeal.

Sayuri had been furious when she learned what had happened. She had been angry at Yui for alerting the children and preventing the Knights from dispatching them. She had been angry at Hinagiku for trying to protect beings at the risk of her own life. And she had been angry at Kigiku for listening to Hinagiku and helping the children. But most of all, though she did not say it, Sayuri had been furious with herself.

From what Yui could peace together, there were supposed to be tamed mobs in this area of the forest, but they had been removed to see to something else as Sayuri's instruction.

"Why . . . Why did you help beings?" Sayuri asked Hinagiku. The Vespid knight was tugging at one of her bangs again. Nervous Habit Tell Yui observed.

"Because they are nothing but being Little Sisters." Hinagiku said, "Children." The unfamiliar word rolled off the Shaman's tongue. "And they don't seem to mean us any harm. In fact." Hinagiku smiled a little. "Lily, come here please."

When Sayuri saw the little sister, dressed in her white gown. At first she seemed confused, then something else crossed the Knights face, as she breathed in the air around Lily, recognition dawned. "No . . . This scent." Sayuri shook her head slowly, "No . . . This scent is . . ."

"Lily, say hello to your Elder Sister." Hinagiku said gently.

The girl hid behind Hinagiku, peaking out to watch Sayuri. Slowly, with some gentle prodding from Hinagiku, the girl stepped forward and took a deep breath. "H-hello . . . I'm Lily." The girl curtsied, "I'm glad to meet you . . . Elder Sister."

Sayuri's hand dropped to her sides. The Knight stepped forward, gently touching Lily's cheeks, stroking her hair. Tears began to form, and then suddenly Sayuri shook her head. "No. No . . . This is a trick . . . A trick." She whispered to herself.

"Sayuri-sama?" Hinagiku asked.

"Those beings, they stole this girl from my Garden." The Knight's breathing had grown heavy.

"Sayuri-sama, they are just Little Sisters." Hinagiku said.

"Don't call them that!" Sayuri said quickly, "They are beings. That is all!"

Hinagiku gave her leader a worried look. "Sayuri-sama, please, they came here with good intentions, to bring Lily back to her Sisters. I promised that they would at least be allowed to explain themselves."

"Explain?" Sayuri trembled and Yui noted with alarm that the Vespid Knight's wings seemed to be twitching involuntarily. "There is nothing to explain, Hinagiku."

"They say that there are more Little Sisters in the being Village, and that the being Leader is caring for them. Sayuri-sama, we should at least listen to them, shouldn't we?" Hinagiku pressed. "For the sake of the little ones."

Sayuri pulled harder at her bangs. Indecision was written in her every movement, but also anger, where had the cool collected Sayuri gone? No, Yui knew, the mask was beginning to crack. This was not something Sayuri was prepared for. "Kigiku." Sayuri said.

"Yes, Sayuri-sama?"

"I want the beings restrained. We'll take them with us back to the Garden." Sayuri glared up at the human children, eyes filled with hate. "Perhaps they will know more than a tame Pixie." The Knight's glare turned to Yui, "And you. I thought that you could learn, but its clear that it is too soon to allow you to move freely beyond the Garden. Deceitful, disloyal Little Sister!" The Knight spat. "Hinagiku may do as she wants with you, but you will be confined to the nest until I have decided on a punishment."

Yui was only thankful that Sayuri still gave her the title of Little Sister, it meant the Knight hadn't grown so angry as to strip her of that protection. At the same time, her best chance of escape might have just been lost.

"Sayuri-sama . . . Please don't be mad with Yui-san." Botan pleaded. Yui felt worried. The girl was awkward, off balance, and as Yui watched she noticed a thin sheen of sweat was developing on Botan's forehead.

"You as well, Botan?" Sayuri's eyes narrowed before glancing back to Hinagiku. "I placed Yui in your care so that you could teach her, but it seems that it has worked out the other way around."

"A teacher always learns something from her students." Hinagiku said calmly.

"Please, don't fight." Botan shook her head and blinked a couple of times.

"Botan, are you alright?" Hinagiku noticed the distress crossing the girl's face and came to her side, placing a hand to the girl's forehead. "Oh no." Hinagiku whispered. "Sayuri-sama, we need to get Botan back to the nest right now, she's starting . . ."

Botan shook her head, "The beings . . . I was scared of them . . . But Euphrasie smells really nice . . . Just like a Garden . . . And Antoine smells of the forest. How can they be bad people . . ." Botan fell back in Hinagiku's waiting arms.

"Sayuri-sama!"

"Kigiku, take her back with Ajisai!" Sayuri instructed. Hinagiku, did you collect the Maiden's Tears at least?"

"Yes." The shaman nodded, "And its good that I did now rather than later." Hinagiku carefully lifted the Little Sister up into her arms, accepting help from Kigiku to place her atop the Knight's wasp along with Ajisai.

"Hinagiku, what's wrong with Botan?" Yui asked worried. Alarm Botan's biorhythms were growing erratic. Her heartbeat and body temperature had both increased drastically.

The shaman smiled, though still looking troubled, "Nothing is wrong with Botan, Yui-san, she's just begun to blossom." Hinagiku was worried despite her encouraging expression. "I didn't expect this so soon. Standing up to the Archeopterror must have given her the last push. We need to get her back to the Garden now."

"Take Yui and Lily along with you." Sayuri instructed. "Have Lily placed with the new Little Sisters. Ayame and I will escort the beings back for questioning ." The Knight nodded to Kigiku's uninjured subordinate.

"No! I want to stay with Euphrasie!" Lily shouted, stamping her foot determinedly.

"You will do no such thing!" Sayuri turned on the girl, looming over her. Bullying Yui thought, Sayuri could be kind like Botan thought, but she was also all too happy to resort to intimidation to get what she wanted.

"Go with your sisters, Lily." Euphrasie said from her place beside Antoine. The girl had busied herself dressing her friend's wound. "We'll be along soon.

"Promise?" The girl asked anxiously.

"I promise." Euphrasie said, prodding a sullen looking Antoine to nod in agreement.

The return journey to the nest felt longer even though Yui's internal timer insisted it took must less time. At Hinagiku's urging, Kigiku had prodded her wasp to top speed and flown above the tree tops. Almost as soon as they arrived, Hinagiku had slid from the side of the Wasp, carrying Botan in her arms while other Shamans hurried to tend to Ajisai. Yui followed closely behind but was barred as soon as she reached Hinagiku's chambers.

"Please Yui-san, wait here for now." Hinagiku instructed. "Botan will need all of my attention."

Yui nodded slowly, a distinct sense of Resignation Developing within her. She was allowed to sit outside of the chamber, hanging her legs off of the side of the narrow lip that ringed the chimney from the hearth below. It wasn't long before other little sisters had gathered to try and catch a glimpse of Botan. Gossip and rumors traveled among the Pixies like information in a network. They were all eager to see a Blossoming for themselves.

Finally, after around eighteen hundred seconds had passed, Hinagiku stepped out for a moment to shoo the girl's away. "What is this? You all have things you should be doing or can ask your Elder Sisters for more work! Outside with you!" The Shaman said sternly. The girls scattered with groans and glum expressions.

"Hinagiku?" Yui asked.

The shaman's stern expression softened. "Botan is doing just fine Yui, in fact, do you want to see her?"

Yui nodded quickly.

The shaman led her back into her chamber and Yui almost choked as she was confronted by a sickly sweet smell coming from the pots and grinding stones that Hinagiku had laid out across the floor. The room was dim. Shades had been placed above the windows to darken the chamber without restricting airflow.

When Yui saw Botan in the darkness, she stepped back in horror. What was happening to her? Hinagiku had stripped the girl down to the waist and laid her on her side. Botan's skin seemed stretched tight across her whole body, as if there was too much of her for it to hold, and as she moved, Yui could see the muscle and bone standing out and something beginning to bulge at the base of her wings. The wing stems continued to flex in a slow, steady, rhythm, almost like a heartbeat. Involuntary Hinagiku sat down beside Botan, trying to keep the girl cool with with a nutshell full of water and a piece of spongy plant matter taken from one of the herb's in the Garden. As Yui watched, Botan turned over feebly.

Hinagiku looked up at Yui and smiled reassuringly. "It's alright Yui-san."

"Y-yui?" Botan panted, eyes fluttering open in a daze.

"Mmm." Hinagiku nodded and went back to wiping the stricken girl's forehead. "I asked Yui-san to come here and visit. You saved her you know, Botan-san. " Botan's eyes drifted to Yui and some of the tension drained from her face. Yui didn't understand why her presence seemed to help, but she was relieved that it did. "Your fever has broken for now, but it will be back very soon, and it will only get worse."

"Worse?" Botan rasped. "What's . . . wrong with me? My head hurts. And the song is all . . . jumbled up." Even as weak as she was, the distress in the small girl was as clear as day.

"There's nothing wrong with you Botan-san." Hinagiku reassured the girl softly, stroking Botan's hair like a mother tending to her child. "In fact nothing can be more right with you. You know that in the language of flowers your name means bravery? You are simply blossoming into the brave, beautiful Knight that you were always meant to be. The Little Sisters will be lucky to have a protector like you."

"A . . . Knight?" Botan said dully, shaking her head, "I'm not a Knight . . ." The girl shook her head slowly, "Not brave enough."

"You're plenty brave Little Sister. You protected Yui-san and I like a true Knight of the Garden. Even Yggdrasil-sama could see that." Hinagiku insisted softly.

Botan didn't seem to hear the words, instead looking passed the shaman to Yui. "Yui." She rasped.

"Y-yes?" Yui replied anxiously.

Botan smiled, "I'm sorry I got mad at you . . . Euphrasie was nice . . . Is she okay too?"

Yui nodded quickly. For now at least.

"I'm glad." Botan said tiredly.

As Hinagiku had promised, the fever returned not long after and Botan was left in a state of delirium, barely able to recognize who or where she was. Botan needed Hinagiku's full attention more than ever and Yui had made her way back down to the common area. A pair of Vespid Knights had been waiting for her and had immediately bound her wings to her back with a silk thread before taking her to speak with Sayuri.

The Knight hadn't been waiting at the top of the nest. This time, she was seated among the branches of the tree at the center of the Garden, looking down at the Nest like a village in miniature.

"Sayuri-sama." The Knights both bowed. The Vespid Knight gestured for her subordinates to bring Yui forward.

"S-Sayuri-sama." Yui repeated. "Where are the children?" She asked. She didn't think Sayuri would brake Hinagiku's promise without speaking with the Shaman first, but she couldn't be sure.

"They're under guard on the far edge of the garden. I've done nothing to them yet." The Knight said quietly. "There is no time to question them now about the whereabouts of the other little sister. I must return to my mission. I've been away for long enough."

"Your mission?" Yui asked.

"Yes. We've been struggling against the beings so far." The Knight grimaced angrily. "Truthfully, Pixies simply lack the power to fight creatures as large as beings. But I have found a power that can destroy them for us."

Yui reviewed the fight with the Archeopterror and the way the Vespid Knight had used the spiders to defeat a monster beyond her own strength. Query Was that what Sayuri meant? Was she going to use some sort of mob against the village? Something larger than the Dagger Dogs and Wasps? Yui bit her lip. This was terrible!

"However, the Fae have decided to involve themselves. I suppose this proves which side they are on." The Knight tugged angrily at her bangs. "They can simply die or flee with the beings when Lhamthanc shows his true form."

Query Lhamthanc? The name didn't sound like a portmanteau like normal ALO mob names. A boss? Yui wondered. She hoped Aunt Sugu and the others would run rather than fight it. Klein was with them so the chance was good they wouldn't do anything too dangerous.

"Now, for your punishment . . ." Sayuri began.

"Sayuri-sama!" A Little Sister flitted up into the tree branches. The girl was breathing hard as if she had flown a short distance with all of her might and looked near panic.

"What is it?" The Knight asked, rising quickly.

"Please come quickly it's terrible." The girl panted. "To the west. Beings! They caught Shirayuri and are coming this way!"

Alarm! Yui thought, beings, but no Faeries. If they were mages then they might be able to protect themselves, but what if they were just farmers who had come looking for the children?

"What?!" Sayuri shouted, almost instantly her wings were extended and raked back aggressively, as if she were about to fly off into battle. "How did they find the Garden? We've always been cautious." The Knight said to herself before looking up. "You two, bring that errant Little Sister along. She may know these beings." The Knight glanced back to the the Little Sister."You, Little Sister, your name?"

"A-Asagao." The girl stuttered.

"Asagao, you did well coming to me." Sayuri reassured the girl in a tone so soothing it might have belong to Hinagiku. "Now go find Kigiku and tell her to to alert all of the Knights and Shamans, we don't know how dangerous these beings are. I've spoken with Kigiku about what to do if something like this happened, she will know what I want done." With that, Sayuri took flight, Yui tagging along with her guards.

Yui sensed the approaching humans before she heard them and heard them before she saw them, though the warning was not as great as the one with the children. These humans knew how to move in a forest and made much less noise. They came out of the trees and bush following an animal path. By the time Sayuri had been alerted, they had almost been on top of the Garden.

The nearest Little Sisters who had been tending to the western side of the garden and the herbs that grew there, fled in fear as soon as they realized what was happening. Knights and Shamans were rushing towards the disturbance, though there were fewer than Yui had expected. The others must have been involved with the mission that Sayuri had mentioned.

Three giants stumbled into the clearing before coming to a quick halt. The one at the lead extending an arm to prevent his companions from trampling on the flowers. Yui recognized Kirche, the Germanian fire mage, but she didn't know the other two. Both were older men, approximately aged Fifty, one taller and lean, the other shorter with a soft face and a small pair of glasses.

Sayuri was already drawing her sword when she saw the trio of Pixies sitting on the shoulders of the bespectacled man. She came to a halt in midair. Starring.

"Oh, oh my." The man mumbled. Carefully reaching into his shirt pocket, he removed a Little Sister who had been carefully tied up with twine. "I suppose this is the place then?" The man asked the girl in his hand.

"Let me go!" The girl snapped, squirming about. Though angry, she appeared unhurt.

Yui wondered if she was experiencing some sort of glitch when the small pendant worn around the man's neck suddenly sprouted a head and made small gurgling cry as it pointed its nose into the garden. "Well, Marco seems to think this is the right place." The man decided before tugging at a knot in the twine and allowing the Pixie to go free.

"There you go, unhurt just like I said, now run along." The man said.

The girl fled as soon as she could spread her wings and raced up to the safety of the gathering cloud of Knights. Sayuri grabbed hold of her as she neared. "You, Shirayuri? Did the beings hurt you?!"

"Oh Sayuri-sama!" The girl buried her head against the Knight's chest. "I was so scared! The one there caught me with a spell that made it so I was smashed down against the ground! And then they tied me up and tried to make me tell them where the garden was!" She pointed a hand to the turtle hung around the bespectacled man's neck. "But that turtle was following a scent that brought them here."

"The . . . Children." Sayuri whispered darkly.

Sayuri was still starring, unable to understand what she was seeing. "E-excuse me, hello?" The man called.

"Arthur." The man at his side muttered. "I think it would be best if you stand back." The second man gestured as more Pixies rose from among the flowers, not the frightened little sisters, but more Elder Sisters. Yui counted at least forty Knights and Shamans, probably all of the ones currently in the Garden. The hovered about like a cloud of autumn leaves.

"Please, Fernand, we've come to talk, to talk!" Arthur said, stepping carefully around the flowers and plants, he lowered his staff, placing it at his feet and approached with his hands open at his sides, walking into the center of the dome formed by the swarm of Pixies.

"Excuse me, but is there someone here I may speak to?" Arthur asked. "A Village Chief or . . . Well I suppose Pixies wouldn't have Nobles, would they? No? No of course not. I-I am the Count of Tarbes, Lord of the Village you've been attacking. I-Its come to my attention that men under my direction have done something terrible." The count found an open space in the garden and sank to his hands and knees, supplicating himself before the swarm of agitated Pixies. I have come to make amends." He gestured to the three Pixies who had been riding on his shoulders and now stood before him. "When I learned of these girls, I did my best to care for them and return them to their rightful place."

"Count . . ." Sayuri whispered.

"It means he's their leader." Yui explained, "Like an Elder Sister, he's here to talk to you. See, they don't want to fight Sayuri-sama."

Sayuri's tiny fists balled up tightly and the girl brought herself lower, gliding down to confront the Little Sisters that stood before the Count of Tarbes. The girls curtsied before their Elder sister and introduced themselves as Celandine, Olive, and Iris. Sayuri stopped before each girl, breathing deeply as if to get their scent.

Something was wrong, Yui realized. At first, Sayuri seemed soothed by the presence of the girls, but something else was happening. Suddenly, Sayuri stepped back breathing heavily and shaking her head. "This scent. I know this scent! This unnatural smell!" All uncertainty vanished from Sayuri and what replaced it was terrifying.

The Knight rose back into the air, she trembled, she . . . Laughed? It was a twisted sort of laughter, almost hysterical, and so hateful that Yui didn't at first no what to make of it.

"I've found YOU! I've finally FOUND YOU!" The knight's voice broke into a shriek, her eyes were wide and a twisted look of joy crossed her face. The kind Sayuri, the cold Sayuri, even the angry Sayuri, were all far away now, all that was left was monomania.

Yui realized the Sayuri wasn't talking about the little Sisters. Alert Sayuri's attention was entirely focused on the confused Count.

"E-excuse me?"

"Dont lie! That scent . . . I could never forget that tainted scent!" Sayuri screamed. "Even with the smoke and the ash, do you think I would forget the person who burned my Garden!"

The other Pixies were suddenly on edge hisses and cries of anger rang out from the Knights and the Shamans hung further back murmuring among themselves angrily. It was like an insect hive on the verge of swarming. And they had only one target.

"M-my smell?" The count asked in confusion. "Why, those are just chemicals from my lab. Preservatives . . . Fernand and I . . ." The Count stopped, something horrible had occurred to him. The man turned slowly to face his companion. "Fernand?"

The man standing behind the Count shook his head. "Well, this was unexpected." Fernand twitched his wand hand without so much as raising his wand from his side.

Kirche raised her wand, readying to cast and then suddenly reached for her head with her free hand. A gentle breeze began to pass over the garden and suddenly Yui blinked, her head was hurting and she was feeling dizzy. Pixies began to sink from the sky as Fernand took several steps back. Yui tried to clear her head, parts of her mind felt clear, but others felt drowsy, her senses felt dull.

"What . . . Is . . . This . . ." Kirche panted.

The Pixies were falling to the ground in droves, their wings twitching softly. Query Some sort of poison effect? Error The throbbing made it hard to think. Yui felt herself hitting the ground gently. From her vantage among the flowers, she couldn't see, but she could hear. The sound of a boot kicking away Kirche's wand and the sound of labored breathing.

"But . . . You're a wind mage." Kirche gasped. "I saw the Garden . . . It had to have been done by a fire mage."

"A purist I see." Fernand spoke, voice dripping with contempt. "Why is it that those with pure affinities never seem to think outside the box? Well, Arthur is the exception there. Though this spell is rather difficult. I have to thank Arthur for the time we spent developing it."

"Fernand . . ."

"And you Arthur. I confess I am sorry about this." There was a note of genuine regret in the voice. Yui thought, Error Or may she was just too dizzy to be sure anymore. "It is rather sudden, I would have preferred to have left you in peace old friend."

"What . . . is . . . this . . ." Kirche managed to say.

"Ah, a secret I'm afraid. One shared by myself and the Count when we were developing a way to raise Lastbreath in captivity." There was silence for a moment as Fernand took a breath. "Ah forgive me, it is difficult to keep the balance just so."

"But that spell . . . It can't cause a fire . . . Just . . . Just the opposite." The Count groaned. Yui heard hands sliding against mud and then a body rising before crashing back down, the Count trying to rise.

"Please, Arthur, do remember who I once was. As you were once the Arthur of the Brilliant Flame, I was, and still am, Fernand of the Bellows."


	40. Chapter 11 Part 8: The Wild Wind

Halkegenia Online-Chapter 11-Part 8

"Make sure nobody falls behind!" Rosseau ordered from his vantage atop one of the wagons. "Gavin, gather up some of the men and help the elderly, your children can tend to the mules." The sun was just rising over the forest to the East as Louise Valliere found herself riding atop a donkey, a donkey of all things! But it was more than most of the Villagers had. She was just one person among many in the caravan making its exodus from Tarbes. The stream of people stretched for a quarter of a league, commoners leading animals and their children while the elderly rode atop wagons along with those worldly possessions that could be packed to travel.

One hundred families, some six hundred people, had gathered together at a predetermined location on the Western side of the Count's estates before setting out along the highway towards the town of Aldi. There was no way to tell if the market town would be far enough from the path of the 'boss' type mob in the forests, but it was the nearest refuge, and Aldi's walls and mages could at least offer some protection if the monster could not be subdued before it began ranging further afield.

Louise looked over her shoulder at the retreating sight of the forest. Since last night, she had heard nothing from KoKo or the others. They certainly would have flown back by now if they could, which meant they were probably fighting. Either fighting with the 'boss' or the pixies. At least, she hoped that was all it was.

They couldn't be . . . ? No! Lousie shook her head. Tabitha had her Dragon, and the Faeries were all strong fighters. But that didn't stop Louise from growing concerned as no word came from them or the Count and the Zerbst.

By the Founder! She was even worried about Kirche! Like the Germanian harlot would die without a parting double entendre!

Looking for a distraction, Louise turned her head and found it in the form of the Village healer. "Florine, are you doing alright?"

The water mage looked over from her seat atop the wagon filled with her patients and supplies. She looked dishevelled, naturally there had been no time to sleep last night, not with sick and injured, and not with her daughter missing. There were rings beneath the woman's eyes and stray hairs had started to fall out of her utilitarian ponytail. Both added years to her appearance. "Well enough, Miss Valliere." The woman said tiredly as she spared a glance back at the forest.

It had taken a great deal of convincing on the part of the Village Chief and the other Villagers to get Florine to leave without Euphrasie. But in the end, they had convinced her that her patients needed her more and that staying in the Village was too great a risk.

"You're worried about your daughter. I'm sure she'll be alright." Louise tried to reassure her. "She may not look it, but Kirche is a pretty powerful mage, and I think Fernand must have some experience in battle. They'll be able to find Euphrasie and that commoner boy."

Florine smiled back, "Oh, I know. Fernand is quite a skilled mage. And I have no doubt that Arthur will find Euphrasie. The Count is not as weak a man as he thinks he is." The conviction in Florine's voice surprised Louise. Did this woman really put that much faith in her Lord? The man was . . . out of sorts.

The healer became silent as she returned to her patients. Louise tried to puzzle at the meaning of Florine's words, but her attention was quickly turned westward by whistles and calls coming from the surrounding Villagers. In the sky above, a cloud of dark shapes had appeared against the backdrop of the clouds. The youngest Valliere daughter felt her spirits lift at the sight. The reinforcements had finally arrived. She had to squint to be sure, but the figures were definitely humanoid, flying in a loose formation along with a half dozen Tristanian Dragon Knights, and judging by the smaller, kite like silhouettes, the same number of Cait Sith Dragoons.

All around her, the Villagers looked up anxiously as the Fae began to descend. There were uncomfortable mutterings at this strange sight, though people remained more or less calm. Most of the villagers had at least seen a Fae for themselves during the investigation or had the opportunity to speak with them.

Louise could make out the distinctive armor and helms of Cait Sith warriors along with a few strangely garbed Fae, for Fae that was, that might have been Leprechauns or Puca. "Everyone stay calm!" Louise called loudly. "These are the reinforcements that were sent for."

"Louise-san!" A familiar young voice shouted.

One of the Cait Sith Dragoons was gliding in for a landing to the south of the highway, wings extended to catch the air. The other Dragoons following suit one after the other until a half dozen of the squat creatures had settled to the ground, looking for all the world like a particularly vicious breed of earth drake grown wings. Silica jumped down from the lead Dragon, followed by a truly gigantic Cait Sith. Louise slid down from her donkey and raced to meet the girl.

"Silica. I'm so glad you made it!" Louise shouted in genuine relief. There had been no telling when the reinforcements would arrive. KoKo had thought they would get here quickly, but if anything had taken them from Cadenza, they might not have been ready before evening.

"We came as fast as we could." Silica said, Pina bobbing her head and giving a chirp of agreement from her master's shoulder.

"Miss Valliere, I presume." Another Cait Sith was approaching, removing his helmet to reveal tawny hair and a tall pair of ears.

"Yes?" Louise asked.

The man bowed his head. "I'm Gaius, Leader of the mob hunting task force. We came as soon as we heard you'd found Lhamthanc. I apologize we didn't make it sooner." Gaius hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "I suppose I should say the cavalry has finally arrived."

"And you brought mages too!" Louise observed, watching as the gangly forms of fire and wind Dragons circled high above.

"Additional forces sent by the Princess to help with our cleanup operations around Cadenza." Gaius confirmed. "They had only just arrived when word reached us about the boss. We've also brought a support squad of Puca."

As wonderful as this news was, not only Faeries, but Dragon Knights, there was no time to waste. Louise shook her head quickly. "Please, now that you're here, we have to head for the forest. I haven't heard anything from the others since last night."

Gaius stroked his chin thoughtfully. "So it hasn't reached the village yet? That probably means that they've succeeded in drawing it away." The commander turned from Louise to his troops as they landed and gathered. Curious villagers watched from the roadway. "We've been on the march since before morning. I'd like for the squads to fully recharge their wings here before we begin a staggered advance into the forest." He instructed.

"But, there's no time." Louise said. If KoKo, Tabitha and the others had been in the forest all night long, they must have been near exhaustion by now.

The Cait Sith commander raised a hand. "I understand, Miss Valliere. But this is a boss we're dealing with. We can't afford for the whole squadron to be grounded at once in the middle of the battle. Especially if Lhamthanc enters its second stage." Louise bit her lip, she hated being told off, but she had no reply.

"Klein-kun and others haven't come back?" Silica asked with growing alarm.

Louise shook her head. "Not all night. But they must be okay, right?" Louise asked. "If something had happened to them, the Pixies would have lead the boss to the village by now. Right?"

"R-right." Silica nodded, unsure, before turning and rushing back to talk with the Dragoon that she had ridden with.

Louise looked about quickly. There were perhaps sixty dismounted Faeries in all. About half were armed with bows or staffs, the rest carried a mix of swords, spears, and axes, all except for the Puca. Louise didn't know what to call the gathered Puca's. Instead of magic staffs or any other sort of weapon, they appeared occupied with a number of delicate looking wooden implements.

"Excuse me?" Louise asked a dark haired, young Fae woman in what she could only describe as a black vest and coat, "But what are those?"

"They're our instruments." The woman confirmed Louise's suspicions.

Well, Louise had heard that music could soothe wild beasts, but she doubted it would work while trying to hack said beast to pieces with swords and spells. Wouldn't they be better served with staffs, or even simple swords? Did they serve some task like drummers to lead the troops? But surely their chosen instruments, string and small wind instruments rather than drums or bugles, would be no more easily heard than simply shouting once they were up high in the sky.

The woman extended a hand smiling. "I'm Noel by the way." She said. "Oh, I suppose you don't have that gesture." She apologized as she took back her hand. "You just all look so much like westerners, sometimes I forget. This is my first time away from Cadenza since . . ." The woman shook her head. "You look confused. But don't worry, Puca music magic is some of the strongest support magic in all of ALfheim. Our little ensemble will be doing our part to make sure everyone can fight their hardest out there."

Louise nodded, she thought she understood. The instruments were a special type of focus attuned to the Puca's affinities. That made much more sense. But what did they mean by 'support magic', were the Puca spells long ranged, like naval cannon?

The Faeries remained grounded for only ten minutes, but that wait seemed agonizing to Louise. Only the slowly passing exodus from Tarbes, spurred onward by the Village Chief who shouted and cursed at anyone who paused to gawk, gave any hint that the time was actually passing. She needed to do something, anything to feel useful. The villagers didn't need her now. They were safely on their way to Aldi and the Village Chief had been handling things well enough. She hated to admit it, but really, she couldn't do them any more good. Even what she had been able to do last night had been meager, helping where she could with simple tasks, being an extra set of hands, and providing a voice that people would listen to.

'What good am I?' Louise thought glumly as she examined her wand. She took a breath and stormed back up to the Cait Sith Commander who was reviewing battle plans with his men and several of the Tristanian Knights. "Gaius . . . Sir Gaius?" Louise stumbled. The commander hadn't offered any sort of rank. Grr. Why couldn't Faeries have proper names, with proper titles! Only their Lords seemed to have that sense.

"Miss Valliere?" The Cait Sith nodded to her.

"Your Dragons. They can carry passengers, right?" Louise asked, no, demanded.

The man quirked an eyebrow, an ear twitching in unison. "Are you . . . asking to join the raid force?"

Louise took breathe and nodded her head. "Please, I can help."

Gaius frowned as he seemed to size her up, golden brown eyes examining her from head to toe. He frowned. "Miss Valliere, how are old are you? Twelve?"

"Sixteen!" Louise replied hotly. It wasn't her fault that she hadn't filled out . . . very much . . . at all. Louise shook her head again. There was no time for that!

"Do you have any battle experience, Miss Valliere?" Gaius asked. There were a few murmurs and snickers from the gathered Cait Sith. At first Louise thought they were directed at her, but she realized that rather, they seemed to be laughing at some inside joke.

"Tabitha is even younger, and she's out there fighting!" Louise insisted, of course, Tabitha was a Knight. Regardless of the grounds on which the title was given, she must have done something impressive to earn it. Louise stood a little taller. "I'm a mage, I can help."

"Louise-san?" Silica asked cautiously. "But aren't you not very good with magic?" The girl's ears flattened as Louise shot her a death glare. "That's what Tabitha-chan told me." Silica raised her hands defensively.

"It's true that I'm not very good." Louise felt her eyes sting as she admitted it. To say it out loud felt like an admission of defeat. "In fact, I'm terrible at just about every spell. The only thing I'm good for is making explosions. But please, allow me to go with you." Louse closed her eyes, they were strange people, almost intolerably so, and that was just talking about Kirche and Tabitha, but even so. She shouted at the top of her lungs, "My friends are out there and I have to help them!"

The gathered Faeries and mages went completely silent. Louise felt her face turning beat red. Had she said that last part out loud? 'Founder please grant me a swift death. Founder please grant me a swift death!'

"Explosions, eh?" Gaius rubbed his chin. One of the Tristanian Dragon Knights leaned in and exchanged a few words with Gaius. The Cait Sith's ears twitching as he thought about what was said.

"I know." Louise bit out angrily. She was a failure at magic, but even a failure ought to be able to do something, right?

"Wait, is she disappointed that she can cast explosions?" A voice among the Faeries asked. "You need a magic skill of at least five hundred for that!"

"It's not about numbers any more, idiot." Someone else shouted back.

"I'm just saying! Giant snake. Another magic user can't hurt right?"

Gaius raised a hand to silence the remarks among his men and gave a small nod to the Dragon Knight. "You say you're sixteen?" The Cait Sith shook his head. "Not that it matters, I'm sure there are people in this squadron who are lying about their age. Kakazu, do you mind taking a passenger?"

"It's fine with me." A black haired Dragoon with faintly striped ears replied in a rasping voice.

"Then welcome to the raid group Miss Valliere." Gaius decided, and then shrugged. "Try not to die. Alright everyone let's move out, Squads A, B, and C, then on through the alphabet, staggered flight from here on."

Louise found herself being helped aboard Kakazu's Dragon, the creature spitting and hissing the whole time like some of the more aggressive specimens found on the Valliere estate. "Get yourself comfortable." The Faerie advised before taking up the reins. Louise did as suggested, taking her goggles from her pocket and pulling them over her eyes. She'd need to be able to see well once they were up in the sky.

"If this is where we part ways, I wish you and your allies luck Miss Valliere." Roseau called from the roadside.

Louise waved back as Kakazu made a clicking noise with his tongue. His Dragon spread its wings and began to run forward in a clumsy gate, picking up speed, jumping, once, twice, and then taking to the sky.

'Just when will this end?' Klein wondered as he grabbed hold of Tabitha's offered hand to steady himself before landing atop Sylphied to rest his wings. The wings were magical constructs, there were no muscles or joints to get sore or tired, but even so, Klein's back burned from hours spent in the air. He felt completely drained, like someone had pulled the plug and emptied his liquid insides.

The fighting had gone on through the night, hit and run raids by the pixies as they tried to stop Klein and the others from kiting Lhamthanc away from Tarbes. The Pixies had been partially successful. The three Faeries and their mage ally had come on strong, driving away first one attack, and then another, while diverting every attempt by the pixies to lure the serpent westward. But as time wore on, first KoKo exhausted her supply of arrows, then one after another, all three Faeries had completely depleted their mana reserves and the handful of regenerative potions that they had brought along.

They were forced to wait as their mana recharged at a tiny trickle. Even Tabitha had exhausted herself. Though the little wind mage didn't say anything, she had grown steadily more conservative with her spells. Looking at the girl, Klein didn't think she had much left in her, either physically or magically. In the mean time, Lhamthanc had been driven all over the northern part of the forest, finally turning back towards Tarbes some time in the early hours of the morning.

As the sun had risen, Lhamthanc's white carapace had been revealed once more, glistening in the dawn light, slowly winding its way through the forest. The snacks were coming less frequently now. The Pixies must have thinned a good chunk of the local fauna. Deer, boar, mobs, everything had simply been swallowed by that tunnel of razor teeth that the serpent called a mouth.

"Heads up." KoKo panted as she came up beside Klein. "We've got more incoming." To their rear, another group of Willow Wasps were approaching. Klein was really starting to wish the programmers had remembered to code the spell Bug Zapper when they had compiled ALO's spell list.

"Oy, Leafa?" Klein called.

"I think I've got enough left for one more Wind Shrike ." The Sylph offered tiredly. Superhuman bodies or not, they were dying up here, Klein thought.

"Here, take your sword back." Klein returned his borrowed blade. "You need it more, and my wings have to recharge."

"Exhausted." Tabitha said, "Withdraw?" Even Sylphied seemed just about ready to give out and fall from the sky.

"Hate to agree with her." KoKo said, "But I think we've done all we can. Hopefully we've bought enough time for the evacuation."

"Hey, what are they doing?" Leafa pointed. The willow wasps were breaking off, retreating back into the forest.

"They're here." Tabitha announced.

Craning his neck, Klein squinted to the west and then let out a bark of laughter. Closing in from the direction of Tarbes were dozens of Faeries. It looked like an over strength raid group. Silica definitely hadn't let them down.

"Hey, Tabitha, think you can swing us over that way?" Klein asked.

The small mage gave a nod of compliance and guided her familiar westward, circling around to come into formation with the lead Dragoon.

"Klein-san! Leafa-Chan!" Silica waved from her place on the back of one of the Dragons. The cat girl jumped free, extending her wings and racing out to meet them. Silica didn't look as ragged as Klein felt, but it was clear she'd been up the whole night just by looking at her.

"Oy, you guys are late!" Klein shouted accusingly.

"Don't be so picky when the Cavalry comes to pull your ass out of the fire!" The lead Dragoon shouted back.

"That you Gaius?" KoKo called, "Klein's right, you're a real piece of work! You could have at least sent someone ahead to warn us you were getting close. We've been up all night kiting this thing! And Louise? What are you doing up here!"

The strawberry blonde mage road upon the back of the Dragon to the Left of Gaius, clinging to a dark haired Dragoon. "I couldn't leave you all up here alone!" Louise shouted, "I'm here to help."

"Enough chitchat." Gaius said. "That's Lhamthanc?" The raid leader asked.

"Un." KoKo nodded.

"He's even uglier IRL." Gaius shook his head. "Okay, KoKo, the rest of you, you've done good. Must've been hell for you. Now just sit back, take a nap, and enjoy the little dream we're going to give you." Then roaring at the top of his lungs, Gaius belted out orders to the rest of his squadron. "A, B, C squads, scatter and encircle, I want sustained attack spells leveled on that monster naow! Puca team, cast attack and magic buffs then debuff that its defenses. Dragoons! Breath weapon attacks volley after the debuff! Squads G, H, I, ready to switch in."

Cries of "Sir!" and "Affirmative!" rose from the Faeries as they began to spread out. On the ground bellow, Lhamthanc was still paying little mind to the circling Fae. That was, until the music started. Behind the main raid formation, a Puca ensemble had set up in midair. Klein thought it must have been a trick of the morning light, but as the Puca played, the strings of their instruments appeared to glow a soft silver, as if they were made of nothing but light. Soft chords began to fill the air, somehow reaching him even over the shouting and the roar of the wind. As high pitched as the sound was, Klein felt his whole body vibrating as if he was at ground zero of a bass concert.

The music wasn't the only thing that Klen felt. He had tried a quad shot espresso once when he was in high school. It was like that, but without the feeling that his heart was about to explode. He wasn't any less tired, but his body ached less, and he felt lighter, like he could actually move and fight. A confidence grew within him, that for at least a little while, he could hit harder, and fly faster. Even Tabitha was sitting a bit taller. "So this must be Puca support magic." Klein said aloud.

"Yeah, pretty useful, isn't it?" KoKo agreed, some of her normal energy returning to her. The hunter had retrieved a fresh quiver full of arrows from one of the Dragoons before catching back up with Sylphied.

"Leafa, here!" The Cait Sith hunter tossed the Sylph a small blue vial. Leafa popped off the silver cap and sucked at the contents as Klein caught another vial and did the same. The drink was sweet and tasted faintly of blue berries. The Salamander felt the drained, empty feeling dulling just a little as his mana started to refill. He gave KoKo a thumbs up.

Suddenly the notes of the Puca song began to change, becoming deeper and more trembling. An agitated hiss rose from Lhamthanc as the boss mob registered the debuff and raised its head above the trees to look about. A faint redness rippled along the length of the serpent, the visual effect of the debuff.

That was the Dragon team's cue. A dozen Dragons, half of them Cait Sith flying Dragons and half of them the more nimble Halkegenian fire and wind drakes, dove downward. Lhamthanc saw them growing nearer and opened its mouth wide in anticipation.

The lead Dragons let loose with their breath attacks, short bursts of flame from the Tristanian Knights and longer, heavier jets from the Dragoons. Lhamthanc was engulfed in fire as the mage teams joined in with flame and lightning magic. The serpent hissed and twisted in pain, as the earth smoldered around it, before beginning to fight back. Immense body coiling up protectively, Lhamthanc's head rose above the trees, short sprays of poison shot from the serpent's open mouth, aimed for the leading Dragons. Riders threw their mounts into evasive flight.

One Dragoon was grazed, rider and mount roaring in pain as the caustic slime burned skin and scales. The stricken mount broke off, skirting along the treetops. Klein thought they would be lucky if that was their worst casualty.

Gaius' troops turned out to be tougher than Klein expected. The injury of one of their own didn't cause the others to hesitate. The extermination task force was probably made up of Fae who had already proven themselves in tough situations, like Ainrcrad's early clearing guilds, while they weren't yet an elite force, they wouldn't break easily.

"Mage support squads!" Gaius called as his Dragon completed its own pass. "Earth magic now! Erect a firebreak!"

It wouldn't do them any good to save Tarbes and then destroy it with a fire of their own making. Trees snapped and crashed to the ground as the reserve mages chanted. Tall stone slabs rose from the forest floor. Shear walls of granite encircling the smoldering debris.

The remaining Dragons circled around for another pass, this time coming in from all sides. The serpent's eyes spun about, three to a side, tracking each rider before selecting its next target. A fire Dragon took a poison blast almost directly to the chest, shrieking in agony as soft belly scales were burned away and tender flesh was scarred. Dragon and Knight crashed to the forest floor below, within reach of Lhamthanc. The stricken Dragon's master, leaped down from his mount and made to flee on foot as the serpent lashed all around him. The unlucky man was struck by the serpent's uncoiling tail. His broken form was sent hurtling through the air, clipping a tree, and then crashing to the ground in a still heap.

The serpent released a hissing roar, only to be cut short as an explosion erupted along its jaw. Like a tree swaying in the wind, Lhamthanc leaned away and then slowly into the direction of the attack. It had come from one of the Dragons. Clinging to the Dragoon, Louise had her wand out and pointed towards Lhamthanc. It was the first time Klein had ever seen the girl cast.

"Oy, not bad!" Klein commented. It hadn't been a particularly big explosion, but then, it had gotten Lhamthanc's attention more than any of the concentrated fire blasts.

Lhamthanc hissed again, only to be caught off guard by another explosion, and another. Louise was waving her wand about furiously, the explosions proving oddly effective against the Serpent. The smaller scales began to flake from its head and sides. Gaius saw his chance and waved for the other Dragoons to make another pass. One after another, the Dragons struck and Lhamthanc's roars of pain grew as unprotected skin was exposed and seared.

Another explosion struck the behemoth across the jaw, and this time, Lhamthanc went down like a felled tree, slamming into the ground with an echoing rumble that shook the earth. The Serpent's body grew suddenly still. Mages and Faeries pulled back, watching cautiously.

"Damn, did they get it already?" Klein asked. Had they managed to hit something vital? The mobs, like the Fae, were living creatures now. They were tough, but they had the same weaknesses as any animal. Damage something important, and they'd die in seconds. Instinct told Klein that it probably wasn't over and he found himself reaching for his empty scabbard.

As if to prove Klein's intuitions correct, Lhamthanc sprang back to life almost as suddenly as it had fallen, writhing violently as it roared once more, but the roar was changing even mid call, becoming more high pitched, more piercing. A thick, vicious green mist began to spill from its mouth. Wherever the mist touched, the ground smoked and leaves shriveled, trees popped and cracked their bark eaten away and almost ignited.

"Klein, sweety", KoKo observed. "You have terrible timing!"

The serpent convulsed, muscles rippling down its wake in waves. Scales rose up and were torn free as the boss dragged itself across the ground. Mouth opened wider, wider. Lhamthanc's jaw dislocated like a snake's, and then kept on getting wider still.

"It's changing!" Klein shouted.

The raid force was already reacting, their leader coordinating his troops with hoarse shouts. "Mages, sustained barrage! Dragoons, breath attacks before it can recover! Remember, it's not protected by immortal object status during the transformation!"

By now the serpent's jaws weren't just dislocated, they were practically pulling apart, like invisible hands had grabbed the upper and lower jaws and were simply going to tear Lamthanc in two lengthwise. With one final convulsion, something began to emerge from the sides of the serpent's mouth. From beneath the skin, pulling the scaly carcass back around the jaws, brilliant white feathers erupted forward and then spread to either side, peeling away the old skin from the boss's flanks and head. The conical whale-snake shaped head was mostly unchanged, but was now covered in a coat of white feathers. Large feathered fronds emerged near the back of the jaw, folded back like sleek ears.

The wings continued to stretch until Lhamthanc's new form lay half exposed. And then, with a violent shake, the rest of the serpent squirmed free, the wings sweeping wide as it rose. The boss beat its new wings clumsily a few times, rising to let out a piercing scream.

"A Dragon! Its second form is a Dragon?!" Klein shouted. A dragon the size of a jetliner Sure, he knew it could fly, but that was just unfair!

"Well, technically it's more of a Quetzalcoatl," KoKo offered.

"Now is not the time!" Klein groaned. Placing a hand on Tabitha's shoulder. "Hey, Tabi-chan, did the Puca spell do anything for you and Sylphied?" Supposedly the really powerful magic buffs were area affect and that was what Puca's were supposed to be best at, but it was anyone guess if those spells would work on a human. The girl nodded her head in confirmation.

Klein crouched down on Sylphied's back. "Then it looks like the cavalry needs a hand. KoKo-san? Leafa . . . Leafa?" To Klein's right, Leafa was staring at Lhamthanc as it rose upward, climbing above the Dragons as they attacked. The Serpent seemed to swim through the air almost effortlessly. Some of the fear from the day before had entered her eyes. Up in the skies, she had been in her element, she'd been safe. But not anymore.

"Oy, Leafa, snap out of it!" Klein shouted.

"R-right." The Sylph nodded and drew her sword, forcing a mask of concentration.

Klein took a breath. Time to get stuck back in it.

No sooner had he thought that then Lhamthanc began to beat its wings harder, rising almost vertically into the sky. The winds around them began to pick up, changing direction and growing stronger with each beat of the flying serpent's wings. Soon, even the Dragon's were struggling to stay on course. The poison mist from earlier poured from Lhamthanc mouth like a fountain.

"KoKo?" Klein asked.

"Don't ask me." The Cait Syth's face contorted in a grimace. "This is new!"

New? Klein felt alarms going off in his head. Not good!

Above them, the cloud began to spread, catching on the wind whipped up by Lhamthanc and swirling outward until the whole raid group was surrounded by an impenetrable barrier of the mist. It was like the eye of hurricane, Klein thought, and the only way out, was up, past Steel Toothed himself. The Serpent climbed higher, twisting and corkscrewing through the air, surrounding itself in a second cloud of noxious mist that swirled about its body, masking it from view. They were going to have a hell of time getting close to it, much less hitting it, as long as it was surrounded by that.

And then it got worse. The eye of the storm, and the wall of acidic mist, began to shrink inwards.

* * *

With all of her might, Yui managed to crawl forward a few precious centimeters to where a gap in the flowers allowed her to see what was happening. Her advanced navigation senses gave her some idea of locations, but could not give specific details. Even so, being able to see the traitor Fernand didn't help very much. Her Vision was filling with error data and her ears were ringing painfully. She tried to think straight only to drift off as if she was verging on the limits of her available working memory. Query Error Query Error

Yui's head sank to the ground as she struggled to keep her eyes open. She didn't have the strength to move, or to even think. Only to watch. So that was what she did. Fernand was pacing back and forth near the edge of the clearing, never crossing an invisible threshold, and even then, he stood with unusually straight posture. As his feet, Kirche Von Zerbst had managed to drag herself roughly sixty centimeters from where she had originally fallen, reaching desperately for her wand. Fernand noticed Kirche's efforts and stepped down on the magical focus, causing it to snap in two.

"Why, Fernand?" The count coughed. "The Bellows? That was . . . Years ago."

Yui's automatic facial recognition functions registered anger crossing Fernand's face, and a grimace that in 80% of western societies suggested contempt . "Look at yourself Arthur!" Fernand shook his head, speaking softly. "Look at what you've become. You used to be so proud, so driven! Back in our younger days, we had a future! And now, you lower yourself to pleading to . . . insects. Why? Because they can talk?" Fernand chuckled darkly. "There really is nothing left of the man I admired."

Fernand took a moment to do something with his wand. "After you were captured, dragged off to Gallia, it was like I had lost a brother. I spent a year trying to save you. I used my inheritance. I gave up my career. I used every favor to my name! But when the Gallians finally traded you back . . . No, you aren't the man I once knew, just his corpse continuing to totter on long after the fires have gone out."

"Then why . . . why did you stay?" The Count had fought to get an arm under himself, turning over to face his fellow mage.

"I've asked myself that same question." Fernand said, standing straight, eyes closed. Yui detected some traces of Guilt with a certainty of sixty seven percent. "My intentions were noble at first I assure you, I thought with time you might recover. But as I realized my friend would not return, it merely became a matter of survival. I had burned my bridges in Tristania and no matter what might be said about magical ability, without the blood, you must be fortunate indeed to rise above all but a lowly title. Living until I could find some way to free myself from this sorry life I had followed you into became my only goal. Hating myself every day for not leaving you to rot in Gallia. Honestly Arthur," Fernand snapped, "How could I not come to resent you? Watching the years go by, watching as you traded skill and glory with sword and wand for a spade. And your clumsy dalliances with that healer woman!" Fernand spat at the last comment.

Yui blinked, once, twice, there was something in the trees above Fernand, or maybe it was just the black spots in her eyes. A black shape crawling along one of the branches. No, it was really there, her remote sensing functions were still feeding her information, but it was getting harder to make sense of it. Approximate size matched with a small mob. Despite the Errors that continued to develop, Yui couldn't shake the strange sense that it was Pina.

"Why . . . burn . . ." The Count was starting to close his eyes. Yui felt her own eyes growing heavy.

"Why burn the Pixies?" Fernand finished. "You wanted the flowers so badly Arthur, and if nothing else, I have taken pride as your majordomo these past years. My life's goal has been to make you happy!" The words dripped with bitterness. "I didn't lie. I hired men to accompany me and we travelled to the place that Florine mentioned. We found the flowers easily enough, and a few of these pests. Naturally, we cleared them out when they tried to stop us. They fought back, killed one of the men I hired," Fernand shrugged, "They nearly killed me. Fortunately I'd been experimenting with the spell we developed when we started to cultivate Lastbreath, as you can see. Though I confess I've greatly improved upon it."

Fernand waved a hand vaguely. "Concentrate the vital vapors and offer a spark, and, well . . . You're a brilliant mage Arthur, you don't need me to explain that. Now, the men were quite furious about all of this, but we did come to an arrangement. We found a few of the Pixies along the edge of the clearing, burned but alive. Most expired, but a few were still breathing by the end of the day. You only wanted the flower samples, and I thought you would be terribly upset if you learned about these little creatures, so I arranged to have them sold off in the Capital. In fact, I've already received word back that several customers are very interested in collecting more."

Yui heard an inhuman shriek not far from her. Query Sayuri?

"My? Is the concentration not high enough? This is actually quite perfect. Since they're born from those flowers, I don't have to worry about going to the trouble of keeping a breeding population. And I do believe I'll be able to finish development of the Lastbreath cultivation well enough on my own. At least some of your botany lessons have rubbed off. This is Adieu Arthur, once you were my brother, now I shall at least end your pain. Asphyxiation is an easy death."

Fernand lifted his wand high into the air as if to signal the beginning of an execution. Yui felt the light being pressed out of her. Her eyes growing heavy, head sinking to the ground. Query She was now a physical existence, it was possible to die if the hardware supporting her intellect was destroyed. Her data would be randomized, the precious memories of her brief conscious existence which had stretched for only two million odd seconds vanishing forever. Query Was she going to die? Query What would it feel like? Query Would it hurt? Query Am I . . . Scared?

Error Error Error Error Error Error

The last thing she saw was the dark shape she had registered above Fernand sweeping down towards her.

'Mama . . . Papa . . . Aunt Sugu . . . I'm sorry . . . '

Yui's vision was blackness but she could still feel as a tugging sensation passed through her wings and the earth left her behind. Wind swept past her cheeks and the pounding in her head began to subside. Error instances reduced and her vision began to clear. Opening her eyes tiredly, Yui found herself hanging beneath the belly of a dark, Pina-like shape. It was Sayuri's Dragon. Yui was held be her wings by both clawed forearms while Sayuri hung limply from the Dragon's mouth by the collar of her blouse. The Dragon had simply attempted to save whoever it could.

Suddenly, Sayuri's wings began to twitch. Yui heard a gasp and the Vespid Knight began to squirm and kick until the feathered Dragon released her. The girl spun about in midair, wasting no time drawing her needle sword before letting out a war cry and diving back down towards the Garden. For the brief moment that Yui saw the girl's face, she had glimpsed only a mask of utter hatred.

Yui began to struggle and was suddenly allowed to fall free, flying awkwardly with her wings still tied up. "Sayuri!" Yui shouted after the Knight, but there was no answer. Between the time the black feathered Dragon had swept them up, and Yui regaining consciousness, they had climbed over one hundred meters into the air. Seeing his master already descending, the Dragon turned to follow with another hoarse cry of "Gyaah!"

Carbon Dioxide Yui thought suddenly as she reviewed what Fernand had said. Her senses and mind becoming clear again. The symptoms matched what she had experienced. Conclusion Fernand was able to alter the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air up to at least lethal levels.

Alert! If Yui had fallen unconscious, they might have only a matter of minutes before the Pixies and humans in the garden were asphyxiated. Folding her wings, the navigation pixie followed after the Knight and her Dragon. Yui was Terrified in fact, she was so scared she could hardly move her wings. But what else could she do?! Hinagiku, Botan, Kirche, Kigiku . . . They were all in danger!

Yui was fifty meters from the ground when Sayuri's screams began. The Knight was charging Fernand almost suicidally. Wind and fire spells showered down as she chanted at a fever pitch, crashing against a hastily erected wind barrier.

"Gyaah!" Sayuri's Dragon spat a shower of paralysis bubbles in an attempt to support his master's charge. On the ground, Fernand clicked his tongue in disgust and his barrier burst outwards into a gale force wind, driving the bubbles back towards Sayuri and her Dragon. The feathered Dragon was too busy fighting to stay in the air and suddenly found himself caught up in his own attack, staggering drunkenly as he was struck by the shower of bubbles.

Sayuri paid it no mind, powering down though the gale with her sword outstretched. The bubbles she couldn't evade she simply burst with her needle sword, punching through on her path to Fernand. Yui followed in her wake, trying to stay in the path the Knight had cleared.

Sayuri dodged to the side as she cast another wind spell and then buffed herself, first for speed, and then offense. There was no sense to her attacks, no technique. In many ways, her movements were cruder than all but the simplest mob AI, other than evading Fernand's attempts to swat her from the sky, Sayuri only moved forward and attacked. Inevitably, she was going to slam into Fernand. And that was exactly what the mage was counting on.

Just as she reached him, Fernand stepped back and swung his wand up. It was like Sayuri was struck by the world's largest invisible fly swatter. The girl was sent flying up into the air, stunned, and then with another flick of the wrist, she was slammed into the ground.

"Sayuri!" Yui cried. The Vespid Knight's tiny body was still twitching, moving, she was still trying to stand, still trying to fight. Fernand gave the pixie a pitiable look as he returned his wand to the gestures he had been making before. Hypothesis Maintaining the gas concentration spell? Yui shook her head and thought hard. Correction Conclusion Fernand must have to keep the spell going.

"No!" Somehow the count was still conscious and he was reaching a hand out as Fernand placed his boot above Sayuri's tiny body.

"You know. I never did ask what the buyers wanted them for." Fernand mused. "I suppose they would make interesting pets once properly trained, perhaps they dress them up as dolls, or pin them like your insects."

"Fernand!" Tears were running down the Count's cheeks.

Tears were burning from Yui's eyes too. There had to be something she could do. She hadn't been noticed because she hadn't attacked and because Sayuri had made herself a target. Yui sped downward. A desperate plan began to form. No, it was less than a plan, at most she had only though forward to what would happen in the next few seconds. There wasn't much she could do with her limited power. She didn't have the strength, but she had the mass.

"Leave them alone!" Fernand looked up as Yui shouted at the top of her lungs. The man was already whipping up another small gust to knock Yui from the air when, in a flash of light, the ten centimeter body of the Nav Pixie Yui was replaced by the thirty two odd kilograms of little girl that was Yui's default form. Yui crashed into the man, still travelling with considerable speed despite her sudden transformation. She struck Fernand at chest height on his wand hand side and immediately grabbed hold.

The mage crashed back with an angered "oof" as Yui circled her arms and legs around his wand arm. "What is this?!" Fernand roared, using his free hand to strike at her. Yui felt the blows as he struck her in the shoulder and then the ribs so hard she almost cried out. Instead she clamped down tighter and grabbed hold of his wand, trying desperately to pry it from his hand. Fernand grabbed a fistful of her hair pulling until it started to tear out. Yui did the only thing she could think of. She bit down, she bit down until she tasted something hot and coppery .

Roaring in pain, Fernand finally resorted to simply bashing her against the side of a tree until, dazed, Yui's grip loosened and she fell free. "And just what do we have here?" Fernand hissed, the composed facade was gone and the man's eyes were distant and methodical.

"Enough!" Both Yui and Fernand covered their faces as a blast of wind raced across the clearing, carrying with it the smell of the flowers of the garden and a dry heat. Staggering to his feet, using his staff to support himself, the Count of Tarbes stumbled forward. "That is enough, Fernand." The count trembled, "This is quite enough. Quite enough!" Yui stared at the Count. The man's heart beat and breathing were extremely abnormal, pupil dilation suggested fight or flight had set in, he had to be undergoing a tremendous amount of psychological stress at that moment. "Inciting chaos, attempting to kill your Lord, m-murdering children! I will have you a-answer for your crimes!"

"Children?" The traitor laughed. "Please, Arthur." Fernand shook his head, chuckling, "Do you even still know how to use that?"

As if to answer, the Count raised his staff and set forth a tongue of flame, attempting to catch Fernand's wand hand. The traitor moved, batting aside the fire with his own wand, the flames unravelling as they touched his wand tip before circling about and being cast back towards the Count. The elderly mage slammed his staff against the ground and conjured a sphere of water in the path of the returned fireball.

"Holding back with your own affinity?" Fernand asked, disgust in his voice.

Yui struggled to get up and fought not to cry out as she felt something in her shoulder grinding. Was she broken ? She prodded at her left shoulder and felt a burning sensation. Reviewing the last few moments, she had landed on that side, heavily, the sensation had not registered to her decision making processes because it was deemed unimportant given her situation. Yui carefully got to her feet, clutching her shoulder and stumbling back from the two mages.

The Count was fast losing the fight, being pressed backwards with each guarded attack. "What's wrong Arthur? You stand up to me for the first time in twenty years, and this is all you can muster? Two decades ago, you would have burned this forest to the ground to defeat your opponent! Where is that fire now Arthur?!" Fernand lashed out with a whip made of wind tethered to his wand.

"Gah!" The Count cried out as he was struck across the face, an ugly welt appeared on his cheek. Fernand smiled and snapped his fingers. The nearly invisible wind whip sparkled for an instant and then burst into flames. The Count howled in pain.

"I'll finish this now." Fernand said levelling his wand, what little dust was in the air began to collect, given shape to the wind construct that the man was forming. His wand became the hilt of needle almost a half meter long as he approached the Count, drawing his arm back.

A tiny fireball shot past Fernand's side. It came from a Vespid Knight, but it wasn't Sayuri. Between Yui's distraction and the wind that the Count had conjured, the affected pixies had begun to recover. All around the Count and Fernand, the pixies began to rise, their vibrant dresses like autumn leaves. Fernand glanced, back at the Pixie who had shot the fireball. "Go ahead, try that again." He suggested.

Yui's eyes widened, he was baiting her. "No, don't!" Yui cried. The Knight didn't hear her, or else didn't care, but no sooner had she completed the incantation and launched another fireball did the air around her sparkle and ignite.

"No!" Yui screamed and then suddenly her vision went black again. She struggled, someone was holding her tightly, forcing her to look away. When she finally fought free, she found that Kirche was holding onto her. The fire mage, having partially recovered was looking down at her with concern.

"Yui?" She asked. Yui nodded. "But how- It doesn't matter." Kirche shook her head. "Don't look sweety." The girl said, pulling Yui close. Even so, Yui couldn't look away. Where the Vespid Knight had been, nothing was left, the flame had been so intense that her tiny body had simply been burned to dust. Yui leaned closer against Kirche for comfort.

The Pixies had recoiled upon seeing the death of one of their own. "Anyone else, want to have a go?" Fernand asked.

The Count was trembling, but Yui realized, not in fear. "D-damn you Fernand! Damn you!"

"Yes . . . Damn me." The man smiled. "I have lived quite the purgatorial life I do believe. Perhaps some hellfire would be appropriate. Suppressing the Pixies might just be too difficult now. Alas, I'm sure some of the flowers will survive to be cultivated in captivity." The Traitor raised his wand, and the winds rose once more.

"You might not want to use any fire magic, Arthur. Or, well, you'll see."

"This is how he did it." Kirche whispered, "By the founder, this is how he did it! He condensed and separated the vital vapors. But those invocations . . . Earth magic? And wind?" Yui didn't understand, she lacked the context. "Yui, we have to run!" Kirche pulled at her. They hadn't even begun turning around when the flames rippled forth, starting behind Fernand and then sweeping out along the wind streams. Yui shouted in fear and felt Kirche trying to shield her from the flames. They never arrived.

Looking up slowly, both girls stared. The flames washed over their heads in a hemisphere centered on the count. Holding his staff before him, roaring in pain, the count's blistered cheek wept bloody tears as his own flames mixed with those of Fernand's spell.

Clinging to the Count's shoulders were the three pixie girls from before. "You can do it Arthur!" Celandine shouted.

"We believe in you!" Olive said.

"Kick his butt!" Iris cried.

Despite the words of encouragement, the Count was losing ground with each second, panting as he tried to hold out. It was clear that only one of the two men had been a fighter anytime in recent memory. The dome was slowly collapsing inwards, the outer edge of the garden smoking and coming alight. The Pixies trapped beneath the flames cringed closer together.

"Farewell, Arthur!" Fernand shouted right before a set of Dragonfly wings struck his cheek with a hate filled scream. Thought beaten and bloodied, Sayuri was not yet finished. The Knight's cry was drowned out by Fernand's own as she plunged her needle sword into the man's left eye. Screaming, Fernand clutched as his face, tearing the pixie free and tossing her to the ground. Holding a hand to cover his ruined eye the mage let out a roar as his flames grew in intensity, but something was wrong. Fernand waved his wand desperately. Yui squinted, the flames began to flow back towards him.

"You may have corrupted it." The Count shouted as he fought to take a step forward. On his shoulders, the Pixie girl's glared at the traitor while clinging closely to the Count. "But this is still my spell! Fernand, for crimes against your Lord and Liege, I sentence you to death!" The Count thrust forward and the sphere of flames washed back towards Fernand.

The flames spiraled past Fernand until they came back to their source, and then the entire world was fire as an intense heat washed across Yui's face and she was forced to look away from the dazzling light. It wasn't an explosion, more a very fast, intense flame, burning brilliantly but briefly, and when it died away, only a few small fires remained surrounding a charred body.

The Garden was silent. Nobody spoke, nobody moved. The Pixies who had come to ground all looked among themselves and then to the Count as he took a few hesitant steps forward, pace growing quicker until he stood before Fernand. Yui felt sick the man was still alive, though his condition was terminal. His body was covered in severe burns where there was even skin left. The left arm was nothing but a charred stump and the right was seared straight down to the bone. How he could still be conscious, much less lucid was utterly beyond her. All of her knowledge of human physiology and psychology suggested that the trauma had been so sudden and severe that he simply wasn't able to feel it.

The Count starred down at the man, breathing slowly, but didn't look away as Fernand shifted, his lips moving, cracking, and streaming blood. "Beautiful . . . Arthur." And then there was nothing.

Slowly sinking to his hands and knees. The count shook his head slowly. "No no no." The man shook his head. "No . . . This is . . . No this can't happen . . . This can't happen . . . It doesn't . . . It doesn't work like this."

"Arthur?" Celandine asked. "Arthur, it's alright, everyone's safe now." The girl hugged the Count's cheek, followed by her sisters as the Count collapsed, weeping.

"Kirche-san." Yui said.

"Y-yes?" Kirche asked uncertainly, the woman would have lots of questions very soon, but for now, she was still sorting things out.

"Can you help me over to the Count." Yui starred at the man as he rocked back and forth, hugging himself and choking down tears. Grief Mourning Loss . "He needs my help."

"S-Sure." Kirche said, helping her to navigate between the flowers and terraced herb beds of the Pixie garden until they were stopped by a quartet of Knights.

"Please let us through." Yui asked and nearly recoiled as the Knights brandished their swords at them, driving her back into Kirche's arms.

"Hey now just wait a minute! We helped you!" Kirche cried out. "Ouch! Don't poke me with that!"

"Helped us?" A familiar but now dangerously brittle voice asked. Yui turned her head to meet a singed looking Sayuri. Though their size disparity was now hundreds of times in Yui's favor, she still felt afraid of the Vespid Knight, and with good reason. The look in Sayuri's eyes told Yui that the girl wouldn't hesitate for one instant to end her life. "Helped us? You nearly burned this Garden to the ground. All because of you beings and your spy!" The last words came out as a hateful shriek.

"Sayuri-sama!" Yui pleaded.

"You!" The Vespid Knight pulled at her bangs so sharply that Yui thought she was going to tear them from her scalp. "You were brought here, taken in, loved as a Little Sister! And you were nothing but a spy! Sent to lead the beings here!"

"But Arthur saved the Garden, Please!" Yui tried.

"No more of your lies!" The Vespid Knight shouted, "No more of your tricks! I know what I know! The being only fought to save its own miserable life!"

Even the Vespid Knights seemed uncertain about their leader, glancing among themselves. Their whispered comments were silenced by a glare from Sayuri. "Kigiku!"

"Y-yes, Sayuri-sama?" Sayuri's Lieutenant asked.

"Take these beings and tie them up with the others." Sayuri hissed.

"What is to be done with them?" The Knight asked.

Sayuri's breathing calmed, even so, she looked sickly, unwell, her skin was pale and trembling and Yui sensed similar changes in the Sayuri's biorhythms to those that had preceded Botan's blossoming. The Vespid Knight stroked her bangs, the action seeming to sooth her. The rage left her until all that remained was a dull look of contempt. "We have them now. All of the beings who were responsible for burning my Garden." The Knight shivered again. "We'll take them before Yggdrasil-sama and they will face judgment for what they have done."

"And then?" Kigiku asked, the normally dutiful Knight glanced to Yui, a strange mix of concern and uncertainty, as if she was unsure whether to hate Yui as a being or love her as a Little Sister.

"And then . . ." Sayuri said quietly. " . . . And then I will make sure this Garden is kept safe."

* * *

"What in the hell is this?" One of the Cait Sith mages shouted. Leafa didn't have an answer. Staring up at the swirling mist which rose above them like a great wall, she swallowed. She'd seen what that stuff had done to the forest. What would it do to bare flesh?

"Leafa!" Klein called for her attention and the Sylph Swordswoman raced back to his side. KoKo, Silica, and Klein were gathered in tight formation with Gaius and the other Dragoons as they continued to circle near the heart of the gales being kicked up by Lhamthanc. High above, the serpent prowled like a reef shark, protected from direct attack by a trailing cloud of the same noxious vapor that had trapped them here.

"Okay, people, we need ideas." Gaius shouted.

"Wind magic, blow away the mist?" Tabitha offered in the loudest voice that Leafa had ever heard the girl make.

"We tried that already." One of the Dragon Knights announced, using his wand to amplify his voice. Leafa wondered why Tabitha didn't use the same technique. "This gale isn't just produced by the Serpent's wings, it's some sort of powerful wind magic in its own right."

"What about tunneling?" Klein asked, "We've got earth magic users."

Gaius pointed down to where the mist had already begun to roll in among the trees of the forest. "Not going to cut it, unfortunately. We're going to have to take turns riding piggyback with the Dragons to recharge our wings, no place to land. Looks like the only way out is up, through the teeth of that boss."

"You sound entirely too calm about this." KoKo grumbled with an out of character note of irritation.

Gaius shrugged, "Would you prefer I panic? At this rate we have, maybe, ten minutes until those walls crush us and we all get turns into puddles of Faerie goo on the forest floor. I'm open to options, but at the moment, a full frontal assault is looking like our best bet."

Leafa placed a hand against her chest to still her heart. She didn't know why, but Lhamthanc terrified her. Was it because it was a real monster? She had fought other mobs since arriving in Halkegenia, and she had fought a few bosses in ALO. But normal mobs were just dangerous animals, and in ALO the bosses had ultimately been meant to be fun. This was different though. Those cold blooded eyes . . . They had belonged to a living thing, a living thing that deeply wanted to kill her.

"Okay then everyone. You know the drill, spread the word, the plan hasn't changed, we just have to pick up the pace. Squads D, E, and F, I want that monster suppressed and kept under continuous debuff, slow it down and hammer it with mana debuffs to see if it'll affect that poison shroud it's got around itself. Dragon Knights, you've got legs on us, I want you to try and get above it."

"So, you'd like for us to bait it?" One of the Knights offered dubiously.

"Pretty much." Gaius agreed, "At least you've got decent odds of escaping, Lhamthanc shouldn't be much faster than a flying Dragon. Which reminds me. Louise?"

"W-what – Y-yes?" The pink haired mage stammered as if surprised to be addressed.

"You'll be on point with Kakazu." Gaius instructed.

Louise turned white as a sheet as she tried to comprehend what had just been said. "What?"

Gaius shrugged once more, his ears making that same motion that KoKo's did. "Those explosions of yours were chewing holes in the snake like nobody's business. Let's see if it holds true with this new form. If worse comes to worse, you become the bait and Kakazu can ditch his Dragon and get you to safety."

"Hey!" The Dragoon shouted gruffly. Louise nodded and clutched her wand close to her chest.

Far below, a tree fell with a loud crack as the mist ate through its trunk. "Well, that's all the time we've got for planning. Let's get to it."

Leafa found herself flying close to Klein and KoKo as they climbed towards the serpent. Lhamthanc hadn't bothered to chase them down into the vortex it had created. The boss knew that this was their only way out.

"Commence attack!" Gaius barked. All around them the mage teams cast, first debuffs, then offensive magic. Lhamthanc's motions begun to slow under the effects of a speed debuff. Fireballs and lightning spells punched into its mist shroud, temporarily revealing the monster beneath. Then came the breath attacks from the Dragons. For a brief instant, Leafa got a good look at the serpent before the clouds closed in again. Suddenly, Lhamthanc's circling grew faster and the figure eight it had been describing around the top of the vortex stretched and unwound into a circular track racing around the vortex rim. Lhamthanc arced up into the sky and came corkscrewing back down.

Leafa paused in mid air and squinted. Something wasn't right. The air was twisting around Lhathanc's body, it was like she could see perfectly clear smoke tracing the wind streams and spiraling off. A new vortex was forming within the great barrier that had them trapped. Leafa frowned, was this some sort of holdover, a special indicator from ALO that had become part of the boss's spell?

"Leafa?" Klein noticed that she had grown distracted.

"Klein, we need to be careful. I think something is about to happen."

No sooner had she spoken then Lhamthanc's jaw's opened and more mist boiled out and was swept up by the new vortex, spiraling outward and filling the eye of the storm with deadly streamers of poison mist. Faeries and Dragons took evasive action, but a few unfortunate souls found their paths intersecting with the streamers. Leafa heard the screams as a Cait Sith struck the mist, plummeting downward, his armor smoking as it was burned to his skin. He was saved only at the last instant as Tabitha and Sylphied dove after him.

"Dragoons, spread out, give each other room to maneuver!" Gaius instructed.

"No, they need to stick close together along the outer rim" Leafa shook her head and pointed to the 'there but not there' wind stream indicator. "See, that's the clear path, they just have to stick to it."

Klein squinted to where she was pointing. "What are you talking about Leafa? I don't see anything."

"Look, it's right there! You can see it too . . . right?" Leafa blinked a few times, Klein had to be able to see it, right? It was just so obvious when you started looking for it.

The Salamander shook his head, "Well, Sylphs do have better vision." Klein frowned, thinking hard, and then nodded to himself, "Okay, I'm going to follow your lead on this, if you think you've got a good handle on it."

Leafa nodded. "Right." Of course now, she wasn't confident at all. Was she seeing things? No, the mist was definitely spreading the way the air streams indicated.

Together they chased after the Dragoons, diverting them onto the safe path. Just as she had suggested, as the streamers formed a complicated web of hazards within the barrier vortex, a path remained open around the perimeter. Gradually, the entire raid group started to gather in the safe zone, Leafa racing up and down to corral the stragglers. They were safe from the mist, but were dangerously exposed flying like this, the Dragons couldn't maneuver to attack and Lhamthanc's mist barrier kept the melee fighters from doing anything but offering a few weak attack spells.

Spells and debuffs were shot upwards, Gaius directing each attack for maximum effect to bracket the serpent as it flew within its cloud of mist. Finally, one of Louise's explosions landed on the serpent and all hell broke loose. A roar erupted from within the mist cloud and suddenly Lhamthanc was screaming downwards, wings folded, body coiling through the air. There was no place to run as the Serpent crashed into the Dragon that Louise was riding and quickly constricted around the mount.

Leafa gasped as she heard the Dragon's final roar and then organic groans and cracks as the powerful mob was slowly crushed by its attacker. Louise and her Dragoon escort struggled clear but were struck by the serpents tail and sent flying apart. The Dragoon was staggered and sent swirling towards the inner vortex, Louise screamed as she plummeted towards the mist shrouded ground below.

"Leafa!" Klein shouted. They both entered powered dive at the same time, thinking the same thing. "I'll get Louise, you take care of the Dragoon!"

"On it!"

They split off, Leafa grabbing the Dragoon. "Are you alright?" She asked the man.

"Just leave me alone", The man groaned shaking his head stiffly. "Sorry, I'll be fine. I just feel like I was hit by a bus."

Leafa led the disoriented man to safety among his comrades, watching as Lhamthanc climbed back through its web of mist to cut off their escape. Leafa could see the path the serpent was following, ever changing and shifting, but it was like only she and the Serpent could see them. At this rate, the Lhamthanc's attacks were going to slowly wear them down, or pin them until the walls collapsed and they were all eaten alive by the poison mist.

"Oy, we need a new plan." Klein grunted as he came up beside her. Louise clung to him, trembling after her near death experience.

"M-mangy lizard!" Louise stuttered.

For some reason, Lhamthanc seemed to really hate Louise's explosions. The seed of a plan took root in Leafa's mind. "Klein, I think I have an idea."

"I'm all ears." The Salamander offered as Silica and KoKo approached.

"Listen." Leafa said, "Can anyone else see it? The paths in the air?" She asked. The blank expression on the faces of the gathered Faeries and Louise was all the answer she needed. She shook her head. "Okay, you're just going to have to trust me on this, but I think I can get us under the boss's mist shroud. There are . . . air currents all around the shroud. I guess Lhamthanc must use a lot of wind magic to keep it in place. There are gaps in the shroud at the front and the rear." Leafa bit her lip, "But you'll have to follow me close, the currents are constantly changing."

"What do we do then?" Silica asked. The others nodded and for a moment Leafa was taken aback by their trust.

Leafa continued. "Well then . . . Then Louise hits it with the biggest explosion she can. There has to be some reason it's going after you Louise, your attacks keep drawing its attention. I think something about your explosions are hurting it. Once we have it distracted, we can try to lead it up out of the Vortex and clear the way for the rest of the raid."

The others had agreed and they had raced back up to Gaius to explain their plan, tactfully not mentioning that the whole thing hinged on following invisible paths that only Leafa could see.

Lhamthanc began its next pass, sweeping down towards them. The boss was hidden in its mist cloud as it banked along the inner wall of the vortex towards the fleeing raid. Louise clung tighter to Klein as the monster approached.

Leafa squinted, the paths were like weird heat ripples, invisible if she didn't look for them, but easy to follow once she did. They raced out to meet the approaching Serpent and then banked to the side, KoKo, Klein, and Silica following her lead as they swung back around. Just as she had thought, the shroud thinned at the rear and a narrow gap existed where the shaping air flows converged, Lhamthanc keeping a bubble of fresh air around itself to protect against its own poison.

The gap was tiny, barely wide enough for them to fly one after another. Racing along the narrow path past the serpent's twisting body. Their first target came into view. "Louise, aim for the wings, if we knock those out this will turn back into a ground fight!" KoKo advised.

Louise didn't need to be told twice, the girl aimed her first spell and fired. The mage must have taken Leafa's request to heart, because the resulting explosion was at least twice the size of her previous efforts. The serpent roared surprise as it suddenly found Faeries attacking inside the safety of its shroud. The wings beat angrily, the shroud beginning to come apart around them.

"This way!" Leafa shouted, leading the others along a dissipating current that lead clear of the dissolving shroud. As hoped, the serpent gave chase, intent on consuming its chief tormentor.

The walls were closing in visibly now, they needed to get above the vortex as fast as possible. Leafa felt her wings fold flush with her back as she followed the rippling and changing path. 'Faster.' She thought, they need to go faster! Klein, KoKo, and Silica stuck close as she lead them into the inner vortex, ducking and diving between the spinning coils and streamers of corrosive mist. 'Faster.' They couldn't afford to even be grazed. 'Faster!' The others could barely keep up.

Far below, the lowest sections of the outer vortex were stating to collapse inwards. The cylindrical eye of the storm was becoming an inverted cone. They had even less time left! Leafa thought.

Instead of trying to chase them along the same route, Lhamthanc twisted off along a different path, trying to reach the top of the vortex and trap them. They had to make it first!

Leafa let out an indistinct shout as the path started to close in ahead of them. "We're almost there!" Light and blue sky shone above, beyond a tunnel of dark green mist.

The Faery quartet passed the last streamers and emerged above the lip of the vortex into the morning light. They were free. But there was no time to celebrate with Lhamthanc right behind them. Free of its mist shroud, and exposed to the light, Leafa got her first good look at the boss since it had transformed. It had taken a lot more damage than she had realized. Whole patches of feathers had been burned away by magic attacks, but Lhamtahnc appeared utterly unfazed and completely intent on consuming them for their transgressions.

"What now!" Louise shouted.

"Now we have some maneuvering room, we aim for its weak points." KoKo called back as she notched her first arrow and fired. The serpent spun away as the bolt exploded along one of its feathered ear fronds.

"What are its weak points?" Louis asked.

"At a guess?" KoKo ventured as she chased after Klein so that Louise could hear. "Probably the eyes and mouth."

Lhamthanc turned towards them with startling speed, the Serpent's mouth unhinging to once again reveal its rows of razor teeth.

Louise gaped before spinning her head around to KoKo. "How is that a weak point?!" She pointed.

There was no time to try and cast magic, only to scatter as the serpent streamed past them, hissing and spitting more of its mist. Below them the rest of the raid group had finally emerged from the collapsing vortex. It was time to finish this.

"If the weak point is the mouth, then let's get it to open up." Klein said.

"Wait, what?" Louise called and then squealed as the Salamander raced after the Serpent, overtaking the monster while a terrified Louise clung on for dear life.

"Hey you sonofabitch!" Klein barked. The three eyes on the left side of the serpent's head all turned and focused on the Salamander and his mage passenger. "Do I have your attention? I've got the spicy teriyaki lizard and cotton candy special. Come and get it!"

Louise shrieked and cursed as the Salamander kicked off, wings folding back as he approached his top speed. Lhamthanc followed mouth open as Klein turned back towards the trailing raid group. The serpent lashed out in midair, trying to swallow Klein and Louise whole only to be blinded on the left side by a volley of KoKo's exploding arrows.

"Keep going!" KoKo shouted, flying backwards as she loosed another shot. The boss wasn't interested in the Cait Syth, he wanted Louise and Klein.

"Klein you have to hold still." Louise shouted as she closed one eye and aimed down the length of her wand, "I can't get a good shot!"

"I could always get you closer!" The Salamander shot back. Lhamthanc screamed behind them. "Not much faster than a Dragon my ass! Let's see if it can climb as good as it does the straightaways." The Salamander pulled up, rocketing into the sky, Lhamthanc following, but slowing as it beat its wings furiously to keep up. Klein dispelled his wings, allowing them to be carried upward on momentum.

"Klein! What are you doing?!" Louse shrieked.

"Baiting it." The Salamander shouted back. From her vantage, Leafa saw it all unfold. Lhamthanc's mouth opened fully, the endless rows of teeth vanishing into blackness. Klein and Louise fellow towards the maw, the Serpent adjusting so that they would fall in the exact center. It was like Lhamthanc was helping them kill itself, Louise couldn't miss.

With a desperately shouted incantation, Louise pointed her wand straight down. There was something like a flash within the gullet of the monster, if Leafa had blinked, she would have missed it. The flash didn't fade, instead it simply shrank, becoming brighter as it got smaller until it was no larger than a spark, and then, "BOOOOM".

It put Louise's previous explosions to shame, a wave of pressure and heat like some huge bomb. Flames and oily black smoke burst from the serpent's mouth and the jaws were driven open, not just unhinged, but completely broken. The behemoth traveled upward for another few seconds, a testament to its momentum. Then slowly, it began to veer away, turning back on itself, plummeting.

When it finally hit the ground far below, it did so surprisingly softly, that huge body must have been a lot lighter than it looked. Leafa came up beside Klein and a whimpering Louise, clinging white knuckled to the Salamander. KoKo and Silica fell in to observe their handiwork.

"Is it . . . Over?" Louise asked.

KoKo gave the carcass an appraising look as the rest of the raid group closed in and began to bombard the motionless remains with their full repertoire of spells. The raid commander definitely wasn't taking any chances. "Yeah, it's over." KoKo warily hefted her bow. "Nice work with the escape route Leafa, and nice work on taking it out, Louise."

"Me?" Louise said, surprised.

"Yup." KoKo nodded, "I don't know what it is about that spell of yours, but I don't know if we could have drawn it off without you. It doesn't mean much here but back in ALfheim we'd congratulate you on getting the last attack bonus." The pink haired mage reddened at the praise.

The girl looked down and muttered. "It was scarier than I thought it would be."

"Sorry about all that, Louise-chan." Klein offered. "You okay?"

"Okay?" The girl glared at him. "Okay?! You nearly fed me to a giant snake!"

The Salamander leaned back as far as he could, a difficult task as he was currently holding Louise hundreds of meters off of the ground. "Uhm, well, I nearly fed myself to a giant snake too." Klein offered.

"That's even worse! There'd be nothing worse than being digested beside a mangy lizard like you!" The girl balled her fists like she was going to start beating them against Klein chest, and then stopped. Finally she crossed her arms and looked away. "But I suppose you did save me from falling earlier. I was going to thank you for that, but since you nearly got me killed too, I'll call it even."

Klein looked glum. "Yes, Ma'am, your wish is my command." He said sarcastically.

Louise sighed, "If that's the case, can we please land now." The girl looked down anxiously. "You might be a mangy lizard, but that doesn't make you a stand in for a good dragon."

Leafa swept her gaze across the forest. An overwhelming sense of exhaustion was overtaking her as the last round of magic buffs began to wear off. But she couldn't rest just yet. With the boss defeated, there was still one things left to do. The original reason they had come to Tarbes. Find the ones who started all of this. Find the Pixie Garden. And . . . Find Yui.


	41. Chapter 11 Part 9: Healing

Halkegenia Online – Chapter 9 – Part 9

Yui's feet slipped and slid as she walked along a muddy animal trail, leaning against Kirche for support while Antoine cleared away the low hanging branches from their path. The Count trailed along behind them, holding Euphrasieclose to himself and murmuring nervously that everything would be alright. Yui could tell that he was lying.

To either side of their path, the low, sleek shapes of Dagger Dogs prowled and Vespid Knights flitted through the air, keeping watch over their prisoners. They were being taken someplace, though the Knights refused to tell them where. Yui could only hypothesise from overheard snatches of conversation that their destination was the Yggdrasil Shoot.

After the Count had killed the treacherous Fernand and Sayuri had detained them, the strange turtle and the Pixies had been taken from the still grieving Count and the two Tristanians plus Yui had been driven to the edge of the Garden by a prodding flock of agitated Knights.

There, Yui had been reunited with Antoine and Euphrasie. As Sayuri had promised, the children had not been harmed, though Antoine's grazed shoulder had not been treated beyond the crude bandage constructed by Euphrasie. On seeing Euphrasie, the Count had been briefly shaken from his stupor, stepping forward to embrace the girl and mumbling a flurry of apologies and chastisements. Seeing them side by side, Yui couldn't help but compare their features.

Thankfully, the children did not recognize Yui in her human form, and the Count had been incapacitated when she had transformed in the fight against Fernand. Though Kirche had seen everything and her eyes pleaded an explanation, the Germanian girl had wisely held her tongue. Yui didn't think it was very wise for her to talk about her true nature in earshot of the Pixies lest she agitate them further, likewise for returning to her Pixie form. The Tristanian's had soon come to their own conclusions, that Yui was simply a child who had been separated from her family and gotten lost in the woods where she had been captured by the Pixies. This fiction was close enough to the truth that Yui had felt no need to correct it.

Euphrasie and Antoine had been very kind to her. Euphrasie had treated her arm, constructing a crude sling to prevent Yui from moving the shoulder and making the injury worse. The girl had then turned to mending the Count's cheek, though as with Yui's arm, without a wand, Euphrasie could do very little. Meanwhile, Antoine had dutifully assured Yui that everything would be alright and that they would surely be found soon. Yui already knew that. Aunt Suguha would definitely be looking for her.

Other than their Guards, a half dozen Vespid Knights mounted atop Willow Wasps, the Pixies paid Yui and the others little mind throughout the rest of the day into the evening. The Garden was in complete chaos and every Elder Sister was needed elsewhere. Shamans had directed the oldest of the Little Sisters to help in putting out the small fires that still burned at the edges of the garden before they could grow and become a danger. Mobs were summoned from the woods, Dagger Dogs and Giant Mole Rats to construct fire breaks and smother the flames. The Knights had scattered outwards, patrolling the Garden's surroundings and sweeping for any signs of more beings.

All through the afternoon, Yui and the others had listened to the distant sounds of hundreds of crying Little Sisters being desperately comforted by the Shamans and Knights. Yui learned from snatches of conversation among their guards that there had been more casualties than the solitary unfortunate Vespid Knight who had been incinerated by Fernand. Several Little Sisters had been asphyxiated, trapped in lingering pockets of carbon dioxide, and at least a dozen Knights and Shamans had been killed as well, caught on the wrong side of the Count's flame shield. By evening, the crying had subsided to be replaced with a low mournful chant composed of hundreds of small voices. For the Pixies, their Garden had been Sacrosanct , but no longer. Even the normally collected Knights were on edge.

It was as the sun had begun to set, and the sky had started to darken that they had finally been confronted by Sayuri. The Vespid Knight had approached in the company of a dozen of her Sisters. Unlike the previous times Yui had seen her, Sayuri looked far from composed. In fact, the leader of the Knights looked ready to fly into a rage.

"You!" Sayuri spat, ignoring Yui entirely as she glared down at Kirche. Despite the immense difference in size, the diminutive Knight still managed to intimidate. "You are one of the beings that came from beyond the village, the fire user?!" Sayuri's eyes grew hateful as she spoke.

Kirche nodded hesitantly, eyes never leaving Sayuri. "What, may I ask, do you want with me?"

"Your magic. It differs from our own and that of the Fae. There were others with you, a blue haired wind and water user, and another, a pink haired being. What is her power?" Sayuri pressed. Yui studied the Knight closely, something must have happened, but what? From little context she could gather, Aunt Suguha and the others must have foiled Sayuri's plan, and the Knight somehow believed that Louise was responsible.

"Her power?" Kirche asked. The reply sounded almost sarcastic but Yui was certain that Kirche was being honest. The Germanian genuinely did not know what Sayuri was talking about.

"None of your tricks!" Sayuri demanded, hand reaching for her sword. "What is that power?! It isn't of any element I know of. It resembles fire, but also darkness magic."

"Louise's power?" Kirche asked again and then began to chuckle. Sayuri and her fellow Knights recoiled faintly at the alien response from the Germanian. "You think Louise is powerful? I hate to break it to you, but Louise is a joke, a Zero, she can't cast straight to save her life."

"Liar!" Sayuri hissed. "Our scouts saw her in battle. Her spells must be powerful dark magic to act as they do."

A battle? Yui wondered, had there been a battle? And if there had, had it been between the Pixies and the Fae, or had the so called 'Lhamthanc' been involved.

"Well then." Kirche replied slowly, giving the Knight a cheeky smirk. "It sounds like you know more than we do. Why don't you fly back out to Louise and give her some pointers. We'd really appreciate it."

Sayuri trembled in midair, her wings twitching and her face growing red. "Answer my question!" Sayuri growled, slowly drawing her sword.

The Germanian gave an indifferent shrug. "But I have answered your question. Threatening me won't make me change my answer. Louise can't cast anything but explosions. They're big, and loud, and they make a mess, but they usually don't do too much damage. Really, they're not much good for anything. And we've never figured out why she can't cast anything else either." Kirche gave a fox like smile. "Don't tell me the Zero of all people is giving you trouble. Didn't you have a big scary snake you were going to sic on the Village." The Fire Mage's eyes widened, "I know! Your little plan fell through, didn't it?"

Sayuri's trembling grew and grew and then, suddenly, the Knight became still. "We're done here." She told her subordinates. Sayuri cast one last glare over her shoulder, eyes briefly meeting with Yui. The former mental care AI looked away, there was nothing in Sayuri's expression, voice, and posture, that didn't speak of utter hatred.

After Sayuri was safely out of earshot, Yui tugged gently at Kirche's arm to get her attention. "Kirche-san. You shouldn't antagonize her like that." Yui warned.

The Germanian gave her an apologetic smile. "I know, but something about her reminds me of Louise, I couldn't help myself." The Germanian grew serious, "Besides, we just learned something useful, right?"

Yui paused for a moment to review the events of the past sixty seconds. Suddenly she understood. "Un." Yui nodded. "Sayuri's plan must have been foiled, which means the others will be looking for us again."

"More than that." Kirche agreed and leaned closer, whispering softly to avoid being overheard by their guards. "Silica was sent to get reinforcements. From the sound of it, I don't think Tabitha and the others would attack the monster without backup, so the reinforcements must have also arrived. They must be scouring the forest by now."

Yui nodded in agreement. It shouldn't be too long until they were found. Depending on the number of searchers and available daylight hours, even a small number of Faeries would be able to sweep the forests around Tarbes in less than a day. The issue would be whether they would know what to look for from the sky, and with night rapidly approaching, the search would only grow more difficult.

Night had fallen and still their promised judgment had not come. The only sign that the Pixies even remembered their Prisoners was the changing of the guards. Yui recognized a few of the Knights in this new detachment, but her attempts to get their attention were ignored or worse, regarded as insults. Some of the Pixies had shifted uncomfortably, giving Yui looks that ranged from conflicted to openly distrustful.

Finally, as the Garden had at last settled in for the night, it had been decided that they try to get some rest. The air that night was not particularly cold, but nor was it warm, and Yui had shivered in discomfort until Kirche had covered them both in her travelling cloak. The Germanian placed her arms around Yui, careful not to touch her injured shoulder. Opposite the two girls, the count had spread his own cloak over Antoine and Euphrasie, holding the children close as he drifted off into a troubled sleep.

Analysis The count needed help. It was very difficult for Yui to diagnose his condition. Despite his apparent openness, the Count was a mess, he seemed barely capable of operating socially, and killing Fernand and only made his condition worse. Hypothesis He displayed symptoms consistent with a slew of disorders, not the least of which was PTSD. The fact that he was functional at all was testament to a tremendous strength of will.

To pass the time, Yui ran through possible treatment regimens. Her former existence as a mental care subroutine within a virtual environment meant that Yui's Training was in psychotherapy. Naturally, she was not able to medicate a player within virtual reality. Though using the Nerve Gear to monitor neural activity under a variety of stimuli did offer insight into chemical and structural abnormalities in a subjects brain. Rather, her purpose had been to place players experiencing excess anxiety at ease and nudge them gently in the direction of seeking real world psychiatric help.

Yui had finally drifted off after some ten hundred seconds spent examining the problem only to be woken before dawn along with the others by the Knights. They had been lead from the Garden, marched along narrow animal trails and through thick brush, heading to the East. The journey had taken another eight thousand, one hundred, and fifteen seconds by Yui's internal timer. In all of that time, they managed to travel barely a mile from their starting point. The Knights had made agitated noises at their slow progress, but without wings, there was little that the humans could do to travel more quickly.

The forest had begun to thin before them, widening until they found themselves before the edge of a cliff. Yui and the others looked up, squinting in the dazzling morning light. The cliff, as it was, was not really a cliff, but the lip of an immense hole, or more accurately, a cavern. Yui estimated that the Cavern was at least forty meters wide, and from her vantage, appeared to be about the same in depth, cutting straight through earth and bedrock. The cavern wall was covered in vines and vibrant flowers clinging to cracks and fissures and growing gradually thinner with depth. But most striking, rising from the cavern, its spherical crest level with the tops of the surrounding trees, was a miniature World Tree .

Yggdrasil Shoot Yui thought. The tree's distinctive crest and corkscrew trunk rendered it unmistakable Conclusion This explained why the Yggdrasil Shoot had not been visible from the air, it was partially hidden, Camouflaged . The Vespid Knight at Yui's side poked her lightly with the tip of her tiny sword and pointed towards a human sized staircase that had been carved into the wall of the cavern, spiraling downward to the broad lip of a circular pool from which rose the trunk of the Yggdrasil Shoot. The water in the pool was incredibly clear, but even so, Yui couldn't see the bottom, only shadows, and brief glimpses of an immense, pale white, coy-like fish, as it swam in lazy circles around the trunk.

Despite their circumstances, Kirche and the children gazed in wonder at the sight, even the Count faintly admiring the flowers and the Yggdrasil Shoot . The symbolism did not escape Yui. Sayuri had probably brought them to this place for a reason, it was meant to Humble them before their judgment.

Waiting before the lip of the pool were hundreds of Pixies, Yui estimated that it had to be the entire population of the Garden, or at least, all of the Little Sisters and half each of the total number of Knights and Shamans. The Little Sisters sat and stood, chattering and gossiping in hushed tones while the Knights stood watch over them. The Shamans were mostly collected together in a single group at the edge of the Pool, their grouping was more organized and they appeared to be holding an informal meeting.

Finally, Yui had spotted Sayuri. Standing atop a platform that had been carved into the trunk of the shoot the Vespid Knight was flanked by the senior Knights and Shamans including Kigiku and Hinagiku. Yui shivered, the Knight leader wore a predatory smile as she watched the beings approach.

The Little Sisters had recoiled when they saw the beings, their voices growing louder and their chatter faster as they leaned against one another for comfort. The only ones that did not seem afraid were the four Little Sisters who had been born in Tarbes. Celandine, Iris, Lily, and Olive all looked on, sticking close together as their human caretakers were brought before the lip of the pool and made to kneel.

"Sisters!" Sayuri shouted in a surprisingly loud voice for such a little body. The crowd of Little Sisters went silent. Every eye around the Shoot turned to the Eldest Sister.

Yui closely examined the Knight, reaching out with her enhanced senses. The abnormalities that she had detected the day before were still there and growing worse. Sayuri's pulse, body temperature, and breathing were all elevated. But to someone without Yui's expanded senses, the Vespid Knight looked perfectly normal. Yui recalled her Surprise from the night before last when Sayuri had come to Hinagiku's chambers. The Eldest Sister was incredibly good at concealing her condition.

Query Was there perhaps some way to compromise Sayuri in front of her Sisters? If they saw how sick their leader was, it might force the others to reassess their actions.

"Sisters." Sayuri began, speaking solemnly. "I should not need to tell you that life is very difficult for us. We are the weakest of Yggdrasil-sama's children, and the only ones to remain faithful to her. Always, the Gardens have been our refuge and safe havens. This certainty has given us the strength to survive." Sayuri shook her head slowly. "But no longer! The world has changed. Our forest has changed. New plants and animals have appeared. Two moons hang in the night sky. And beings stock the land beyond." Sayuri's voice grew darker, the words coming more swiftly. "Though they resemble the Fae, they are surely worse. No sooner did the beings find us, then they stole away our unborn Sisters and burned my Garden. We fought back, and they enlisted the help of the Fae, and now, they have nearly done to your precious home that which was done to my own! Sisters! I have asked you to gather here today, beneath the branches of Yggdrasil-sama so that as a Garden we may cast and witness judgment of these beings for the terrible crimes they have committed!"

The Little Sisters murmured among themselves, voices low. It was clear that the youngest Pixies did not fully understand what was happening. The Shamans all stood, eyes closed in tacit assent while the Knights gave nods of open approval.

"What crimes?" Kirche spoke up, drawing the attention of all of the Pixies. The Little Sisters especially, watched in silence. "Fernand was going to burn down your Garden, but we stopped him! Unless you think you could have done it on your own. Get it through your tiny skull. We helped you!"

"You helped yourselves!" Sayuri shouted. "You only fought back because that being would have killed you as well! Just like the Fae, your kind are full of treachery!" The Knight drew her sword, pointing it Kirche. "You claim that you have done us a service, but you are no better! Stealing our sisters! Sending the Monster to steal more!" Each accusation came with a thrust of Sayuri's sword.

"We're sorry!" Euphrasie whimpered, "We didn't know about your flowers! We tried to bring Lily back to be with her family as soon as we found out." The Count placed his arm around the girl, protectively.

"That's right! Stop being mean to Euphrasie!" Lily shouted from among the crowd of Little Sisters, the tiny girl was on the verge of crying once more.

Sayuri fixed her young sibling with her gaze. "Silence Lily, you have not been permitted to speak. Little Sisters must obey Elder Sisters." The Knight recited the mantra like a fact.

Lily shook her head angrily, arms stretched at her sides and wings twitching up and down angrily. "I don't have to listen to you! You're just being a . . . a big bully!"

Celandine tried to calm her upset sibling, the other Little Sisters stared at the sight. Soft murmurs of disapproval rose from the Shamans, and the Knights shook their heads. Yui bit her lip. Though Lily had meant to stand up for her friend, and spoken only the truth, by breaking the first rule of the Wild Pixies, she had inadvertently hurt her own case.

"See what the beings have done to them! The damage they have wrought!" Sayuri gestured. "These Little Sisters are already more loyal to their new masters than to their Sisters, their Gardenmates! The beings no doubt intended to use them as more spies!"

"Sayuri-sama." Hinagiku spoke up at last. Yui noted the way that the Shaman moved. There was a tenseness to her motions, her wings trembled faintly as she stepped forward. "It has not yet been agreed that Yui was intended as a spy for the beings." At this mention of Yui as a spy, the Count and the children all looked over to her in confusion.

Sayuri turned slowly to regard Hinagiku, unlike Lily, she could not simply shout the Shaman down. Yui's hopes rose for just a moment. Hinagiku and Kigiku were the only ones who could oppose Sayuri. If they could win over enough of their sisters, then level heads might still prevail.

"This again?" Sayuri asked, the Knight held her sword in both hands, examining it with a bored expression. "You made your case last night Hinagiku. The Knights agree with me, and the other Shamans cannot be certain."

"Last night, I was still tending to Botan. The attack caused her a great deal of difficulty. Tending to our Sister gave me little time to present my argument." Hinagiku took a breath and continued, voice level, "This is a judgment before Yggdrasil-sama, then let it be a proper judgment. The truth is, Sayuri-sama, it is you who brought Yui into the Garden. How could she be a spy if that is the case?"

The Shamans at Hinagiku's back nodded slowly, as if their Elder Sister was speaking aloud what they had been too frightened to say.

"What else could she be?" Sayuri asked slowly. The Knight began to pace, circling Hinagiku, stealing the initiative from her Sister. "The power she used to change her form is not one possessed by Wild Pixies nor our lost Sisters. That leaves only one conclusion, doesn't it?"

"What are you talking about?" Hinagiku asked, eyes following the Knight.

Sayuri smiled again, this time appearing almost gentle, like she was attempting to explain something to a non too bright child. "Hinagiku-san, you know the lore of Alfheim better than any of us. Pixies were the first of Yggdrasil-sama's children, what of the Fae?"

"The Fae?" Hinagiku paused, the Shaman balled her fists. It seemed she didn't want to speak, but she had no choice but to continue. "It is said that long after the World Tree sprouted forth from the Sea of Chaos, Yggdrasil-sama's great roots anchoring the flotsam that would eventually become Alfheim, the Pixies were born as her first children to tend to the barren lands and shepherd the small lives that Yggdrasil-sama created to inhabit this realm. The land grew ripe with life and we were rewarded with our Gardens, our safe havens in this difficult world."

"And the Fae?" Sayuri pressed.

Hinagiku looked away as she recited. "In time came the Faerie King and Queen who took refuge among the branches of Yggdrasil-sama. Some of our Sisters, upon seeing the Faeries for the first time, grew to covet the power that they possessed. They chose to turn their backs on Yggdrasil-sama's song, swearing their allegiance to Titania and Oberon, and were reborn as the first Fae."

"And they have fought amongst each other ever since." Sayuri finished. "So would it not be natural to think that a Sister could take the form of a being if she walked down this same path? Answer me Hinagiku!"

"I cannot say." The Shaman confessed after a time. "Perhaps." She admitted.

"Which makes Yui something worse than a Tame Pixie!" Sayuri accused. "To be Tamed is simply to be lost. Tamed Pixies are still our Sisters, they still deserve to be taken in and cared for." The Knight gestured to the frightened little Sisters. "But she has willfully turned her back on her Sisters and decided to work with the beings!"

Sayuri's words elicited angered glares from the Elder Sisters directed at Yui. But she could think of no way to explain herself that would not complicate matters further. In any case, Yui doubted that Celandine, Iris, Lily, or Olive, viewed what Sayuri was doing as kind, or even in their best interest. The more Yui listened the more certain she grew that Sayuri wasn't simply angry, she was Delusional , and looking at the other fearful Elder Sisters, she was dragging them along with her.

"You may think fondly of her Sister." Sayuri said to Hinagiku. "But you know that I am right. Yui is not one of us. She is not a Pixie, and judging by her scent, she hasn't been for a very long time. It was my mistake to think it the scent of beings simply rubbed off on her." Sayuri admitted. "She came here with the Fae, just prior to a full moon. The Fae are in league with the beings. They must have intended to plant her for us to find. We would have thought her a lost Little Sister and brought her back to the Garden. In fact, that is just what we did. And now, because of her, the beings were able to guide that Monster to the Garden."

"You yourself said that they did not know the Monster's intent." Hinagiku warned. "They made a mistake." The Shaman turned her eyes to the humans and Yui froze. Though she was speaking on their behalf, the anger in Hinagiku was plain as day. "The crime is terrible, unspeakable." Hinagiku breathed. "But it is a matter of intent. If this was a mistake, then the danger has already ended." The Shaman turned imploringly to her sisters only to be met with more uncertainty. She was reaching them, but it still wasn't enough.

The Knight shook her head. "I said that they are full of treachery." Sayuri countered. "Hinagiku, how can you doubt this fact? First Yui, attempting to put you at ease. Then the beings come to return a lost Little Sister, only to be followed by none other than the Monster. Even I was nearly deceived. This is proof that they cannot be trusted." The Knight Leader's smile returned as she gently admonished her Sister. "Truly Hinagiku, in matters relating to the safety of the Garden, we must always choose caution. Is that not right, Kigiku?"

Kigiku stiffened at the mention of her name. The Knight didn't meet the eyes of either her Eldest Sister or Hinagiku but nodded reluctantly. "It is true. The beings know the location of the Garden. They cannot be allowed to return to their village on the mere hope that they may be peaceful."

The Shaman looked sadly to her sister, shaking her head slowly. "Then I must still ask the other Shamans, having heard what I have to say, do you still agree with Sayuri-sama?"

Words were exchanged among the Elder Sisters before a spokesman stepped forward, a small Shaman with light green hair and bottle green eyes. "Elder Sister, we must say that we do agree with Sayuri-sama. Even if the burning of the Garden was a mistake, the blame does return to these beings, and the act itself is horrific. At best it makes them a danger to all of us, at worst," the spokesman closed her eyes, "It makes them as bad as the Monster."

"And that is your final answer?" Hinagiku asked.

Looking back at her siblings the spokesman nodded hesitantly. "It is."

Hinagiku sagged slightly, "Then may Yggdrasil-sama deem you correct." Staring down as her feet, the Shaman balled her fists. "But let it be known I protested this rash course of action!"

"Noted." Sayuri said indifferently before spinning back around to face all of the Elder Sisters. "Then Sisters, are we in agreement that these beings before us share in the responsibility for the attacks on the Garden's. Are they to be punished?"

One by one, the Shamans gave their assent, and one by one, the Knights did the same. Yui noted that there were dissenters. Kigiku declined her vote, as did Hinagiku and a handful of the other Shamans. Among the remainder, only a handful could be called eager. Most simply appeared to be frightened.

Sayuri nodded approvingly, her smile returning in full force. "And then I ask for the punishment. As Yggdrasil-sama is not cruel. Kigiku?"

"Yes, Sayuri-sama." The Knight replied.

"What do we do when a dangerous animal threatens us?" Sayuri asked rhetorically.

"A dangerous animal?" Kigiku asked. "We would slay it." She answered cautiously. "For the good of the Garden."

"It is just so!" Sayuri agreed, a note of delight entering her voice. "Now then . . ." Sayuri began to gesture.

"Please!" The Count said. Looking up at Sayuri the man stuttered. "P-please. Euphrasie and . . . and Antoine. They may have picked your blossoms. But they are simply children. The blame for everything else lays with me." The Count pressed his head back against the ground. "You are right about humans, you see, we truly are terrible, treacherous creatures. But not them, not the children, they haven't learned that yet. So please, please . . . Allow me to accept punishment in their stead. Or at least, punish them only for stealing your blossoms, not for the rest, not for the rest!"

Sayuri's eyes narrowed, there was something wrong, Yui thought. Again the Knight's biorhythms spiked and for a brief instant her body trembled, her wings twisting in the same involuntary fashion as she had seen with Botan the day before. The Knight realized what she was doing and forced herself to stop. A nervous hand rose to tug at her left bang. "You would place their lives before your own?" There was disbelief in Sayuri's voice.

The Count never stopped shaking, "I-I would." His eyes turned to Euphrasie. "For h- . . . for them, I would."

The Knight closed her eyes and for a brief moment she seemed conflicted, then, suddenly. "No!" Sayuri shook her head. "No. Yggdrasil-sama is not cruel, but she is not kind either. Fault lies with you. With all of you. For stealing away the Sisters! For burning the Garden! For what has nearly happened to this Garden! You will all be punished equally." Sayuri's breathing relaxed as she made her decision, the tugging at her bang turning to gentle stroking. "Then is it decided? Do any now disagree?"

There were no protests from the other Elder Sisters.

"You'll never get away with this!" Kirche shouted. Yui blinked at the astonishingly Cliche line coming from the Germanian girl. "What do you think this accomplishes? You'll kill us, and then what? Go back to fighting the Villagers? The Crown will never tolerate this. To them, you're nothing but wild animals. And our friends will want revenge too." Kirche growled angrily. "They'll send soldiers to fight you. They won't just burn down your Gardens. They'll burn the whole forest."

There was a collective gasp from the Little Sisters and a few of the young Pixies began to cry as they recalled the traumatizing events of the day before. The Elder Sisters were on edge, this was certainly not something they had thought much about.

Sayuri's expression turned hateful. "If your 'Crown' could do that, then why do you need the Fae? You're just trying to trick us!" The Knight spat angrily. "Once you're gone, we'll drive the Villagers away, and then," Sayuri hugged herself, she suddenly looked so pale, "Then the Garden will finally be safe."

"And how are you going to do that?" Kirche replied, "It sounded to me like your big snake didn't work out so well." The Germanian smirked, "Tell me, did it really get blasted by the Zero?"

"It doesn't matter!" Sayuri said, barely keeping control of her temper. "There are others that we can use. Lhamthanc was just the first. I won't let you beings do any more harm to the Garden!"

"Because that worked out so well against Fern-" Kirche began

"Enough!" Sayuri shouted as the top of her lungs. "That was only because I grew too lax. I allowed a threat to approach the Garden. We won't be caught unaware again!"

Under other circumstances, Yui might have been impressed by Kirche's ability to openly agitate another sentient being, but given Sayuri's current mental condition it didn't seem terribly wise. Worse, with the exception of a handful of the Elder Sisters, the Pixies seemed intent on obeying their leader. Fear Response Closing Ranks . Sayuri was their trusted Eldest Sister and they were frightened. They didn't understand that she was fast plunging into madness. Her responses and explanations seemed Reasonable to them because they didn't know any better.

They were all trapped. Yui thought, horribly trapped. The bonds that should have allowed them to support and Nurture one another, had been corrupted by their fear. They didn't know what else to do but follow blindly. Query What can I do? What must I do? Yui thought furiously, feeling her mind pushing the limits of whatever substrate was currently running her primary logic cluster. What gambit should she try? Should she confront Sayuri directly? Should she try to break the Knight? Sayuri was in such a delicate state, Yui was sure she could do it, she rebelled at the thought, it was against everything that she was. But the consequences were almost imponderable. The other Pixies might flee in terror or fly into a rage. She would only have one chance. Yui was paralyzed by the possibilities.

"Please, don't do this Sayuri-sama!" Suddenly, Yui's thought processes froze.

Sayuri spun about, trying to spot who had spoken against her. From beneath her bangs, Sayuri's gaze swept the crowd of gathered Pixies. The Vespid Knights shifted uncomfortably and the Shamans leaned closer together to speak softly among themselves. Another voice of dissent, but from where? A figure was moving through the crowd of Little Sisters, her passing generating a spreading wake of murmurs.

The one who had spoken was a Vespid Knight, but not one of the ones that Yui had met. Yui tried to match her to the many faces she had seen within the garden but had no success. The girl was tall, even for a Knight, only a little shorter than Sayuri, with soft brown eyes and shoulder length brown hair that swayed gently as she moved. Walking forward calmly, her two pairs of wings folded flush with her back, she was dressed simply, wearing only a light yellow blouse and a black and yellow skirt. She wore no armor, and carried no weapons, not even a knife or needle sword.

The Little Sisters gossiped as she passed them. None of the young Pixies knew who this beautiful wildflower girl was, but they grew immediately at ease as she passed, a sure sign that she was a Knight of their Garden.

Sayuri's eyes narrowed suspiciously and then widened in recognition. "Botan?"

"Botan?" Hinagiku repeated. "Botan, you shouldn't be out of bed yet. You're blossoming isn't fully complete!"

Yui blinked. A portion of her mind raced as she tried to understand how this was possible. That was Botan? Query What had happened to her? In less than eighty thousand seconds, the Little Sister had been transformed almost beyond recognition. She was bigger, features sharper, her frame leaner, her movements more fluid. The anxious energy from the day before had been defused, leaving only faint traces of itself. Query Was this a blossoming? Yui had not expected such a radical change in such a short period of time.

The girl nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving Sayuri. "I apologize Hinagiku-sama, but Ajisai told me what was happening. I felt I had to do something." The two knights regarded each other in silence. "Sayuri-sama, please, you mustn't do this!" Botan repeated.

The senior Vespid Knight tilted her head. "Mustn't do what?" Sayuri asked, voice as brittle as crystal.

"You must not hurt the beings." Botan said, and then gathering up her courage. "You mustn't hurt the humans!"

The Pixies ringing the pool all began to speak among themselves at once. The Knights standing between Botan and Sayuri rested hands upon their weapons.

Sayuri gave a displeased look, a hand rising to gently tug at her left bangs. Yet when she spoke, for a moment, Sayuri sounded almost concerned . "Botan, you have only just blossomed, your body and mind are still in an abnormal state." Sayuri smiled softly. "You must still be delirious, confused, you need to rest." The girls locked eyes and slowly Sayuri's smile vanished and she grew cold once more.

Botan looked among her Sisters and then kneeled before the edge of the pool. "Elder Sisters, this Sister humbly asks to share her meager wisdom." The other Knights didn't know what to do, what to say.

At last, Kigiku stepped forward. "That is your right, Sister." Sayuri glared at her subordinate as if stung.

Something eased in Botan's posture and the girl bowed her head. She began to speak, voice clear and thoughtful. "Elder Sisters. You . . . we . . . are knights of the Garden, first and always. I think . . . I believe that we know what we are, even before we blossom." Botan smiled faintly, "Though some of us may have trouble believing it. Our duty is to Protect the Garden, this must be our first consideration in all things." The other Knights nodded faintly in agreement.

Botan looked up, her gaze imploring her Sisters. "Our Garden has confronted a grave threat. Our Sister Garden was wilfully burned to the ground by a terrible Monster and our precious Sisters stolen away from their home and Gardenmates." Botan trembled faintly, the day before it would have been a sign of fear. But as Yui watched, she noted that Botan was not afraid, she was angry. Botan paused to regain her composure and to allow her words to sink in.

"It is only natural that the Knights should lead in times of danger. Yggdrasil-sama makes us strong, and fast, and brave, so that we may stand between our Sisters and any danger in this world. We had every right to defend ourselves. We had every right to take back our unborn Sisters. We had every right to hunt down and slay the Monster." Botan shook her head. "But Sisters, Sayuri-sama, the Monster has been slain. Our Garden is safe. Our time is over. There's no more reason for us to fight!"

Slowly, murmurs rippled through the Knights, uncertainty was spreading. "No, you are wrong Botan." Sayuri bit out, the Eldest Sister's hands had clenched into fists. "You are mistaken. A Monster has been slain, but monsters and beings are one and the same! Others came with the first and took away more of our Sisters." Sayuri's breathing grew labored, "And these beings," She pointed, "Are the ones that lead the Monster to my Garden and then lead it to your Garden! Because of them, my Garden was burned and yours nearly suffered the same fate!"

Yui watched as the pendulum swung once more in Sayuri's favor. The Knights and Shamans regaining some of their certainty.

"They made a mistake!" Botan said, shouting back at her Elder Sister. "Please, Sayuri-sama, the small ones are just Little Sisters, they didn't know any better. And the big one, the Count, never meant us ill. They may have endangered the garden, but they risked themselves to save it!" Botan glanced up at Yui and smiled. "We have a right to defend ourselves. But we don't have the right to hurt someone when we don't know anything about them."

"You . . . Would place your trust in beings?" Sayuri hunched forward, voice barely more than whisper. "Hinagiku I understand, but I never would have expected this from you, Botan. You were always frightened of them before."

The newborn Knight closed her eyes, "Perhaps Hinagiku is right, maybe I am braver that I thought." Standing, Botan nodded her head once. "Sisters. I understand that you are scared. I'm frightened too. Honestly, I'm frightened ever day." Botan shook her head ruefully. "But this is a fear that we all understand. We cannot risk our home so easily. So instead, I ask that you let me risk myself."

"Botan?" Hinagiku questioned softly.

"Let me go and speak with the beings in the village." Botan took a step forward. "Let me speak with the Fae. Maybe I can learn the truth, and then the only one who will be in danger will be me."

"Perhaps . . ." Kigiku began slowly, "Perhaps Botan is right. They drove us off when we first tried to find our missing Sister. But the 'Count' seems willing to speak. They may listen." Kigiku looked up, "Sayuri-sama, we could learn more this way."

Sayuri shook her head angrily. "No! It's too dangerous. I won't allow it. Besides, it is too late for doubts now."

"Sayuri-sama, I am a Knight of the Garden, I have a right to have my voice heard!" Botan protested.

"And you have been heard." Sayuri said. "And your words have not moved me."

Botan shook her head. "You aren't listening Sayuri-sama." Staring up at her leader, the newborn Knight's expression grew determined. "Then I will just have to make you listen!"

Suddenly, all expression drained from Sayuri's face. The Vespid Knight's arms fell to hang limply at her sides. She observed Botan with hooded eyes. "You do know what you are saying, don't you, Botan?"

The younger Knight swallowed and gave a small nod. "Sayuri-sama, in this matter, I challenge you to a duel!"

The Knights were suddenly speaking among themselves, acting as if they were in fact Little Sisters. A duel? Yui thought, she didn't think it was a very common occurrence, though Hinagiku had mentioned that it was how Sayuri had become Leader.

Again Sayuri's pulse and temperature spiked before crashing back down. Sayuri raised a hand to silence her siblings. "Very well, Botan-san, I accept your challenge. If you defeat me, you will be Leader, and if you are defeated you will defend my decision until this matter is concluded. Those are the same conditions I gave Kigiku."

The senior Knight gave a reluctant nod. Was that why Kigiku continued to support Sayuri? Yui wondered. Did honor compel her to side with the Eldest Sister rather than Hinagiku?

The human prisoners sat up to watch and the Little Sisters gathered close to the lip of the pool. The Knights and Shamans spreading themselves out to observe. This was to be a duel between two Knights, no interference could be allowed.

Hinagiku flitted across the pool to hover beside Yui. "Yui-san." The Shaman greeted. To Yui's surprise, she detected no signs of mistrust or hostility in the tiny priestess. It was like Hinagiku didn't care at all what Yui really was. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to do more. I was busy all night with Botan." Up close, Yui could see the rings under the Shaman's eyes. "When Sayuri-sama told us you were were a spy, I didn't believe it."

"I'm not a spy!" Yui answered and then paused, looking shame faced, "But I'm not a Pixie either." She admitted. She didn't feel right lying to Hinagiku. "It's really complicated. But I never meant to deceive you Hinagiku-san!"

Hinagiku smiled kindly, just like she had when she had called Yui her Little Sister. "I know, Yui-san, I believe you. This is not a simple matter, but I know you have tried to be honest with me. I heard what you did for the Garden and I wanted to try and help you and your . . ." The Shaman searched for the right word. "Gardenmates?"

"Close enough." Yui decided as she looked over to Kirche who gave her and Hinagiku and odd expression.

"Nice to meet you." Kirche said dumbly. "I'm Kirche Von Zerbst."

Hinagiku curtsied delicately in midair. "Hinagiku, Shaman of the Garden."

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you Miss Hinagiku." Kirche said, "Thanks for standing up for us."

"I hardly did anything," Hinagiku apologize, "And it appears that Botan might be your best hope now." Hinagiku observed.

Yui nodded thoughtfully. Speaking with Antoine and Euphrasie must have left a strong impression on the Pixie if she was willing to take a risk like this. "Hinagiku-san, can Botan really win?"

Hinagiku's eyes didn't leave the two Knights as they faced off. "Botan is newly blossomed and Sayuri-sama is a seasoned Knight and incredibly strong. Realistically, she stands almost no chance." Yui cringed at the assessment, and especially how calmly it had been delivered.

Spreading their wings, Botan and Sayuri drifted down to hover just above the surface of the water.

"You'll need this." Kigiku offered Botan her own needle sword. The young Knight flourished it experimentally, unused to the weight. Sayuri drew her own sword, taking up a one handed guard as Kigiku glided back. "The rules are simple. The first Knight to force her opponent to ground wins. You are forbidden any magic and must remain within the cavern. Is this understood?"

Without looking away from one another, the two Knights nodded. Kigiku took a breath, raising her hand, she sliced downwards. "Begin!"

As soon as the words left Kigiku's lips, Botan and Sayuri were gone, spiralling up into the air. Both Knights had to be thinking the same thing. They wanted altitude while they felt each other out. Botan was unsure of herself, and Sayuri was an experienced fighter and therefore inclined to be cautious.

Yui caught sight of Botan first, the brown haired Knight scanning all around for any sign of Sayuri, keeping her back to the trunk of the Yggdrasil Shoot as she ascended. Where had Sayuri gone? The Knight Leader had moved so quickly that Yui had lost her in the clutter of the cavern walls.

Suddenly, something plummeted from the lowest branches of the Yggdrasil Shoot, descending directly towards Botan. There was no time to shout a warning, Yui barely even had time to gasp before Sayuri thrust out with her sword, aiming for Botan's wings.

Something alerted the junior Knight and she spun in midair, catching the tip of Sayuri's blade and barely deflecting it across her shoulder. Sayuri and Botan locked blades, Sayuri's wings folded back in a powered dive while Botan fought back with all her might. The younger Knight was losing the struggle, she simply didn't have the strength to compete with Sayuri. The combatants began to lose altitude with surprisingly speed, until, at the last second, Botan was able to slip free, sliding her sword along the length of Sayuri's blade before twisting out of the way just as she was about to hit the water.

Sayuri broke into pursuit, racing after Botan as she circled back around the tree. They clashed again, and then again, bouncing back from one another after each strike. By virtue of size, it was very hard for two pixies to injure each other with blunt force, instead, they had to aim for thrusting attacks with their swords or else grappling.

"Our lives depend on a fight between a pair of overgrown wasps." Kirche shook her head, she squeezed Yui's hand as both girls watched on.

Despite her bravery in challenging Sayuri, Botan was losing. It was painfully clear that she simply didn't have the strength or speed to keep up. Though faster and better coordinated than she had been the day before, Botan was, as Hinagiku had said 'newly Blossomed'. Compared to Sayuri she might as well have still been a Little Sister waving about her wooden sword. It was a testament to Botan's natural ability that she had kept up for this long, but the best that she could do was block what strikes she could and partially deflect the rest. Here and there, strikes got through Botan's guard, a scratch to the cheek, a cut to the shoulder.

The needle swords of both Knights had begun to deform from repeated strikes. Botan's skills had thrown Sayuri off at first, she had been unsure of what to expect and had acted cautiously, but Sayuri was growing more aggressive now that she was certain Botan wasn't a real threat and Botan was fast growing exhausted. As Hinagiku had predicted, Botan shouldn't have been on her feet yet. Finally, Sayuri moved in to finish the fight. Spiraling about one another as they rose one last time, the Knights closed to lock blades. At the last instant, Sayuri twisted about, flying just above Botan who was left out of position. Before Botan could do anything, Sayuri delivered a brutal kick to her exposed back and then raced after the staggered junior Knight.

Botan was again able to save herself from sudden defeat, catching Sayuri's first strike, deflecting the next so that it only grazed her side, and then losing her sword entirely as it was batted from her hand by Sayuri's third strike. Sayuri let out a victorious shout as she brandished her sword, thrusting for Botan's wings. If she could damage the other Knight's wings, the fight would be over as surely as if she were to drive Botan into the ground.

The next moment was a mystery to the humans and most of the gathered Pixies. When Yui asked later, she learned that only Kigiku had really been able to follow what had happened and the two of them disagreed on the exact details given their different viewing angles. Sayuri thrust down, her blade tip questing for Botan's upper primary wing. In desperation, Botan had folded her wings, allowing herself to plummet in exchange for a precious extra second of time. Sayuri had naturally been cautious, she hadn't over extended, but as she drew her blade back, the Senior Knight cringed in pain. Her sword arm and right side wings spasmed. It was only a brief moment of weakness, but Botan saw it, and she took it.

The Young Knight extended her wings, crashing into Sayuri before she could recover, Botan entwined her arms and legs with Sayurii's own to give purchase and then delivered a headbutt, dazing the senior Vespid Knight. There was a mere fraction of a second before they would strike the water. While Sayuri was still disoriented, Botan used her wings to switch positions with her before kicking off from the senior Knight's sternum. Sayuri struck the water with a deceptively small splash, vanishing beneath the surface. A moment later, Botan settled just above the pool, breathing heavily, as the last ripples vanished.

The gathered Pixies were completely silent. The humans were silent. Yui was silent. Botan had won. She'd won! Yui's heart raced, her eyes widening. Botan had done it! But something was wrong. The other Knights were already approaching to congratulate her. The victorious Knight was glancing about desperately.

"Where is she?" Botan asked out loud. "Where is Sayuri-sama?" The others all looked around, first confused, and then worried, the Knight had vanished beneath the water and had not reappeared.

Sayuri had been disoriented when she stuck the water, but still conscious. What had happened? Yui wondered and then her eyes widened. "Hinagiku-san, can Sayuri swim?"

The Shaman blinked her eyes rapidly. "She should be able to. Even a Little Sister can at least keep her head above water."

"A normal Little Sister." Yui said, the two exchanged worried looks. Sayuri was anything but normal.

"Don't just stand there, help me find her!" Botan shouted at the other Elder Sisters. The Vespid Knights took her words as an order, folding their wings without hesitation and diving into the water to search for their defeated Leader.

Yui stood up on the edge of the pool, staring down into the depths there was so much blackness, it was impossible to see. Then she noticed something, but not in the water. At her side, the Count was staring down into the pool at a single point. Yui followed his gaze, thinking he might have spotted the Knight, but instead she found that he was staring intently at the immense white coy fish as it circled the trunk, no, it wasn't circling any more, Yui realized. It was travelling in a straight line, and rising up towards the surface. Yui glanced up quickly, light was spilling down from the clear blue sky above. Hypothesis The fish must have an easier time seeing things fall into the water because they were back dropped against the sky. Another thought occurred to Yui. Query What does it eat?

The Count's lips were moving as he mumbled to himself and then came to a decision. "Antoine, hold my coat." the Count shrugged the garment off and without another word, fell face first into the pool. The ripples of the Count's dive washed over the Knights, catching a few low fliers by surprise.

"What's he doing?" Kirche shouted, she hadn't seen.

The Count sank down, two meters, three meters, the fish rose, five meters, four meters. The giant coy's toothless mouth opened wide, inhaling. The Count's hand shot out, snatching something from the water just as it was about to be sucked in. The fish was at least twice the size of the count, but had no stomach for battle, it had probably been a passive only type mob meant to provide ambiance before the transition. With its meal stolen away, the fish turned away sluggishly as the Count struggled back to the surface.

Climbing ashore, the Pixies gathered around him, momentarily forgetting the Count's status as a being as he opened his hand to reveal the waterlogged form of Sayuri. The Vespid Knight wasn't breathing.

"Out of the way!" Hinagiku shouted as she came down beside Sayuri.

The Count withdrew watching as the Shaman leaned over the Knight's still form, feeling her chest and stomach. Placing her hands bellow Sayuri's chest, Hinagiku compressed once, twice, then a third time. Sayuri's mouth opened, coughing up water. The Shaman turned her Sister on her side, letting her coughing fit subside. Sayuri sucked in a greedy lungful of air.

"Sayuri!" Hinagiku wrapped her arms around her Sister, already dropping the honorific now that she had been safely defeated.

Sayuri looked around wildly, her eyes settling on the count. Suddenly, Sayuri broke free from Hinagiku's embrace, stumbling to her feet, breathing heavily, seemingly confused. The Vespid Knight nearly jumped out of her skin as Kigiku placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Sayuri-sama . . . Sayuri-san." Kigiku said calmly, "The duel has been called, Botan-sama is victor."

Sayuri starred at Kigiku, unable to comprehend what she was hearing. The former Leader looked lost.

"Does this mean Euphrasie isn't in trouble now?" A small voice asked from the crowd of chattering Little Sisters. Lily flitted above the other Little Sisters drifting down before the gathered Shamans and Vespid Knights. She was followed by Celandine, Iris, and Olive a moment later. Lily tugged at Hinagiku's robe, staring up with big blue eyes.

Hinagiku smiled, "Well . . . That is to be decided . . . But I don't think so." She told the Lily kindly. "Isn't that right, Botan-sama?"

Standing at the lip of the pool, sopping wet from her own venture into the cold water, Botan blinked in surprise. "M-me?" Yui was unable to determine if the shaking in her voice was from nerves or if she was simply shivering.

Hinagiku nodded and turned to the other Elder Sisters. "Sisters! You asked for proof of the beings' good intentions. Botan-sama swore to help them if she defeated Sayuri. I ask you, would a treacherous being have saved Sayuri's life after she had sworn to do them harm?"

This time, when the Knights and Shamans spoke, there were notes of approval and though still uncertain the spokesman from earlier gave a small nod of assent.

"Kigiku?" Hinagiku asked.

"I . . ." The Knight hesitated, looking between Sayuri and Botan. Sayuri glared at the Elder Knight as if to silence her.

"Kigiku-san." Botan said, "I want to hear what you really think." The younger Knight smiled sincerely, "This Sister humbly awaits your wisdom, Elder Sister."

Blinking in surprise, Kigiku gave a small nod. "I think, I think we should know more. I think we should talk to the beings."

"Then it is decided." Hinagiku said, raising a hand to silence any comments. "Count-san. Thank you for saving our Sister, and thank you for saving our Garden. I am sorry that I was so hesitant to do more, but I confess I wasn't truly sure until now."

The Count nodded, water dripping from his hair. "Then why did you speak for us at all?"

The Shaman tilted her head as if in thought and then smiled up at Yui. "I did have a little faith."

The Count chuckled softly. "I see." He looked to Sayuri. "And you Miss . . . Are you alright."

"Alright?" Sayuri asked, her voice was empty, she took a step back, hand reaching up to claw at one of her bangs. When her hand came away, she held a fistful of strands torn from her scalp. "Alright?!" Sayuri shrieked. The curious chatter of the Little Sisters ceased everyone starred at Sayuri.

Yui watched observed, her senses giving her a front row seat, as Sayuri began to unravel. The abnormalities in her biorhythms began to accelerate unchecked to the point that Yui was left to wonder if Sayuri would plateau or go into Cardiac Arrest

Reaching out, the Count offered his hand to Sayuri. "I don't rightly understand, but it sounds like you were gravely wronged by all of this, more than anyone else. Please, speak with me, I want to make this right."

Sayuri took a step back and then another. "You . . . I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO YOU!" The Knights voice broke into an insect like squeak. "This is a t-trick!" The Knight stuttered. "You're just trying to trick me! A-And hurt me! And hurt my Sisters!" Query Were those tears? Was Sayuri crying?

"Sayuri-san . . . Sayuri." Botan said, the new Knight Leader tried to get near her sister. "Please, it's alright. I understand why you feel the way you do. You've had to bear something terrible. But you're tired Sayuri. You need time to rest. Please, I can't imagine how hard it must have been, trying to protect everyone by yourself." Botan spread her arms, smiling kindly. "You know, I've always respected you Sayuri-san, ever since I met you. So please, let my carry your burden for a while. All of your Sisters will be happy to keep you company while you rest."

The other Knights nodded and began to speak up one after another.

"Please Sayuri-san, you do so much for us."

"Sayuri-san, you mustn't push yourself!"

"Sayuri." Hinagiku said, "Sayuri, please listen to your Sisters. We're all worried for you."

Sayuri's head spun about, with each kind gesture or gentle plea to rest the Knight's pulse grew faster and her breathing more labored. Slowly, Sayuri began to shake her head. "Nnn . . . No! No no no no no!" She shouted. "You're wrong! The threat isn't gone! I can't rest yet! I'm the only who can protect the Garden!"

"Sayuri?" Hinagiku asked, worry turning to understanding. "Please, don't you see, you're sick? You can't let go of your anger. I'm sure this is Yggdrasil-sama's way of telling you it's okay to rest."

"Then Yggrasil-sama made a mistake!" Sayuri screamed. No sooner had the words left Sayuri's lips then her eyes widened, the Knight clutched at her head.

"Sayuri?" Hinagiku asked.

"I AM NOT A MISTAKE!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, wings stretching out to the sides. She stumbled about as if in a daze. "I'm not . . . I'm not . . . . a mistake." Sayuri whispered shaking her head again. "My Garden is gone . . . my Sisters . . . why . . . If Yggdrasil-sama didn't want me . . . then why did she make me!" Everyone, even the humans, cringed. Sayuri sounded lost, defeated. There was nothing left inside of her. Sayuri shook her head slowly, stumbling, she took a half step back. "I . . . I won't . . . I won't accept it . . . I WON'T!" Before anyone could stop her, Sayuri kicked off, shooting into the sky. A faint piercing whistle came from above and a black shape swept down from the crest of the World Tree. Sayuri's feathered dragon chasing after his master.

"Quickly! After her!" Botan shouted, "Sayuri-san isn't herself!" The other Knights swiftly gave chase, the rumbling of willow wasp wings coming from above as the mounted Knights took to the air.

Botan was just about to follow when Hinagiku stopped her. "Kigiku and the others can catch Sayuri. You need to rest now."

"But . . ." Botan began and then closed her mouth at Hinagiku's level gaze.

"Besides, there are things that need to be seen to. If the threat has ended, then that means the Shamans once again lead the Garden. And that means I will need an escort in order to go speak with the beings."

Botan's eyes widened and then she quickly nodded, "I would be honored Hinagiku-sama!"

"Hina is just fine." Hinagiku sighed, "It is what Kigiku calls me, and I think you've earned the right." Hinagiku turned her attention back to the humans. "Now then, in good faith, it's probably best that we return you to your people. It must have been quite difficult for you to travel here. I'm afraid the journey back won't be any easier. But there is a river not far from here. That would be the easiest path out of the forest."

"If it means getting back to Tarbes, I'm all for it." Kirche groaned.

Yui was still worried about Sayuri but she smiled nonetheless. A sense of relief flourished in her. Aunt Suguha was probably sick with worry by now. Yui noticed as Botan drifted closer coming to hover before her. There was a strange expression on the Knights face as Yui extended her hand. Botan settled onto her palm, looking up at her curiously.

"Botan-san." Yui began.

"So this is what you really look like?" Botan cut in.

"U-un." Yui nodded. "I'm sorry I didn't tell anyone. I was scared I would get in trouble if Sayuri knew."

"You did get in trouble." Botan observed meeting Yui's eyes.

Yui shifted a little, "Are you angry?" Botan had every right to be. After all, she had been wilfully deceived.

Botan crossed her arms beneath her chest, giving the question some thought. "You bet I'm angry." The Knight said. And then opening her eyes, "I thought when I finished blossoming I'd finally be taller than you!"

* * *

In the end, it had taken most of the rest of the day to hike from the Yggdrasil Shoot to the edge of the forest. Just as Hinagiku had promised the river had taken them out of the forest, although it was late afternoon by the time they found a highway and managed to stumble their way back to Tarbes. When they arrived, they found that most of the Villagers had just returned. Yui had learned from Kirche that the Village had been evacuated as Lhamthanc approached.

They had made their way past staring villagers and several unfamiliar Cait Sith, past homesteads, past the village square, and past the Church. They were an odd sight. The Count of Tarbes and Kirche Von Zerbst, both mages, both covered in dirt, in the company of three children and a small pack of Pixies. The strangeness alone had prevented anyone from stopping them to ask questions. At last they had found themselves at the steps of the Village Chief's home just as the door was opening.

"We've got the northern patrol area, come on!" Klein shouted as walked out and then stopped dead in his tracks.

"Klein, hurry up!" A blonde haired Sylph pushed past and made it barely a step farther. Yui felt a strange sense of warmth spread through her, similar but different to what she had felt when she had seen Papa again. Suguha's eyes were ringed and bloodshot and her face looked gaunt, but when the shock had faded, all that was left was the happiest smile Yui had ever seen. "Yui-chan!"

"Aunt Sugu!" Yui knew it was unwise to say such things out loud, but she didn't care. Yui was swallowed in an embrace as Suguha spun her through the air once before setting her back down. Yui winced slightly as her Aunt squeezed her injured shoulder. When Yui looked up again, there were tears streaming down Suguha's cheeks.

"You're suppose to save your happy tears for Papa and Mama." Yui teased as she felt her own eyes starting to burn. Crying was really a lot more annoying now that she was a physical existence, it made seeing a lot harder.

"R-right." Suguha agreed, rubbing at her eyes before noticed the sling around Yui's arm. "What happened to you shoulder?" She asked, shocked.

Yui gave a little shrug with her good shoulder. "It's a really long story. I'll tell you all about it. But first I have to introduce my friends."

"Your friends?" Suguha asked.

Settling onto Yui's good shoulder and atop her head respectively, Botan and Hinagiku introduced themselves.

"I am Botan, Knight of the Garden." Botan said with a small curtsy of her skirt.

"And I am Hinagiku, Shaman of the Garden, at your service." Hinagiku introduced herself. "It is a rare pleasure to meet a Fae of the Wind this far north."

"Uhm, right." Suguha answered awkwardly. "And I'm Leafa, Swordswoman of the Sylphs." Suguha said as she tried to imitate the Pixies' introductions.

"Euphrasie!" Yui heard another, unfamiliar female voice.

"Antoine!" Another woman cried.

Looking away from Suguha for a moment she saw two women racing up to embrace their own children. Euphrasie's mother wrapped her arms around her daughter, almost smothering the girl. The other woman alternated between smacking Antoine atop the head and squeezing him so tightly he looked like he would burst.

"I knew you would pull through, Arthur." The Euphrasie's mother said, smiling to the Count.

The Count of Tarbes scratched at the back of his head awkwardly and mumbled how it was nothing. The man's face darkened as Euphrasie's mother stood and gave him a small peck on the cheek. Simple and unambiguous Yui decided.

Euphrasie's mother looked around and her face grew concerned. "Where is Fernand?"

The warmth in the Count drained away and he shook his head. "I fear . . . I . . . It is . . . It is difficult. Yes. Difficult." The man mumbled miserably. Sitting upon his shoulders, Celandine, Iris, and Olive gently patted the Count's cheeks and neck.

"What is going on out here?!" A familiar, irritable voice called from the doorway. Standing in the doorway of the Village Chief's home was Louise Valliere. The girl took in the scene before her and then gave a small nod like it all made perfect sense. "Zerbst." She nodded curtly. Yui tilted her head curiously, despite outward appearances, the sudden relief of tension in Louise's voice and the shift in posture suggested that she had been deeply worried about Kirche.

"Valliere." Kirche replied, trying to keep the smile off her face. Yui shook her head, humans were weird.

"I see you found the children." Louise observed.

"Yep." Kirche agreed. "Oh, and we also uncovered the cause of all of this, killed him, and made peace with the Pixies. Actually, the Count did most of that. So how was your day?"

Louise shrugged, "We got chased around by a dragon," her lips curled up in a prideful smile, "Then I killed it."

Kirche was left speechless, but only briefly. "We are talking about a real dragon, right?" Kirche teased. "Not a dragon like Pina?"

Louise gave a harrumph. "KoKo says that technically it's more of a Quetzalcoatl, whatever that is. You can take a look tomorrow. The Cait Sith say it's going to take them weeks to take the carcass apart. Now then, back to my original question, what is going on out here? Wait, Yui?"

"It's a long story." Kirche sighed. "And by long, I mean, well . . . long. Anyways, we brought some guests back with us." Kirche gestured to the Pixies on Yui's shoulder and head. "Hinagiku, Botan, this is Louise Valliere, she's here to negotiate with you on behalf of the crown."

Louise gave Kirche and odd look before returning her attention to the two Pixies.

"How do you do." Hinagiku bowed her head. "I am Hinagiku, a Shaman of the Garden, and this is Botan, a Knight of the Garden."

Louise starred, and continued to stare. First she starred at the Pixies, and then back at Yui, eyes narrowing. Finally she let out a small snort and with surprising grace, curtsied back to the Knight and Shaman. "I am Louise Francoise Le Blanc De La Valliere, it is a pleasure to meet you Miss Hinagiku, Dame Botan. On behalf of the crown, I would like to discuss peace terms with you."

Hinagiku nodded, folding her arms in the sleeves of her robes. "Peace would be wonderful. I am afraid that we have acted very rashly out of fear, we would be happy to discuss peace terms with you, though it will have to be agreed upon by all of the Elder Sisters. For today we would simply like to learn more."

Louise nodded slowly.

"And we do have one other condition."

"Oh?" Louise asked.

"We would like for the Count to also be part of the peace." Hinagiku said, receiving a wide eyes look of terror from the Count.

Louise looked over at Count of Tarbes and nodded, "Well, naturally, this is the Count's fief after all. But first," Louise raised a hand to her head, "One last time, can someone please explain this all to me?"

* * *

"How does that feel? Too tight?" Florine asked as she adjusted the wrappings on Yui's shoulder. It was early evening and the sun was just about to set as Yui sat in the home of the healer, looking about curiously as the woman worked. Florine was amazingly gentle, even without using her magic, Yui could barely feel a thing as the healer prodded her shoulder for signs of further injury and then carefully applied a topical anti inflammatory ointment and cast a weak spell to numb the pain.

"Mmm." Yui shook her head. "It's fine."

"Thank you so much for doing this." Suguha said as she sat at Yui's side. Her Aunt hadn't let Yui out of her sight since she'd gotten back. Upon seeing Yui's injured arm, Aunt Suguha had planned to use healing magic but Florine had stopped her. Powerful healing magic was best used cautiously on children whose bodies were not fully grown and there was no telling yet if Faerie magic worked any differently. Instead, she had offered to care to take care of it herself.

Florine worked quickly, tying off the bandages to keep Yui's shoulder in place while it healed. Nothing had been broken, but the shoulder had been nearly dislocated by Fernand's savage beating and the muscles had been bruised and torn.

Florine smiled faintly, "It's nothing, Arthur tells me that Yui helped to keep Euphrasie safe." The healer paused in her work for a moment to squeeze Yui's hand. "I should be the one thanking you, Yui."

Yui smiled, "You're welcome Florine-san. But still, thank you for your help."

Hinagiku had offered to use pixie healing magic, but Florine wouldn't hear of it. "Your heathen magic might be perfectly fine for animals. But a little girl should be taken care of by a proper water mage." The healer had said. Hinagiku had actually grown quite indignant at this. It was the first time Yui could ever remember seeing the Shaman look angry. Personally, Yui suspected that ALfheim healing magic would have been more potent, but in her human form, she had to agree, she didn't know how her body would respond. For the same reason, she hadn't attempted to change back to her Pixie form since returning from the forest. Explaining her appearance to the Tristanian's had proven easier than expected, Louise and Tabitha seemed quite satisfied with the explanation that Yui simply knew a transformation spell. Kirche had remained suspicious but in the end, decided it simply wasn't worth arguing about.

"Now then. Keep it in the sling for the next three days. After that, you should only use it for light lifting for another week. I'm sorry I can't do more. If I had the right reagents I could heal it over night." Florine explained. "But those are much too expensive, none of my patients would be able to afford them."

"It's alright." Yui assured her.

"You've already done more than enough." Suguha agreed.

Florine walked over to her windowsill where the empty flower vases sat. "Have I really done enough? I don't think so. In a way, I have a part in all of this, after all." Yui frowned as she heard the Guilt in the healer's voice.

"You didn't know any more than Euphrasie." Yui said. "You shouldn't beat yourself up about something you couldn't help, Florine-san."

"I suppose you're right." Florine said doubtfully.

"How is Euphrasie doing now?" Suguha asked.

Florine ran a hand through her hair. "She's fine. Exhausted, but fine. Arthur carried her back here and put her to bed, her and Lily." The healer shook her head in disbelief, "I never thought I'd have a second one to worry about."

Florine had been reluctant when she had first met Lily. The tiny Pixie girl had hidden herself behind Euphrasie's shoulder as she was introduced. While being tolerant of the Pixies was one thing, the idea of one living in her home was quite another. However, Florine had soon been won over after seeing the way the Euphrasie and Lily got along. Euphrasie doting on Lily like a younger sibling while Lily faithfully follower her "Elder Sister" and hung on her every word. Hinagiku had thought it was for the best that the two stay together. Lily simply didn't seem very happy unless she was with Euphrasie, she inevitably started crying at the slightest hint of being separated.

"Well then, we should probably get going." Suguha said. "Hinagiku says some of the other Elder Sisters are going to come by tomorrow so we can work out an agreement with the Garden."

"It won't be easy." Florine warned, "Many of the Villagers hate the Pixies now. Especially after everything that has happened just since you got here."

That was true. Yui thought. Resentment would probably exist for quite a while, despite Hinagiku's promise to try and make right the damage that the Pixies had done to Tarbes. But at the same time, there was reason to hope. The Count was very sympathetic to the plight of the Pixies, and after hearing the full story, even Roseau had been willing to speak with Hinagiku and was willing to come to an arrangement so long as the Pixies helped to fix the damaged they had caused.

"I don't think it will be a problem in the long term." Suguha decided aloud. "There's too many ways for the Pixies to help a village like Tarbes. They're really good with plants and animals, and they can probably help you collect reagents."

"The villagers have a lot more in common with the Pixies then they think." Yui agreed.

Florine had looked doubtful but told them that she hoped they were right and would be praying to the Founder that the peace would last. As they made their way down to the road, Yui saw the Count departing by the side door. It reminded Yui of something she had been meaning to ask. However, there was the issue of Confidentiality .

"Aunt Sugu?" Yui said.

"Yes?" Suguha asked, looking down at Yui. The Sylph still looked very tired, but also much more at ease now that she knew Yui was safe.

Yui glanced back at the count who had stopped to admire the flowers in Florine's garden. "Could you go just a little ways ahead without me. I won't be long."

"Oh?" Suguha looked confused. "Is something wrong?"

"Mmm." Yui shook her head. "It's just something a little private. I won't leave your sight, I just want to talk to Arthur about something."

Suguha thought the request over and nodded slowly. "Okay, Yui." Suguha smiled. "But don't leave my sight."

"Un." Yui had nodded before walking back down the roadway and taking a seat atop a fence dividing two fields adjacent to the road way. The Count made his way from Florine's garden and spotted her almost immediately.

"Ah, Yui!" The Count said, a little surprised to see her. The Count responded well to children yet seemed to suffer intense anxiety around adults. Perhaps that was why he got along so well with the Pixies.

Query "Arthur-san, where are Celandine, Iris, and Olive?" Yui asked. Hinagiku had decided that it was best for the three Little Sisters, like Lily, to stay with their human caretaker for the time being. The Count had seemed delighted when he had heard the news. Even though they had only been with him for one day, it was clear that the Count had fallen in love with the Pixies, treating them like his own daughters.

"Oh, the girls, yes, the girls." The Count said. "I asked them if they would like to stay the night with their sister. They seemed quite happy with that, yes, quite happy, besides, I'll be up late tonight, I have . . . Have to see to Fernand's affairs." The Count shook his head slowly. "Fernand . . . Never did keep his things in order." Yui felt for the Count. In saving the Garden, he had seen the worst parts of his only friend, and been forced to kill him for it. "In any case, it seems you were waiting for me."

"Un." Yui nodded. "Actually, I have a question I've wanted to ask you."

"A question?" The Count asked, "Yes, a question. Go ahead then."

"Arthur-san?" Yui slipped down from her place on the fence and began to walk beside the Count. "Why don't you live with Florine and your daughter?"

The Count of Tarbes froze in mid stride, face going pale. "W-what? Yui? Who told you that?" The man stumbled. "That is to say . . ." He gestured furiously, "W-what has given you such a ridiculous, yes ridiculous, notion?" He fixed Yui with a stare, waiting to see how she would respond. But when Yui only tilted her head thoughtfully the Count let out a weary sigh.

"I . . . I wouldn't want to be a bother. This is best." The Count nodded. "Yes, this is best! There would be complications if it became known. And also, Euphrasie is a kind girl who already thinks too fondly of me . . . She doesn't . . . Doesn't need to feel any filial bonds to a pitiful old man."

Yui studied the Count, examining his physical responses, analyzing voice stress levels. The Count suffered from intense anxiety in almost any social environment, so despite his outward openness, Yui had a great deal of difficulty discerning much about him. "You're not pitiful, Arthur, you saved everyone at the Garden. And you love Euphrasie, and Florine, right? Shouldn't you want to monopolize them for yourself?"

"M-monopolize?" The Count asked aloud.

"Mmm. Exclusivity." Yui elaborated. The feelings that she felt for Mama and Papa, and to a lesser extent Aunt Suguha. The sense of Jealousy when others took them away from her without offering something in return. "That's love, right?"

"By the Founder, child!" The Count said with an expression of disbelief. "Do all of the Faerie folk think that way?"

Tilting her head again, Yui shook her head. "I don't think so." Yui knew her opinions on Love were atypical, which was why she found herself constantly seeking to optimize her definition.

The Count nodded slowly, looking quite thoughtful as he turned to gaze back at the cottage. In the early evening light, smoke rose from the small chimney, and a few candles burned in the window of the home of the healer and her daughter.

"I think you might be very right after a fashion, and also, very wrong." The Count's eyes closed. "Love is what lets us endure other humans." He nodded his head, "It is the force that binds us together as we drive ourselves apart."

"Endure?" Yui asked. She had never heard it put in such a way. At least, not by a person.

"Oh yes." The Count nodded. "Humans, you see, are terrible monsters." The man whispered, his expression darkening. "Fiercer than dragons and more vicious than Manticores. Always remember, there is nothing that can grow blacker than the human heart." Breathing softly the Count shook his head. "Love for one another is all that we have to banish the darkness and give us the courage to face each other. So yes, I do love Euphrasie, and I do dearly love Florine, which is the only reason that Euphrasie is here at all."

Yui scrunched up her face. The Counts answer didn't make very much sense to her, it was much too Romanticized , even after cross referencing a number of sources.

Yui felt a hand gently stroking her hair and looked up at the Count's smile. "I don't imagine you're quite old enough to understand, Yui. I think you will know better once you have grown into a young woman." The Count nodded to himself. "Yes. When you have grown into a young woman, and found someone you care deeply for, and when you hold your own child for the first time. I think then, you'll understand. The feeling that will banish the fear. That is Love."

Query My child? Yui looked down at herself. It was logical, after all, this body was a physical existence, and Florine hadn't thought there was anything out of the ordinary when she had examined her for further injury. It was natural to assume that if her body was that of a human, she would eventually mature and develop the ability to bear children. Note Parents often desire grandchildren.

"I do believe that is your Guardian." The Count pointed down the road to where Aunt Suguha stood, waving to get Yui's attention. Using her good arm, Yui waved back, smiling.

"You should run along then, Yui." The Count offered and then looking anxious added. "I trust you won't, erm . . . spread word."

Yui shook her head from side to side. "I understand. I won't tell anyone." The Count nodded slowly and watched as she ran up to her Aunt.

"Did you get an answer to your question?" Suguha asked.

"Un." Yui nodded and looked back over her shoulder at the retreating figure of the Count. They would probably be here in Tarbes for a couple more days. Maybe she could do something to help before they left.

"Thought, now I have another question." Yui decided.

"Oh?" Suguha smiled, "And what is that? Maybe I can help with this one."

Yui tilted her head. "Aunt Suguha, do you think someday I'd be a good Mom?"

"Eh?!"

* * *

Louise Valliere stared down at the paper spread before her, eye twitching slowly as she read through scribbled revisions and crossed out words for the fifth time. As proud as she was of her accomplishment in helping to slay the Boss, and as pleased she was to see everything falling so neatly into place. She rather wished she could be done with this blasted report! It was the afternoon of the day after the defeat of Lhamthanc and the return of the villagers to Tarbes, and Louise had found herself with the unenviable task of writing the initial report that would be handed in to Henrietta upon their triumphant return to the Capitol. Louise sat beside a window in the Village Chiefs home, using Roseau's writing desk to draft her report. Once again, Louise had been astonished by the level of literacy in the Village. Apparently it was another one of the 'practices' that Roseau's uncles had started that every child in the Village learn to read and write.

That morning, a delegation of the Pixies had arrived at the edge of the forest. A half dozen each of the three different varieties of Pixies, intent on speaking with the Count and Louise.

The Villagers had been suspicious of the Pixies as they gathered before Louise, the Count, and the Village chief. There had been mutters of resentment and whispered threats. But at the Count's insistence, the villagers had listened reluctantly, and slowly, after several demonstrations on the part of the Pixies, their interest had been piqued. There were still dissenters, people who wanted the Pixies gone, but many of the commoners could see the potential benefits and the Count's endorsement meant a lot to the Villagers.

The Pixies were proving to be quite accommodating. The Garden had already agreed to help the families whose homes had been destroyed in their raids. There was a great deal the Pixies could do to help the Village get back on its feet.

For instance, the Pixies were naturally adept at caring for plants and animals, their ability to judge soil quality was nearly as good as an Earth Mage, and with their natural sense of smell they could detect diseases long before they became apparent to a human farmer. This had been demonstrated by one of the Little Sisters who had been asked to examine some of the grape vines in the fields near the forest.

The tiny girl had homed in on a number of normal looking vines that under closer examination bore the hallmarks of a fungal infestation that might have spread to the other grape vines if left unchecked. If the Pixies were willing to lend a handful of Little Sisters to the people of Tarbes even once a week, the health of the vineyards could be greatly improved.

The Pixies had also offered to harvest Reagents for Florine, taking a few small samples and returning later that day with the herbs and flowers that the healer had requested.

Similarly, the Pixie's mobs were set to be tremendously useful. The Farmers of Tarbes had watched on, first anxiously, and then with open admiration as a pack of Dagger Dogs had demonstrated their ability to herd the local livestock and protect them from feral animals and mobs. The Alfheim canines were incredibly intelligent and fearsome enough to discourage all but the largest animals. They barely needed any supervision, and after being instructed by their Pixie handlers, were quite mild around humans. Tabitha had even demonstrated this by walking up to one of the wolf-like animals and stroking it atop the head. The dog had sat stock straight, tail wagging slowly like one of Father's loyal hunting hounds.

In return, there was much that the Villagers could offer the Pixies. The diminutive Fae had difficulty performing physically strenuous tasks on their own, being forced to rely on their mobs to maintain firebreaks and clear the brush from sections of the forest. Some of the farmers had cautiously offered their help from time to time with these more difficult tasks.

The Village could also offer the services of its bee keepers and apiaries. The Pixies absolutely loved honey, but they were ill suited to raising bees due to their small size. Honey and the service of some of the hives to help pollinate sections of the forests were both highly sought after.

Finally, there had been the manufactured goods, items that the Pixies couldn't make for themselves. The high quality steel sewing needles produced by the towns blacksmith were in high demand among the Garden's Knights as miniature swords, and sewing thread was used as a stand in for rope.

Louise leaned back thoughtfully in her chair. In the end, she didn't think there was any reason the Pixies and Villagers couldn't live together peacefully. The areas of influence of the Garden and Village rarely overlapped, and there was too much that the two could offer one another. Especially now that they had both been so badly hurt. And strangely enough, the Count actually seemed to come into his own in dealing with the Pixies. Perhaps confronting his treacherous Majordomo had finally shaken loose whatever nonsense had been rattling around inside of his skull.

"Oy, Louise, what's a good strong word for Giant Snake." Klein asked as he tapped his quill absently in a corner of the paper. While Louise made her report to Henrietta, Klein had been given the task of filing a similar report for the Faerie Lords written in that bizarre alphabet of theirs. Honestly, the Fae ought to learn to use proper letters now that they were becoming citizens of Tristain!

"Mmm. Try Basilisk maybe?" Louise scratched her head. "No, that can't be right. It's a flying Serpent so we should definitely call it a dragon."

"Quetzalcoatl." Klein corrected.

Louise waved her hands, "I have no idea how to spell that!"

"Did someone mention Quetzalcoatl?" KoKo asked from the doorway. Looking up, Louise saw the hunter had just returned with Kirche and Tabitha in tow. Louise felt a smug little burst of pride when she saw the thoughtful look on Kirche's face. They had been out with the raid group looking over the carcass of Lhamthanc. Seeing it for herself had finally shut the Germanian up. "Let's see, Ke – Tsu – Ko – Wa – Ru -To? That should work, right?"

"You know, that made no sense to me." Louise sighed, when the Fae tried to spell out words, it always sounded so bizarre. "By the way, what's that?" Louise pointed to something hanging from KoKo's hand.

The Cait Sith grinned mischievously. "Oh, this?" She lifted what appeared to be a triangular bit of metal that had been wrapped in leather and then attached to a silver chain like a pendant. "I was talking to Gaius and the others and the raid Group has decided they're going to chip in and have something made in honor of your last attack bonus." The hunter explained. "But that's going to take a couple of weeks. In the mean time, I thought you might like a little memento."

KoKo tossed the pendant to Louise who caught it clumsily. Examining it closely, the metallic surface was glossy and rippled with a texture not unlike mother of pearl. One edge was jagged as if the piece of metal had been taken from the shattered tip of a sword. The other two edges were smoothly serrated, tapering to a sharp point like the tooth of a dragon. Like . . . A dragon!

"This is . . ." Louise began.

"The tip off of one of old Steel Toothed's incisors." KoKo confirmed with a hint of pride. "Back home, there's some nasty fish that live in the ocean, and sometimes people keep their teeth a souvenirs." KoKo explained. "So it got me thinking. It's not much but I promise we've got something bigger in the works."

Louise held the tooth thoughtfully and then looked back at KoKo's expectant gaze. The hunter's tail was twisting about, waiting for Louise's reply. It was such a silly thing! Louise thought. Like something out of some barbaric culture beyond the Elven lands. Why, she wouldn't be caught dead wearing something like this! But even so . . . Carefully, Louise placed the pendant around her neck, the tooth falling to rest just above her heart, a tiny fragment of pure pearl. She had worn necklaces for special occasions before, gaudy things or polished gold and silver that were covered in jewels. But Louise thought, at least to her, that little piece of tooth put them all to shame.

"Thanks, KoKo." Louise said awkwardly, she had meant it as a simple courtesy, but realized almost immediately that she had actually meant it.

The Cait Sith smiled easily. "You definitely earned it Louise."

"She's right you know." Kirche nodded in agreement. "I'll admit it Louise, you did good. Which reminds me." Kirche smiled, "Louise, you've been neglecting your special lessons."

The youngest Valliere daughter groaned inwardly. Of course the Zerbst would bring that up just when she was feeling good about herself. But like it or not, her achievement against Lhamthanc hadn't been any sort of breakthrough, she'd just managed to use her failure to her advantage.

"You mean right now?" Louise asked, she pointed to her ink stained notes. "I still have to finish this."

"Oh, come on now!" Kirche pouted. "All work and no play makes Louise a . . . Well a Valliere. Besides you look like you can use a break."

Louise rolled her eyes and reluctantly got up from her seat and followed Kirche back outside. She felt her eye twitch once more as she saw Leafa, Silica, and Yui curled up in the shade of a nearby tree, all three girls were fast asleep. Silica's familiar curled up in her master's lap. Well, she supposed Yui and Silica needed the rest, but Leafa was supposed to be a swordswoman, she should have more discipline, like Tabitha! Louise glanced over to the young Gallian Knight only to find to her dismay that Tabitha was already settling down beside Silica, rolling her cloak up as a pillow.

Taking a deep breath, Louise calmed herself and then stopped, noticing that KoKo was watching from the doorway. Louise didn't know why, but for some reason, the idea of KoKo seeing her failures as . . . well . . . failures. Bothered her immensely.

"KoKo?" Louise asked.

"Nyeh?" The hunter cocked her head, ears twitching.

Louise looked for the right words. "Don't you have something else you should be doing?" No, stupid! Not diplomatic enough!

KoKo frowned, "Not that I can think of. And besides, I'm a little curious about how your guys learn to use magic."

"Well, we're a little curious about that too." Kirche explained. "Louise isn't exactly a great mage you know."

"Thank you Kirche." Louise said in her most civil voice.

"In fact, those explosions she makes are about the best she can do." The Germanian went on.

"Thank you Kirche." Louise repeated.

KoKo gave a small shrugged, "Well that's too bad." Louise her heart sink a little and didn't know quite why. "But I have to say, Louise already does more with her failures than most people do in their entire lives, so it's not really a problem. Right?" The Cait Sith noticed the way the Louise was staring at her. "Neh? Is something on my face?"

"N-no." Louise shook her head, she'd never thought of it that way. Even if KoKo was just a Faerie, it was kind of nice, liberating, to know that she'd already proven herself to someone. "Well, I suppose we should start." Louise said as she fished out her wand and started looking around for a suitable target, a stone or a pebble.

Finding her target she picked up a small smooth stone and tossed it onto the ground a ways away from the Village Chief's house. This ought to wake those layabouts up! She thought a little mean spiritedly as she aimed with her wand.

"Hold up Valliere!" Kirche said suddenly.

"What is it now?" Louise asked, "Are you going to tell me my technique isn't passionate enough?"

"No, when it comes to throwing your spell around you're plenty passionate." Kirche took Louise by the wrist and extracted her wand from her hand. "But all the passion in the world won't help you cast with this." Louise frowned and looked closely at her wand. A crack ran the length of the focus from wand tip to handle. When had that happened?!

"Something wrong?" KoKo asked.

"Louise broke her wand." Kirche explained as she examined the ruined focus. "We'll need to get her a new one. Maybe on our way back to the academy."

"You can't just borrow one?" KoKo asked curiously.

"Well you could." Kirche admitted, "But then we would have to have it properly tuned and it a bit of nuisance to do." The Germanian handed the focus back to Louise who looked it over again.

"I must have broken it right after the battle." Louise decided, but when exactly? She'd always been careful with her foci. It was sort of funny that she would end up using her wand all through a fight for her life and then break by accident after the battle had ended. Louise decided to let this one slide. The last few days had been difficult for everyone. Mistakes happened. Besides, there was no use crying over it now. At least, after this, Mother and Father probably wouldn't complain about her getting a replacement wand.

"Well then?" Kirche stretched, "I guess we can't do any training today."

"Where are you going?" Louise asked.

"Where does it look like?" The Germanian pointed to the tree and the napping Faeries and Tabitha. "I'm bushed, even after a full night's sleep. I think they've got the right idea."

"What? Kirche!" Louise chastised, noticing KoKo following after her. "You too, KoKo?"

The hunter looked a little embarrassed. "Neh-heh, well, she has a point. Things are wrapping up, we'll be leaving tomorrow and it's a nice afternoon. A nap sounds pretty good."

Louise watched in disbelief as the Germanian and the Cait Sith made themselves comfortable, closing their eyes and drifting off. Was she the only one around her who was taking things seriously?! But then again, she watched Silica's nose twitch as she rolled over and rested her head against Tabitha's shoulder, and Yui smiled as 'pixie' girl nuzzled against her 'aunt'. Fidgeting for a few seconds, Louise came to a decision. For once, the reports could wait. She could always finish up by candle light she supposed as she settled down beside KoKo, feeling her eyes growing heavy. The Cait Sith stirred, opening her eyes just a fraction and smiled sleepily as she put an army around Louise and went back to dozing in the lazy afternoon warmth.

"Oy, seriously." A voice drifted from inside the Village Chief's house, Klein emerged holding his borrowed quill. "Does anyone know how to spell . . . " The Salamander squinted at the scene before him. "You've got to be kidding me." Scratching at the back of his head, Klein noticed Sylphied prowling her way over, gangly body moving like a giant cat.

"What do you think?" Klein asked the dragon.

Sylphied cocked her head. "Kyuii!"

"Shh! Don't wake them!" Klien urged and then shook his head, "Man. Well! Maybe I should find out what Kirito was always on about." Finding a soft looking spot about thirty forty five degrees around the trunk of the tree from Louise and KoKo, Klein settled in. A moment later, Sylphied wrapped herself around the tree and settled her head against the ground.

Soon, the only sounds were those of low steady breathing, the chirping of insects, and the distant song of birds.

* * *

Hinagiku, Pixie Shaman, and Eldest Sister of the Garden of the Forests of Tarbes, felt worry course through her as the settled to the ground. Naturally, she was constantly fretting over the Little Sisters, their health and well being occupied much of her time. But this was different. Sayuri. She thought. Such a troubled sister, and left without guidance, she had destroyed herself. Hinagiku couldn't help but feel responsible.

'Foolish, foolish, girl!' The Shaman reprimanded herself. She had half a mind to tear off her own wings. She should have seen the signs the moment Sayuri had stumbled upon their Garden. But she had been scared. News of the destruction of the Sister Garden had frightened her when she should have kept a level head. 'I allowed this.' Hinagiku thought.

After Sayuri had fled, the other Knights had pursued her, but the speed of her feathered dragon had foiled them, and in the confusion they had lost the trail. At Botan's instruction, the Knights had spent the rest of the day and night and then the day after, scouring the forest for any sign of their fallen Leader.

It was all thanks to Yui in the end. The Knights had searched every crevice and safe place that they had prepared throughout the forest, bringing to bare Dagger Dog packs and Giant Mole Rats to search for any trace of Sayuri's scent, but to no avail. Finally, the not-Pixie girl had suggested the one place that none had thought to search. At last, as night fell on the second day, they had found her.

"She came to this place?" Hinagiku asked with a note of dread.

Kigiku grunted an affirmative as she dropped down from her Wasp, followed by Botan. The new Knight Leader looked around slowly, a pained expression spreading across her face, part anger, part mute horror. The Shaman wished she could shield the girl from this, but Botan was no longer a Little Sister. She had to learn about the ugliness that she would have to protect the little ones from.

All around them were the charred ruins of Sayuri's garden. Illuminated by the moonlight, it was a barren and ugly place, the denuded remnants of the Garden's home tree standing silent vigil, like a funeral marker. Here and there, the remains of nests rose cracked and blackened from the earth. The ground was all but devoid of plant life save for a handful of wildflowers struggling up out of the ashes. The fires had been so hot that not even seeds or roots had been spared.

This was a dead place. The Shaman thought. They did not belong here. Sayuri did not belong here. This was where Sayuri's painful story had started, and the Shaman could think of no reason why she would choose to return. In fact, that was why it had taken the Knights so long to find trace of her. This was almost the last place they would ever think to look.

Kigiku nodded solemnly. "Her dragon is nesting up in the tree. He's passive, but he won't let us get near." The Knight frowned, "He's guarding something."

"Sayuri-sama." Botan decided. The younger Knight had a thoughtful expression on her face. "It has to be her. There's no other reason for him to be here."

"He could have gone feral." The senior Knight shook her head. "We've heard nothing from Sayuri-sama. She might be hurt, or worse."

Or worse, Hinagiku agreed. She could only think of the horrible bruises and welts that had been appearing with growing frequency across the Vespid Knight's body. The stress of sleepless nights, of constant fighting, had slowly been destroying her. The incident during the duel with Botan was simply more evidence of her deterioration.

"We're going to have to try stunning the dragon and dragging him out if this goes on for much longer." Kigiku said. She didn't sound happy, a stun spell might also catch Sayuri by accident. In her weakened condition, such a mistake might prove fatal.

Botan raised a hand cautiously. "If you don't mind, Kigiku-san, I might be able to do something." The young Knight folded her arms beneath her chest. "After Sayuri-sama captured her dragon, I helped her to treat his wounds, he knows me. I might be able to get close."

"But will he recognize you?" Kigiku asked with a hint of scepticism. Hinagiku had to agree, Botan's blossoming was complete. The girl's outward appearance was not the only thing that was different, her scent had changed subtly as well. There was every possibility that the dragon would think her a stranger.

"I really don't know", Botan admitted, smiling bravely, "But he's pretty smart, I'm sure he'll figure it out if I talk to him."

Hinagiku had been as doubtful as Kigiku as they had taken flight, ascending the tree to where a few charred branches still clung. A half dozen Vespid Knights and a pair of Willow Wasps were already awaiting them before a hollow in the trunk. By the light of the moons, something glossy black could be seen moving slowly inside of the trunk and there was a brief flash of golden eyes. Hinagiku could only think that it must by Sayuri's feathered dragon. The Knights gave a small nod to their leaders and a deferential bow to Hinagiku.

"Has anything changed?" Kigiku asked one of the Knights.

The girl gave a small shake of her head. "I'm sorry, Kigiku-sama. He just hisses at us. He got really mad when we tried to get closer with the willow wasps. We thought it best we wait for you to return."

"Botan?" Hinagiku asked as the young Knight began to walk forward slowly.

"It's okay." The girl said simply.

A low, dangerous hiss, came from the hollow, the shadow inside growing bigger as the dragon ruffled up his feathers.

"Gyaaaah." The cry was low and soft, a threat to anyone who got near.

Botan smiled reassuringly. "It's alright. You remember me, don't you? I fixed your front paw."

Slowly, the dragon's sleek head emerged from the hollow to take a cautious sniff at Botan's offered hand. A low growl built in the dragon's throat, and for a moment, Hinagiku thought he was about to attack, but Botan stood her ground until the moment had passed, the dragon blinked, once, twice.

"Please, Sayuri-san is sick, we need to take her back to the Garden." Botan said, speaking as if the dragon could understand every word.

Finally, the dragon let out a small, mournful "Gyah" of assent, slowly shifting to allow Botan room to enter the hollow. "Hinagiku-sama, Kigiku-san, stay close." Botan advised, the dragon growling suspiciously as Hinagiku and Kigiku skirted quickly past. The hollow was not a large space, in fact, much of it was already filled by the dragon, which had carefully position himself so that his body blocked the entrance. One wing was partially extended, draped protectively around something that squirmed in the dark.

As they stepped down into the blackness, Hinagiku heard something that triggered every one of her instincts as an Elder Sister. Crying. Soft, miserable sniffles. The dragon shifted softly, craning his head around and raising his wing to reveal something nestled against the soft feathers of his flank.

Botan let out a soft gasp.

"Hina, what is this?" Kigiku asked aloud.

Hinagiku raised a hand before her mouth. "Oh my", She whispered softly.

Curled up against the dragon's flank, clumsily rubbing at her eyes with her forearms, was the smallest Little Sister that the Shaman had ever seen. A newborn judging by her still drying wings. She was a beautiful girl with long silver-blonde hair that would have fallen almost to her knees, and eyes of pale and clear blue. It looked like she had been crying for quite a while, her eyes were red rimmed and darkly ringed from lack of sleep. The poor dear must have been all alone, with only the dragon for company. As Hinagiku watched, the dragon leaned in and gently licked at the girl's cheeks, wiping away her tears.

Hinagiku felt anger build within her. What was this little one doing here all alone? She certainly wasn't from the Garden. Had the patrols missed a blossom in Sayuri's garden? Has she been born all alone? Her speculations came grinding to a halt as her eyes fully adjusted to the gloom and realized what the girl was wearing. In place of the pale, milky dress of a new Little Sister, she was swaddled in a blood red blouse that was much too big for her.

Hinagiku shook her head, it wasn't possible. Reaching out gently, the Shaman whispered, "Sayuri?"

The girl flinched at the name, seeming to finally notice Hinagiku and the others. Her face scrunched up and she clutched at her head. "Nnn. No! No no no no no!" Suddenly her whimpers turned to full on bawling. Hinagiku recoiled and the two Knights looked to each other, neither quite sure what to make of it.

Hinagiku sighed softly, the girl cringed away as the Shaman approached and then, slowly, tenderly, wrapped her in a hug. "There there now." She whispered. "There there. There's nothing to cry about. You're safe. Your Sisters are here for you."

The girl leaned into the Shaman, resting her head tiredly against Hinagiku's chest, tiny body heaving. Gradually the cries died back down to sobs and the girl looked up. "H-Hi-chan?" The girl hiccuped, wiping at her nose.

"Hi-chan?" Hinagiku repeated and then understood. "Of course, of course, you would remember. Do you recognize them as well?" The Shaman gestured to the two Knights.

The girl screwed up her face in concentration. "Ki-chan!" She pointed to Kigiku. "And . . . Bo-chan!"

"That's very good." Hinagiku smiled, watching as the girl briefly beamed with delight at the praise. "And what else do you remember? Do you know where you are? Why did your name upset you so much?" She asked with concern.

The girl's look of concentration became incredibly intense, her expression grew upset. "I don't . . . I don't know!" The girl declared loudly. "That name, my name, is awful, it makes me think of ashes, and being too hot, and scary things. I hate it!"

"Is that so?" Hinagiku asked softly.

She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, inhaling the girl's scent. The Vespid Knight had always had a unique scent about her. Even as a Little Sister and lacking the subtle overtones of a Knight, the girl's identity was unmistakeable. The Shaman could even begin to guess at what had happened.

"Well then." The Hinagiku whispered gently. "If you hate your name so much. We'll just have to give you a new one."

The girl seemed pleased with this and nodded her head against Hinagiku's chest.

"Hina . . ." Kigiku gave her a concerned look. "This is Sa- . . . This is her, isn't it? What happened to her?"

"I can't rightly say." Hinagiku confessed, stroking the Little Sister's hair as she trembled faintly. "We'll have to take her back to the Garden."

"The Garden?" The girl asked, sniffling, she scrunched up her fast and shook her head. "Aren't you mad at me?"

Hinagiku's eyes widened, "Mad at you? Whatever for?"

The girl seemed to think hard. "I don't know. But I thought . . . I thought Hi-chan would be angry . . . About . . . About . . . " The girl shook her head. "I don't know. There are things . . . I don't know how to say them!"

"That's perfectly alright." Hinagiku promised as she sat up. "You can think about them or not, whichever you want. Nobody in the Garden is mad at you, and even if we were, we wouldn't stay angry, you'd still be welcome." Hinagiku stood slowly, lifting the Little Sister in her arms. It would have been awkward to carry a normal Little Sister this way, but she was small enough, and it allowed the girl to keep her head rested against Hinagiku's shoulder.

"Hi-chan smells nice" The girl mumbled sleepily.

"Oh?" Hinagiku smiled as she climbed up out of the hollow while Botan saw to the black feathered dragon. "That's because I _am _nice. That scent means that I am your Elder Sister, and that I will always protect you."

"Elder Sister?" The girl asked.

"Yes." Hinagiku confirmed, "Elder Sisters are born to protect Little Sisters."

The girl nuzzled her head against Hinagiku's shoulder. "Hi-chan is nice." She said as her eyes closed and her breathing slow. "Smells like . . . flowers . . ."

"Oh my." Hinagiku said, brushing a few strands of the girl's impossibly long silver blonde hair from her face. Such a beautiful Little Sister, but so small! "We'll have to introduce you to your sisters." The shaman thought aloud. "But what to call you? I know, I have the perfect name for you Little Sister."  
Hinagiku nodded slowly to herself. "We'll call you . . . Shion."

* * *

The ruins of the burnt Garden were as desolate today as when she had seen them three days ago. Kirche thought. Looking over the debris, she still thought her first guess had been accurate. It would have taken a skilful mage to do this with fire, it just turned out it hadn't taken a skilful fire mage. Well, two out of three wasn't bad, even though it had nearly been fatal.

"Are you going to stand around, or are you going to help." Louise asked with a note of annoyance.

Kirche glanced over and smirked. "Ah, but I love seeing a Valliere down in the mud where she belongs."

Louise gave her an insulted look. "I'm not working in the mud. I'm being diplomatic!" The young Valliere declared.

"Right." Kirche said. "You be diplomatic in the mud." She raised her hands defensively. "No, seriously. You already know how awful I am at this. If this is diplomacy, I'd probably start a war . . . Again! Don't give me that look!" Conceding her weakness as a gardener seemed to placate the fiery Valliere and she turned back to her gardening.

Louise wasn't the only one. At her side worked Tabitha, the small Gallian mage wearing a handkerchief atop her head to shield herself from the sun, and Leafa who had borrowed some work clothing and gloves from one of the Villagers. Yui and Silica sat opposite them, carefully planting the flowers and herbs that were to be transplanted from the Count's garden. Even Silica's familiar was helping, using her clawed arms to dig up holes for her master to place seedlings.

Since morning, they had managed to clear the ash and scorched topsoil in a circular area about ten miles across. It wasn't much to show for their labor, but they weren't the only ones in the clearing. Dozens of Pixies were present, planting seeds or drifting through the air in the company of their Willow Wasps. Their vibrant dresses giving the Little Sisters the impression of autumn leaves swirling through the air. Over two dozen villagers, concerned adults and curious children, had found time to answer the Count's request. The idea was the product of the talks between Hinagiku and the Count.

For the time being, only a handful of people knew the location of the Pixie Garden. And though the Pixies were willing to trust these people, the Elder Sisters were not yet ready to allow the secret of the Garden's location to spread further. They understood that the Villagers of Tarbes meant them no ill, but that there were also people many people who would do them harm. It was thus decided that the location of the Pixie Garden should remain a secret, shared only with the humans who had witnessed it for themselves.

As a show of good faith, it had been agreed by both the Count and the Pixies that an effort would be made to restore the burned Garden. The whole affair seemed rather morbid to Kirche, this was the sight of a slaughter. But the Pixies didn't seem to think of it that way. To them, the longer this place remained dead, the longer it would take to heal. Of course, it wasn't as simple as transplanting Yggdrasil Blossoms from the thriving Garden to this one. The seeds of the Yggdrasil Blossoms would only sprout within an already thriving garden. It would be many years before this place was healed enough to once more bear new Little Sisters of its own. Until then, the Pixies would have to tend to it constantly.

In the mean time, the Burnt Garden would become a symbol of good faith between the Pixies and the Villagers and a place where both parties could meet without revealing the location of the intact Garden.

"Please be careful with that one Olive, be careful!" The Count said. Crouching down in the dirt near Louise, the Count admonished the young Pixie as she attempted to extract a seedling from its pot by the thin sprout poking up through the soil. It seemed not even Little Sister was a green thumb.

"Olive, look! Do it like this!" Olive's sister, Lily showed as she scooped up the seedling carefully before looking up to her 'Elder Sister' Euphrasie.

"That's exactly right dear." Florine said encouragingly.

"Oy." Klein called as he touched down heavily. "You know, I think this has just about killed any desire I have to learn to equip heavy armor."

Kirche gave the Salamander an amused grin. "Is that so?" She teased, "You know, it would be quite the shame Klein darling. A little more muscle would make you quite the catch." Kirche winked and laughed inwardly at the way the Salamander paled. Virgin. She thought, she could always tell. Not that it was a problem. She toyed idly with the idea of actually getting serious with him. And really, why not? Finding a decent man, of any species, was hard enough. It might just be enough of a scandal to finally silence her family.

"Well anyways." Klein said quickly. "This is the last load." Upon the Salamanders back was wooden crate stacked full of paving bricks. A path had been planned so that humans could travel through the new Garden without damaging the Pixie's fragile flowers and herbs. It would also allow the humans to help tend to the Garden while it grew until it began to bear its own Pixies to care for it.

"Put them over here!" KoKo called from where she stood, helping Antoine and one of the Villagers, a man named Gavin, to lay down gravel along the planned route of the footpath.

Klein looked around as he set his load down. "Aren't we a few heads short. Where's Little Big Sis and Inch High?"

"I don't think they like you calling them that." KoKo observed, "Anyways, Hina and Botan will be here soon, Kigiku says they're bringing a special guest."

The promised arrival came only a few minutes later, a trio of Willow Wasps flying in the company of a black feathered dragon. Kirche squinted, had they found the crazy Pixie girl or was this a different one?

The mages and Faeries gathered round as Hinagiku and Botan dismounted from the dragon and Kigiku hopped down from her wasp. Kirche leaned a bit to the side, noticing an even smaller figure hiding behind the diminutive Shaman.

"Arthur-san." Hinagiku greeted the Count warmly.

"Hina." The Count smiled as he kneeled down and offered the Pixie his hand. "And who is this?"

Slowly, the figure stepped out from behind Hinagiku, the tiniest Pixie yet. The girl was dressed in a milky white gown and clung to the Shaman's arm. She looked to the Shaman who gave her a reassuring nod.

"H-hello everyone." The girl curtsied. "My name is Shion." The girl stopped looked around and stared up at the Count. Kirche squinted, was she blushing?

The Count exchanged a look with Hinagiku. "So this is who you wanted us to meet?"

"Yes." Hinagiku said, the Shaman's expression grew pained. "She is . . . The last Little Sister born in this Garden."

Kirche didn't miss the way that Yui tilted her head, or the way that the girl's eyes widened.

"I see." The Count said softly before smiling to Shion. "Hello Shion, my name is Arthur. It's a pleasure to meet you. So, what do you think?" The Count gestured to the rest of the clearing.

Shion looked about, bewildered by the activity all around her. "Uhm . . . What . . . What is all of this?"

"The humans are helping us to heal this Garden." Hinagiku explained to Shion. "It was a human that destroyed it, so the humans want to make right what was done." The girl looked uncertain at this, looking up at the humans.

The Count nodded solemnly. "What Hinagiku says is true. Some humans can be horrible Monsters, even as they are our good friends." The count reached into his shirt pocket to retrieve a small, round seed. "But most of us want to be good. Here, as the last child of this Garden, I think you should be the one to plant this."

Shion's eyes went round as she accepted the seed, bashfully, holding it close to herself in both arms. "What is it?" She asked.

The Count smiled. "It's a seed from a tree that grows in my garden."

"Humans have Gardens?" Shion asked with child like curiosity.

The Count nodded, "Yes, but it's not nearly as beautiful as the Pixie Gardens."

Shion looked down at the seed in her arms, biting her lip. "It's small . . . Like me." The girl observed.

Chuckling the Count nodded. "That it is, that it is. But keep in mind Shion, it's not what it is, it's what it will become." The Count carefully poked the girl's cheek. "By the time this tree is fully grown, this Garden will be full of Pixies once more. Until then, it will be a promise of that day."

The Pixie girl looked up at the count and nodded as she had just been told some great piece of wisdom. A moment later, she jumped back, startled as the four Tarbes Pixies flitted down to introduce themselves. Shion shied away, holding the seed like it was the most precious thing in the world.

"There's not need to be so nervous, Shion." Hinagiku said gently. "These are your Sisters, they are also from this Garden."

"That's right!" Celandine said, standing arms crossed in front of her sisters. "We're really happy to meet you Shion.

Keeping her arms around the Seed, Shion leaned forward and sniffed delicately at the air, then mellowed as she confirmed the identity of the other Pixies for herself. "I'm happy to meet you too." Her smiled widened. "Sisters!"

"Can we help you plant the seed?" Olive asked, "Please!" Shion looked thoughtful.

"You'll just kill it." Iris said flatly. "You just kill everything." Shion's eyes went wide and she backed away, shielding the seed with her body.

"No I don't!" Olive shouted at her sister before crossing her own arms. "Besides, Lily is really good with plants, so she can show me exactly what to do!"

Eventually the Tarbes Pixies convinced Shion that they wouldn't hurt the seedling and together flitted off towards the heart of the garden where the tree was to be planted at a fork in the footpath.

"She's a pretty cute kid." Kirche confessed.

"Hinagiku-san?" Yui asked cautiously. "That girl's . . . She's Sayuri-san . . . Isn't she?" For most of the Fae and Mages the name was only a name, but Kirche, the Count, and Euphrasie all responded with surprise.

Kirche felt her brows rise. "Wait, that was the crazy Pixie that wanted to execute us?" Try as she may, Kirche couldn't match that sweet little girl with the murderous Knight. "What happened to her?"

Hinagiku smiled sadly. "I cannot be certain. When we find Sayuri . . . When we found Shion . . . She was like this, returned to the form of a Little Sister. I think it may be because of how she was born. It it not natural for a Little Sister to be born a Knight. Perhaps her sickness was because she was holding this at bay to protect the Garden."

"She seems completely different now." Kirche said. "Has she forgotten everything?"

Hinagiku looked uncertain. "Some things. She remembers bits and pieces, some of her Sisters, and also some of the things she did as . . . as Sayuri. But, I think when she reverted, she lost the knowledge to place many of her memories context." The shaman observed from a distance as Shion interacted with her sisters. Olive had made Lily cry, again, and Shion had put herself between the two girls. Despite being barely half Olive's size, Shion stood on her tip toes, waving her arms and wings angrily as she accused Olive of being mean to her sister. The display brought a tired smile to Hinagiku's face. "Truthfully, she knows even less than a normal Little Sister. There are things she has to struggle to explain because she doesn't have the words. She has trouble flying. And she has such terrible nightmares. She needs much more attention than a normal newborn."

"She's like a human child." Yui explained to Hinagiku. "Human's aren't born with any knowledge, so there are extra things she'll have to learn that the other Little Sisters already know. Her cognitive development may also have been set back so she may not be able to behave herself properly just yet.

"She does have trouble listening." Hinagiku agreed. "Which is why I've decided to care for her personally. Even so . . . I think Shion is very blessed to have this second chance. She's such a warm Little Sister and even the other Little Sisters dote on her. I'm worried she'll be spoiled if this keeps up!" Hinagiku nodded to herself, "This is for the best I think. That only leaves one other matter to settle everything." Hinagiku drifted to Louise. "Louise-san, have you come to a decision?"

"A decision?" Kirche asked, "Have you been holding out on us?"

Louise scowled. "It's nothing like that. And to answer your question, Miss Hinagiku, I haven't had a chance to speak with my Mother or Father, but I would be happy to take Botan with me to speak with them."

"Botan?" Yui looked to the Vespid Knight who nodded back seriously.

"It's an important mission." Botan explained as she rested a hand on her needle sword. "There are still other Sisters from Sayuri-sama's garden. Isn't that right, Arthur-san?"

The Count nodded, the happiness from the moment before leaving him. "Y-yes. Yes, that's quite right. Fernand mentioned them. He said . . . He said they were taken to the Capital to be sold." The Count's expression darkened. "And also, I found a letter back from his anonymous buyers. They say that they are interested in acquiring more specimens."

Kirche made a disgusted look. There were a lot of things that mages might want specimens of a new magical species for. Not many of them were good.

"You're going to help them, right Arthur?" Euphrasie tugged at the Count's arm.

"I-I will try." The Count said slowly. "The Pixies don't have any legal protection from exploitation."

"We're going to have to change that." KoKo said flatly. Kirche found the conviction in the Faerie woman's voice quite impressive.

"Yes." The Count agreed. "And I will support whatever measures are decided on. But first we must find the stolen Pixies. For now at least I can demand their return. As game from my lands, they were unlawfully poached."

"The letter that the Count found gives us a lead." Louise said. "But we'll have to investigate further ourselves."

"So you'll be coming with us, Botan?" Yui asked. The small knight gave another nod. "Yes, someone from the Garden must go and try to bring back Sayuri's . . . Shion's lost sisters." The Knight settled into Yui hands and bowed politely. "Truthfully, I'm much too young to lead the Knights. Kigiku is a much better leader than me. And also . . . I am curious." Botan confessed. "I thought that humans were just beings that wanted to hurt us. But that's not the whole truth. I'd like to see and learn more, so that when I return to the Garden I can help my Sisters to avoid a tragedy like this ever happening again."

Everyone turned back watch as the Shion carefully placed the seed into the earth and began to reverently cover it in a light layer of soil. Celandine and Olive carefully pressed a wooden take into the ground to make the seed's location.

"I've been meaning to ask." KoKo spoke up. "Arthur-san . . . Where did that tree in your garden come from?"

"The Sakura tree?" The Count asked, seemingly pleased to discuss his flowers. Every one of the Fae stiffened. "It was a gift given to my mother as a seedling when I was born by a man who had settled in Tarbes. He was a peculiar fellow, him and his friend, but I recall he was hard worker, and well liked. I believe he passed away just last year. The tree in my garden is actually one of ten scattered across Tarbes, seeds that he brought from his homeland.

"And where did he say his homeland was?" KoKo asked carefully, Kirche looked around, the Fae seemed to be leaning in, all intent on hearing the answer.

"Why, that is the most peculiar thing, both he and his friend claimed that they were from another world entirely." The Count said. "I confess I've always thought it a ridiculous notion." The man looked thoughtful. "Though perhaps, not as ridiculous as I had thought. In any case, they simply appeared in Tarbes one day, along with the strangest contraption. They claimed it was an airship. But they were never able to make it fly. Still, some of the Villagers believed them and they ingratiated themselves so well that it was enshrined as a sacred artifact . . . Is something wrong?"

"Arthur-san." KoKo's ears were twitching furiously as if her mind was in overdrive. "What were the names of these men, if you don't mind."

The Count seemed to have to struggle to recall. "They were quite peculiar names, I'm afraid it's been quite a long time. But I believe the man who gave my mother the seedling was named Iwatani and his friend was named Ogawa. He said that they were soldiers of some sort and that he carried the seeds as good luck."

The Fae were all looked at one another now. "Arthur. This sacred artifact." KoKo said. "May we see it?"

* * *

"This is it?" Klein asked as he starred at the object that occupied that simple wooden shrine. The building itself wasn't all that impressive save for its size. But it had to be to hold the contents.

"Yes, this is my uncle's and father's sacred artifact." Roseau said with a hint of pride. "They had a name for it, but over time it's just come to be called the Dragonfly's Vestment. Nobody has ever seen it fly of course. Father always said that it wasn't broke, just out of energy, but it can't be charged like a Windstone. Some magic of his homeland I suppose."

"I hate to break this to you, but this thing isn't magic." Klein said as he walked closer to get a better view. "But believe me, it does fly."

"Really?" Roseau sounded quite interested. "Then do you have airships like this in your homeland."

"You could say that." Klein placed a hand on the smooth metal of the fuselage.

Leafa followed suits circling around the opposite side of the Dragonfly's Vestment until she came to stand before the open doors of a wide compartment that took up most of the insectile craft's interior.

"Klein?" Leafa said. Behind Leafa, KoKo held Silica close while she mouthed something to herself.

"Yeah, I know." The Salamander took a breath. This thing was unmistakeable, pretty much anyone who'd ever seen a war movie would know what it was, Klein more than most. Hell, he'd had the plastic Tamiya model on his desk as a kid, thought he'd never quite been able to get the rotors to sit straight no matter what he did.

"So this thing can really fly?" Louise asked as she walked up and lightly kicked the fuselage with her shoe. "Without magic? Impossible! It doesn't even have proper wings!"

This sentiment was shared by Kirche and even Tabitha, or maybe the Gallian girl just wanted to go back to sleep, Klein could never tell.

"Oh, believe me, this baby can fly." Klein placed a hand on the hull. "It can fly so well, the guys who built it made thousands of them."

"Thousands?" Louise said in disbelief.

"Man, it looks like it's in great shape too." Klein observed.

Roseau nodded, "A spell of preservation. Father thought it would be a waste to just let it rot away. He and uncle brought the village a good deal of prosperity, so nobody complained about their strange obsessions."

"Well, I can tell you this, it wasn't a strange obsession." Klein said. "And this thing isn't called the Dragonfly's Vestment."

"Oh?" The Village Chief asked. "Then what is it."

Thinking back, Klein could just imagine the box art of the Tamiya kit he had bought as a kid. How old had he been? Ten? Yeah, just before he'd fallen in love with video games. "It's called, an Iroquois."

* * *

At last, with the situation in Tarbes stabilized and the Villagers and Pixies settling into an uneasy but optimistic peace. Louise and the others could finally declare their mission complete. All that was left now was to return to the Capital and lodge their report. And there was quite a lot to report, Louise thought.

First there was the very existence of the Pixies and their peculiar behavior and abilities. From the way the Fae talked, she was sure they would want to have the Pixies added into the treaty as the tenth Faerie race. Louise Thought that Henrietta would probably agree with them. In fact, Louise agreed with them. The Pixies were much too delicate to survive for long on their own. Not with the predation of thieves, brigands, and corrupt masses of the low nobility.

Then there had been the matter of the boss mob. Louise remember that the Faeries had originally been sent to gather information about the behavior of such beasts. KoKo and Gaius had both thought that Lhamthanc's behavior had changed drastically. That was important to know as it would affect how the crown would deal with other mobs when they were found. Either they would have to start hunting down and exterminating the dormant 'bosses' or else Faeries would have to be assigned to patrol the wild areas and keep watch for any of the mobs awakening.

Finally, there had been the strange contraption that Klein had insisted was called an 'Ooo Ehch One Iroquois', supposedly some sort of small airship from the Fae's own world, though Louise still couldn't see how it could fly. Klein had said it was like a windmill, but instead of being driven by the wind, it generated a powerful wind to push itself off the ground. But that was absurd. As large as the windmill vanes on the machine had been, they would have had to spin at tremendous speed to generate enough wind to get off of the ground. She would have dismissed the claims altogether if the other Faeries hadn't seemed to find Klein's claims completely reasonable.

Louise sat behind Tabitha, her arms wrapped around Yui to hold the injured girl steady. Louise kept her head down as the wind whipped by. She'd lent her goggles to Yui so that the younger girl would be able to see clearly. Yui didn't seem to mind the wind in the least and actually seemed to be quite enjoying herself as she clung to Tabitha with her good arm. Up ahead of Tabitha, sitting atop Sylphied's head like bow decoration of an airship, Pina sat, nose pointed into the wind. The small dragon's wing was healed enough to fly, but Silica hadn't wanted her to try travelling all the way back to Tristania just yet.

"Gyaah!" Botan's black feathered dragon, the same once ridden by Sayuri, glided easily beside Sylphied, the Vespid Knight riding low atop his neck. From time to time the black feathered dragon would try to fly closer to Pina, only to back off as the larger female drake hissed at him. Apparently, dragon females, like their human counterparts, weren't very forgiving.

The flight to Tristania was slightly shorter than the flight back to the Academy but it felt longer, in part because of the sense of anticipation. Seeing the Capital spread out beneath them, home to Henrietta and the Royal Court of Tristain, Louise's heart had welled up with pride. She'd actually been a little disappointed at how unimpressed the Faeries had seemed.

"Tabitha, take us down near the Castle!" Louise instructed, shouting over the wind before adding. "But don't land too closely or we'll get in trouble with the Griffin Knights." Even if they were reporting on a mission for the Crown, that didn't mean they could just barge in.

Sylphid had descended in gently to land along a strip of open land near the far wall of the Palace, the Faeries touching down just as Louise dismounted. A pair of Guards were already running towards them. Commoner musketeers by the looks of them. Naturally, even the Commoner guards assigned to the Palace would be of the highest quality.

"Halt and state your business!" The lead musketeer rumbled, hand resting easily on the hilt of his sword.

Louise took the lead. "I am Louise Francois Le Blanc de La Valliere, we are here to lodge my report on the completion of our mission."

The man gave Louise and appraising look and then looked to the Faeries and Mages behind her. "Just one moment, we have to clear it with the Guard Captain." The musketeer gestured for his partner to return to go find their Captain, leaving them to wait and giving Louise ample time to stew. She tried to remind herself that this was just regulations, their report wasn't so pressing that they could just barge in.

At last the second Musketeer returned, giving them the all clear. As soon as they passed beyond the outer wall of the Palace, Louise knew that something was wrong. She hadn't been to the Palace in a long time. Not since her days as Henrietta's playmate. But always, even as a Child, Louise had marvelled at the serenity of this place. Its manicured gardens and artful fountains, the muted corridors with their tall windows and deep red carpets and curtains, the hundreds of servants and Royal retainers, officials, and bureaucrats going about their business. The Palace was an untouchable place, a pool of peace in the bustle of the Capital, at least on the surface anyways.

But now that illusion had been shattered. People were running to and fro, messengers carrying reports while Griffin and Dragon Knights were gathered together, speaking amongst themselves like they were readying for a mission. Louise even spotted a few Fae flitting to and fro. Salamanders and Sylphs for the most part, but here and there darkly dressed Spriggan or cat eared Cait Sith.

"What's going on here?" Kirche wondered aloud. Louise felt the weight of Botan's feathered dragon settling on her shoulder. The Knight looked completely overwhelmed but was doing her best to keep it in check.

"I don't know." Klein admitted as he spotted someone among the throngs of scurrying people. "But we're about to find out. Oy, Argo!"

A hooded figure turned at the shout, waiting as the Fae and Mages followed Klein. The figure turned out to be a Cait Sith girl with the most peculiar markings on her face, like cat's whiskers. Were they scars? Makeup?

"Well look who the cat decided to drag in." The girl said as Klein came into earshot.

"We came to file our report." Klein said as his attention was suddenly grabbed by a Sylph flying, literally, down the hallway, using her wings to travel above the scurrying human couriers and officials.

Argo gave a small snort. "You think I'm worried about that now? Toss is on the pile, I'll get to it later."

Klein looked nonplussed at this. "What the hell is going on around here?"

"You mean you don't know?" The Cait Sith asked and then shook her head. "Of course not! That would mean something was going right. Follow me." Argo gestured before she resumed her progress down the hall.

Louise was impressed, she thought that she could storm, but this 'Argo' had raised the act of projecting her presence as she moved to an art form. The beauty was in the follow through, Argo had already decided to take the shortest route from her start to her destination and only a complete idiot could miss that they were in real danger of being run over if they didn't get out of the way. Despite her size and the general chaos all around them, a wake of calm extended around the Cait Sith like an invisible wedge was battering the crowd aside.

"Just who is this person?" Louise asked KoKo.

KoKo smiled awkwardly. "Well, I don't know her very well, but she's known as Argo the Rat. She's an information broker." Louise stared blankly at the term. "Ah, she buys and sells secrets."

"So she's a spymaster." Louise decided. Preposterous! The girl was much too young. Though now that she thought about it, she'd never really asked how Fae aged. By the Founder! Silica might be her senior! No, Louise shook her head, that wasn't important right now.

"Look, sorry for earlier. We sent a messenger but they must have just missed you at Tarbes." Argo explained. "Things have been a little hectic around here since morning."

"Why? What happened?" Klein asked again.

Argo spun around. "I'll just let the people at the top explain for themselves." With that odd comment, Argo pushed open wood panelled door, depositing Louise, and the others before a collection of Mages and Faeries. Louise paused as she took the sight in.

The first person she identified was Henrietta, the Princess had a look of pure misery on her face that would have alerted Louise that was something was wrong even if everything else she had seen hadn't. The next was her mother, Louise trembled, she'd thought she'd seen her mother angry before, she was wrong, she'd never seen mother truly angry until just now. The only thing that allowed her to tear her eyes from the Duchess was the fact that said anger was not apparently directed at her or anyone else in the room. Last, her eyes settled on a gray haired man, tall and lean, Louise thought he was most likely General Gramont and for a moment realized she was probably looking at Guiche in thirty or forty years if the nitwit ever lost his foppishness.

Her attention was next drawn to the Faeries. Three in particular stood out. A beautiful green robed woman with long dark hair. Hung from her shoulder as casually as a noblewoman might carry a handbag, was a long curved sword. From glimpses she had caught at the academy and what she had heard from Henrietta, she thought this woman must be Lady Sakuya of the Sylphs. Beside her stood another woman with striking features and long black hair tied into a thick braid. A Spriggan. The dress she wore would not have been out of place in a ballroom, but the knife at her waist and the immense spear she carried casually over her shoulder destroyed the illusion. Finally there was a Salamander with shoulder length red hair and cold red eyes. She was fairly certain he was Lord Mortimer.

Louise felt the blood drain from her face. Argo had just thrown them into the middle of a high level meeting. Was the girl insane?!

"Daughter?" The Duchess quirked an eyebrow. "I trust your mission was successful?" The question was asked as if the world was not coming apart around them, as if Louise had been asked to perform a task no more taxing than delivering that maid's blasted letter!

"Y-yes, Mother, I've a written full report for the Lords and Crown Faeries to review." Louise stumbled and then shook her head. "I mean, the mission was a success and I have drafted a report."

"Very good Louise, I will review your report when the opportunity presents itself. That is at least one thing that has gone right this day." In an uncharacteristic show of weariness, the Duchess rubbed tiredly at her temple. That small gesture, more than anything, terrified Louise.

"M-mother? Just what is happening." Louise asked.

The Duchess sighed. "I fear that a mistake has been made."

"It's my fault." Henrietta said. "If I had never written that blasted letter . . ."

"But you did." Lady Sakuya said, the tone not angry, but rather, severe. "And now we must accept the consequences."

"No, fault does not lay with Henrietta." The Duchess said. "Blame falls on her advisers. We were the ones who selected him for this mission."

"Don't blame yourself Karin." General Gramont said. Louise blinked, never in her life had she heard anyone call her moth by her first name. "He had an excellent reputation, his credentials were flawless." The General shook his head. "We were simply outfoxed this time."

"Mother?" Louise asked in a small voice.

The Duchess opened her eyes slowly and for a moment Louise saw the promise of mayhem. "I fear, Daughter, that I must inform you that your fiancee is a traitor."


	42. Halkegenia Offline Set 3

Well, the latest Halk Offline is made up of some rather high purity crack and has considerable variety. Considers yourselves warned.

Halk Offline - Set 3

-A Demographic Problem-

"Basically, we're about to have a demographic problem." The Doctor said as he pulled out a thin, hand rolled cigarette and started patting his coat. "Shit, what I'd do for some matches."

Calmly, the Salamander Lord leaned in and with a whispered chant conjured a flame in his hand. The Undine gave a small nod of thanks.

"Is that really necessary?" Sakuya asked with a hint of distaste. The campaign against smoking that had started a few years ago had reached a fever pitch by the mid 20s and Sakuya had always viewed it as an unhealthy habit.

"I've got a new set of lungs, I'm going to enjoy them." The young looking Undine said.

"Like you were saying, demographics?" Mortimer pressed.

"What? Oh, right. Well, think about it. The average avatar appearance was either randomly generated or custom made, right? A few people used image capture programs to scan in their own appearance but those are fairly rare. Most people like the idea of being exotically pretty or handsome or whatever while they're playing a fantasy game."

"That's true." Lady Sakuya admitted, while her real life self hadn't been unattractive, she couldn't exactly complain about her more glamorous appearance as a Sylph.

"Even with randomization I'd imagine avatars are more attractive on average than in real life." Mortimer agreed. "For marketing purposes if nothing else."

"Right." The Doctor agreed, "No one wants to fly around in a game full of acne ridden teens and fat asses."

"Your point?" Mortimer asked slowly, though Sakuya suspected that the Salamander lord had reached the same conclusion as her. She groaned inwardly.

The man squinted in disbelief and muttered something about 'frickin shut in virgins.' "My point, is that you have sixty thousand people, most of them are either hormonal teens, college students, social recluses, or lifelong gamers who are middle aged or up. They're all young again and in their physical prime, hell about quarter of them have been turned into their physical ideal, and they've been denied a lot of their old outlets for entertainment and diversion." The man took a drag from his cigarette and exhaled. "Put simply, they're gonna fuck like bunnies."

* * *

-Faces of the Past/Therapy-

So busy reading over her notes on the way to class, the youngest Valliere daughter was only alerted by the hint of motion out of the corner of her eye. Louise had only an instant to dodge before she was struck in the face by what felt vaguely like an overstuffed pillow causing her to fall back flat on her posterior. She looked up, shaking her head in confusion as she tried to figure out what had just hit her.

"Oh my gosh! Lulu! Are you alright?" An almost familiar voice asked.

"I'm fine, fine." Louise replied automatically as her hands swepped the ground for her dropped books and notes. "You should just watch where . . . you're . . . going . . ." She trailed off as she was left starring.

Standing above her was a young woman with shortly cropped, light brown hair and large brown eyes that made her think a bit of Siesta or one of the Fae. She double checked that the ears protruding from the sides of the woman's head were indeed properly rounded, completely human. That was not what gave her pause. 'They're bigger than Leafa's! Nobody has bigger ones than Leafa!' Louise starred at the way the woman's blouse stretched generously under the assistance of gravity as she leaned forward to offer her hand.

"Is something wrong Lulu?" The woman asked, concern writ large on her face. "You didn't get hurt in that spill did you?"

Where had she heard that voice before? Louise wondered, and then it clicked. Add a faint nasal inflection and you got . . . "Lady Alicia?" Louise stuttered as the strikingly human, strikingly voluptuous woman helped her to her feet. "What happened to you?!"

An embarrassed little grin crossed the not presently Faerie's face. She posed before Louise showing off an admirable figure currently shrouded in a soft yellow blouse and trousers of that durable blue fabric that some of the Fae preferred for their casual clothing. "Ah, does it not look good? It's an illusion spell the headmaster let us borrow. See? This is what I looked like back home."

Louise's mind could be compared to clockwork, it was systematic, it was orderly, and someone had just thrown sand into the gears. She'd known the Fae had been human, this was something she had internalized after her time with KoKo, but she had never quite fully grasped how completely their illusions had changed them until now.

"What are you doing like that here in the academy of all places?!" Louise would have thrown her hands up if not for risk of dropping her books.

"Oh. It's therapy." Alicia explained.

"Therapy?" Louise wondered. Was Alicia physically unwell? How as this supposed to help?

"Yeah." Alicia nodded her head, her loose hair bobbed in time with the motion. "It's supposed to help with lingering identity issues. You know, waking up in someone else's skin? We're supposed to do this once a week and then talk about it."

"Arisa-chan?" A slender woman in a white blouse and dark slacks appeared in a doorway a few paces down the hall. Louise squinted, the woman had black hair that fell just past her shoulders, tied up in pigtails. She was wearing a pair of glasses, but for some reason the wire frames held no lenses. "We're about to get started."

"Right! Coming Sakura-chan." The woman turned back down the hall. "I'll be seeing you later Lulu."

Starring after the absurd scene, Louise started slowly back down the hall before stopping in her tracks. Beyond the door she could hear quiet talking. Dare she? She wondered, turning slowly towards the door. Maybe just a peek.

Creeping closer, she looked inside, and into a world of complete madness. Five young women were seated in a semi circular arrangement around a sixth chair. Sitting cross legged before her patients was . . . Yui? The small girl was dressed in a red blouse and comfortable looking slacks, a long white coat hanging off the back of her chair as if it had just been removed. On the desk behind her a flower vase had been arranged and she held a small book in her hands.

Seated counter clockwise around the room was first 'Alicia', then the woman who had gone by 'Sakura' followed by a very dainty woman with long black hair and pale skin, a woman with reddish brown hair and an athletic figure, and finally a girl who couldn't have been any older than Louise but was at least as endowed as Leafa and Kirche.

The 'therapy' had already started.

"And how does that make you feel?" Yui was asking the woman at the center of the group. Yui smiled. "It's okay, everyone here is having a hard time, so we'll all understand if you let out your troubles. You don't have to wear your mask in here."

The woman nodded reluctantly, giving everyone an uncertain look. "I just . . . I don't know if I'm ready for this." She mumbled. "I mean, he's a good guy, and . . . I want to have kids. But do I want to have his kids? Right now? And with all of this?" The woman hugged herself tightly. "My own mother was awful. The only one in my family I was ever close to was my sister. I mean, putting on a brave face, being this strong warrior for the rest of my guild. That's easy. But I don't know . . . I don't know if I can be a good mother." She trembled.

The reddish brown haired woman leaned in and hugged her gently. "There, there." She smiled. "I thought the same way with . . . with my own child. My husband was always working, I had to give up my own career, and I really felt I was sacrificing myself. But don't worry, if you're worried like this, it mean's you'll definitely do your best to be a good mom."

"Un, that's what my mom told me." The dark haired girl who appeared to be the youngest person in the room said. "She was worried too, but after I was born she said she just wanted to try her best. As long as you love your child, it should turn out alright."

Louise didn't know what to make of the scene before her. These women were really Faeries? They were hardly conducing themselves like nobles, voicing their concerns like that. Before she could think any more of it, Louise heard the chiming of bells as the servants announced the beginning of classes. She was late! Sparring only one more glance into the room, the faux glasses woman was talking now, saying something about her siblings back home but Louise had no time to listen further. Masked by the sound of bells, Louise ran off down the hallway, hopefully Professor Colbert would forgive her tardiness.

* * *

-Faulty Intelligence-

"So far as can be told. 'Midori'* is a female human mage of limited wind affinity, see attached document C3. Intelligence suggests that the subjects mother may be one Karin Desiree De La Valliere, conceived and born as an illegitimate child. Father is believed to be a Rub Al Khali'd male, possibly a mage. Rumors suggest the subject was sent away to be raised by retainers of the family, either to avoid a scandal or for reasons discussed in appended document A5.

Study of Valliere family history and health problems reported with the youngest daughters suggests a potential mage enhancement program conducted by the Kingdom of Tristain. This would peg Midori as being the youngest daughter who may or may not represent a finished product. Drawing on research reports from our own alchemic enhancement programs and factoring in metabolic acceleration, this would mark the subjects chronological age as between eight and fifteen depending on the degree of treatment. Further study of the third Valliere daughter suggests failed application of the same treatment resulting in stunted development. Subject has not displayed any of the symptoms of mental or metabolic instability seen in our own research subjects."

"The subjects training is in an unspecified sword style believed to have originated in the far east. No offensive magic has been reported, however it is believed the subject uses a limited wind affinity to further increase her speed and reflexes in battle. The subject has also been reported fighting with a two sword style though appears to preferentially use a one handed sword of unspecified origin. The exact nature of this sword is undetermined but believed to be a sword-wand."

"Thus far the subject has been deployed most often on infiltration missions. Surprisingly, given he reported combat prowess, casualties had been consistently low during every confirmed sighting."

"Possessing no defining magical spells nor having any apparent formal education, the subject has not received a runic title. However frequent deployment in low visibility environments and the subject's preference for dark clothing has resulted in the epitaph 'the Black Night Fury' being assigned to her by members of the radical revolutionary movement known as Reconquista."

(This little gem comes from an intercepted Gallian Intelligence report . . . Maybe we shouldn't tell the Duchess about this. - Argo)

* * *

-Yui! No Boys!-

KoKo sat, arms hanging off the windowsill looking out on the house garden to where a little girl, Kirigaya Yui, was dutifully obeying the instructions given to her by her aunt, striking out repeatedly at the air in quick controlled strokes of the wooden training sword. At her side, Leafa stood, arms crossed seriously as she critically regarded her student's progress. Even with her hair pulled back in a ponytail and with that look of utter concentration, it was obvious that the girl was going to be as beautiful as her mother in a few year. The hunter suppressed the dull ache of her own loss and instead smiled mischievously as a thought occurred to her.

"What is it?" Kirito asked, looking up from the book of Halkegenian history that he was struggling to get through.

"I was just thinking." The hunter said, rolling her head along the windowsill so that she could give Kirito a wink. "You know, Yui-chan's going to be a little heart breaker in a couple of years."

The Black Swordsman of Aincrad frowned and then looked back down at his book. "Very funny." He said flatly. KoKo gave it a few seconds to sink in. Suddenly Kirito's frown changed into an expression of alarm.

"S-seriously?" KoKo smiled and nodded wisely. "A couple of years?"

"Well, yeah. You didn't think she'd stay your little girl forever, did you? Carmond's nephew even gave her flowers the other day." She savored the look of complete mortification on the young Spriggan's face.

"Asuna!" He shouted, half rising from his seat and turning to his wife who was in the middle of preparing lunch.

"There's no problem. Honestly, it's rather sweet. She didn't quite know what to make of the flowers." Asuna replied easily. "Yui-chan needs to learn about these things at her own pace."

"That's not the point!" Kirito snapped. "She'll . . . She'll end up getting hurt!"

"Aren't you the one who wanted her to learn to use a sword?" Asuna asked.

"So that she can protect herself!" Kirito said.

"And this is also so that she can protect herself." Asuna said with an annoyed look. "She's not that fragile, Kirito. We both agreed when we became a proper family that we wanted Yui-chan to have a happy childhood." Smiling. "And even if someone breaks her heart, that's part of growing up too."

Kirito looked incredibly unhappy about this development. Putting down his book, he walked up to the windowsill. "Yui!" The girl looked up from her training, seemingly startled by the shout. "No boys!"

Blinking a few times in confusion the girl smiled and nodded as if it was obvious advice.

"You know . . ." KoKo trailed off. "She might end up liking girls." The hunter had to struggle not to keel over laughing at the priceless look that crossed Kirito's face. She wished someone would hurry and invent cameras because Argo would have payed her a fortune to preserve that look for posterity.

* * *

-Some Simple Rules for Dating my Daughter-

"And remember Bardiche-kun." The Black Swordsman said with a big smile. "If you ever hurt Yui, the only ones who can out run me are the White Flash and the Wild Wind."

The boy shrank away, "L-Leafa-sensei?"

Kirito nodded evilly. "So that means?"

"I hold her hand."

"And?"

"I buy her a strawberry milkshake."

"And?"

"I get her home by sunset."

"And?"

"And I give her a kiss . . ."

The Black Swordsman gave him an emotionless stare.

"On the cheek!"

Satisfied, Kirito smiled. "I think we understand each other Bardiche-kun."

"I'm ready!" Yui said, skipping down the stairs. The girl had sprouted up a couple of inches over the past year and wore her long hair like her aunt's so as to keep it out of the way. Dressed in a blouse and khaki shorts and clutching a wide brimmed hat, she looked ready to enjoy her day at the riverside.

"You're not forgetting anything, are you?" Kirito asked as he hugged his daughter.

"Mmm,mmm." She shook her head. "Grandpa Nishida said he knows a really good spot along the river, and Aunt Liz is coming too!"

"I heard!" Kirito said, stroking his daughter's hair, Liz and Nishida being there as chaperones was the only reason he was letting Yui go ahead with her little 'relationship' experiment.

"Come on, Bardiche-kun!" The boy let out a shout as Yui grabbed his hand and began pulling him out the door. They were barely out onto the street before the two were summoning their wings, Yui's the pure white of a Maeve and Bardiche's the green dragonfly wings of a Sylph.

"Have fun!" Kirito shouted after them.

No sooner had they passed from sight then Kirito let out a long sigh. How long could he keep this up?

"I'm home!" Asuna said, coming though the front door with a bag of groceries from the market.

"Welcome home." Kirito said reflexively, "Ah, let me take that for you."

"Thanks." Asuna said and looked around. "Did Yui-chan and Bardiche-kun already leave?"

Kirito nodded, "Un. Just a few minutes ago."

"Good . . ." Then Asuna's eyes narrowed. "Kirito . . . You didn't do anything strange did you."

Her husband scratched the back of his head nervously. "Strange? Of course not!" He smiled.

Sighing, his wife shook her head in disbelief. "I'll just have to do damage control I suppose."

"Really I didn't do anything strange!" Kirito defended. "I was just my normal charming self."

Asuna poked him accusingly in the chest, "Exactly!"

* * *

-Casting Call-

"And why should I be playing this part?" Lisbeth asked suspiciously.

Caramella starred at her levelly. "You seem like the perfect stand in for a chased Goddess of Hope."

"Like hell!" Lisbeth spat.

"Okay, honestly, you have pink hair." Caramella said flatly.

Lisbeth crossed her arms, glaring suspiciously at the other woman. "And why the hell would I submit to this kind of embarrassment for a bunch of weird thirty something Otaku?"

"Well there's the pay." Caramella pointed out.

Liz snorted.

Kofu tapped her apprentice on the shoulder and pointed to the far side of the stage. "Because 'he's' your costar." Tugging at one long strand of hair, a very female Kirito adjusted her prop glasses while reading over her lines. Kofu leaned in and grinned evilly. "You read over the fifth act, right? The Heroine sacrificing herself for her love is saved by that love making an even bigger sacrifice and then their last words to each other and . . ."

The junior sword smith turned faintly pink. "I'm in!" Lisbeth said quickly.

"Are you su . . . " Kofu asked.

"I . . . AM . . . IN! Now gi'me that script!" Lisbeth stormed off giggling like a deranged school girl.

The swordsmith stroked her chin thoughtfully. "You know . . . When I watched this back when I was on my classic anime binge . . . I'm pretty sure the story didn't end this way."

"It's fine." Caramella said quickly. "It works just fine this way!"

Kofu gave Caramella an odd look and then shrugged. "If you say so. Anyways, we're sure to make back the money on novelty value alone."

"Yes . . . The money." Caramella said absently as she wiped a thin line of drool from her cheek.

"Pina hold still! I have to put these on your wings!" Silica shouted as she held a pair of golden rings.

"Kyaa!" Pina hissed back. The dragon was already annoyed after having all of her beautiful feathers dyed white!

"Hold still Pina!" Yui cried out as she clung on for dear life. "We need to practice our part!" The pixie girl coughed to clear her throat. "Would you like to make a contract with me?"

* * *

-Sayuri's Cunning Plan-

Standing at the front of the chamber, hands on hips, Sayuri glared imperiously at her subordinates. At last she had managed to, at least partially, reassert control from that simpleton girl, though her body remained tragically diminished.

Damn those beings and what they had done to her!

"As experience has shown us." Sayuri squeaked, struggling and failing to achieve the low calm menacing tone that she had once wielded so easily. "We cannot defeat the beings in terms of raw military power." Yes, this had been made abundantly clear during the Tarbes Campaign. "Instead, we must seek to turn the beings power against them from within."

Sayuri pointed to the note pad that she had propped against the wall. The Knights wouldn't let Shion even have so much as a toothpick, much less a needle sword. Apparently they thought the unnaturally immature Little Sister might hurt herself with such things! So Sayuri had to make due with a stiff blade of grass.

"To achieve this, we will infiltrate their society and ingratiate ourselves with their leadership." Sayuri struck the notepad with her grass blade pointer. "To this end we will issue our agents with suitable camouflage. We have learned that the beings utilize members of the non magic sub variety to perform menial cleaning and food preparation tasks. These workers frequently go unnoticed by their leaders, making them ideally placed to overhear vital intelligence and intercept communications."

Stupid beings! If they didn't even look after their Little Sisters better they deserved to be fooled by something like this!

Flipping the notepad's page, Sayuri pointed to a surprisingly well drawn illustration. Being the only sharp things that she was allowed, Sayuri had grown depressingly good with using quills to paint and draw and wasp stinger needles to sew.

"The basic camouflage consists of a uniform like so, with an extended ankle length skirt and apron. Long stockings and polished black footwear also appear to be expected. The hair piece appears to be optional, but highly desirable in the servants of the higher ranking leaders. There are of course variations on this uniform, but given our resemblance to being females, this is the most appropriate."

Sayuri had already completed the prototype in her spare time which now hung at the front of the room on display.

"Obviously, Vespid Knights are completely unsuited to this sort of menial work. The Task will therefore have to fall to our bravest Little Sisters." Naturally that did not include a Knight like Sayuri, of course not!

She let out a sigh of frustration. It was almost too much! She was a Knight, a strong and beautiful elder sister of the Garden! To be reduced to this state was almost unbearable. Ironically, it was because of her condition that she received so many special privileges, but it wasn't because the others respected her or admired her ability. It was . . . pity. They pitied their damaged Little Sister.

And who knew what they might do if they found out that on occasion, their sweet Little Sister Shion would remember who she really was and rage against them all. Of course, Shion, sweet little Shion with her disgustingly unreserved love for everyone and everything, would always end up back in control when next she fell asleep. Sayuri would . . . forget herself as she dreamed, until something reminded her and the cycle started all over again. She tried leaving reminders where Shion would be sure to find them. In that way, Sayuri had gained some partial control.

"We will introduce ourselves as has been done by the Pixies around the Fae Capital as Pixies struck with wonderlust and seeking employment in the greater world. Given the extensive use of Pixies at the Being Magic Academy and the Faerie Library, this should make an acceptable cover. Our agents will then work diligently to reach the highest ranks of the servant class where they might be permitted to work in areas containing sensitive information. From there we can pursue a policy of altering the flow of this information to achieve our own agenda. Thus turning the being's own strength against themselves!"

Hah! And that foolish Count had thought teaching her to read was such a good idea. She been given free run of his library and read all about the being arts of politics and warfare. That foolish, idealistic, handsome, strikingly brave . . . Sayuri shook her head furiously as Shion's impressions of the count took hold. It seemed Shion had already been corrupting her from the inside when the Count had pulled her from the waters around the Yggdrasil shoot. He had left a . . . strong . . . impression on the Little Sister's mind, only strengthened by their first real meeting in the burned garden.

"Are there any questions?" She turned to her audience to be confronted by completed silence. Glittering pale blue eyes swept the room.

A half dozen pairs of glossy black eyes starred back. One of Sayuri's dolls, her first sewing attempt and quite . . . crude . . . at that, fell from its chair.

"Shion!" Hinagiku called from the other room and the former Knight Leader stood stock straight. "Shion I brought some seed cakes. Do you want one? Where are you?"

"I'm in the other room! Don't come in yet." Sayuri shouted. "I . . . I need a minute!" She hurried to close up the notepad and push it back into its corner. This was the special room that Shion had all to herself since spending time with the other Little Sisters tired her so quickly

"Shion?" Hinagiku called. "Did you wet the bed again?"

Sayuri turned beat read. "No I did not!" She shouted back, the underdeveloped muscles of her wing stems causing her wings to shake in time with her arms.

How could Hinagiku say something like that?! It had just been sweat! She thought furiously, she just sweat a lot. That was all!

* * *

-Love Potion Hijinks-

"You spilled it?" Klein asked in a voice that was near breaking.

"It was an accident!" Montmorency said. "My stupid boyfriend was supposed to drink it, not . . . not . . . " She trailed off as Klein heard a faint shumf and there was a flash of light at his back. The water mage pointed dumbly behind him.

'Please don't let that be what I think it is . . . Please don't let that be what I think it is . . .' Klein prayed.

"K-Klein-kun." A demure voice whispered. Transformed into his faction disguise, Kirito looked from beneath long black hair, that pale face exuding pure inoccence, his . . .her . . . skin was so pale that when she blushed, her whole face seemed flush from breastbone to forehead.

"K-Kirito!" Klein took a step back, only for his motion to be matched by Kirito stepping forward. "What are you doing?"

Shifting uncomfortably the female Kirito looked down, "I know you wouldn't accept me in my real form Klein-kun . . . But maybe like this?"

'Oh, you have got to be kidding me!' Slowly, Klein's head turned to Montmorency who gave a small look of horror. Klein's eyes promised terrible vengeance on the water mage.

Reaching forward, Klein grabbed Kirito by the shoulders shook his friend gently. "Come on Kirito, snap out of it, you're not yourself right now!" The Salamander suddenly felt vice like hands closing around his wrists as Kirito pouted.

"Don't say something like that Klein-kun!" The girl. No! Don't think of her, him, as a girl, don't think of him as a girl! Its a trap!

"I want to be with you forever . . . Klein . . . I love you!"

"Hmm?" Alicia's ears perked up as she looked up from her lunch. "Did anyone else hear that." She asked as she sat cross legged on the grass of the Vestri Courtyard. Germanian history was pretty interesting, but the class was so long. Really, there should be a break in the middle for snacks and a nap!

"Hear what?" Kirche asked as she took an experimental bite of the cucumber salad. Asuna was pretty amazing, Alicia decided, she'd managed to whip up quite a few clever little recipes that caught the spirit if not the exact flavors of home. And it had been so nice of Kirito to share. Guiche had even been kind enough to share that bottle of whine, too bad the rest had gotten spilled.

Alicia tilted her head, ears twitching, "It sounded like . . . Well, it sounded like the screams of the damned."

"And you would know what that sounds like, how exactly?" Louise asked.

The Cait Syth leader stood stretched languidly, "Well . . . It's probably nothing."


	43. Chapter 12 Part 1

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 12 - Part 1

Guiche de Gramont, fourth son of the great General Gramont, and now an agent proudly in the service of the Crown of Tristain, guided his horse at a steady trot along the smoothly paved surface of the Royal Highway, following closely behind his two traveling companions. As they rode through farmlands and passed cities and market towns, they frequently passed other travelers, merchants transporting their wares, and commoners off to market. So normal was the scene along the highway that it was hard to believe anything had changed in these past few weeks. That was, until the highway cut through some sudden patch of forest, or sliced imperfectly along an alien looking hillside. The signs of ALfheim were subtly present everywhere if one bothered but to look.

Guiche noted quite a few military patrols, both commoner foot soldiers with mage support and Fae squadrons. If memory served, they weren't far from the Faerie City of Gaddan, the Salamander zone of influence. The Royal Highway was a vital thoroughfare and both the Crown and Faerie Lords had made its protection a priority in the ongoing efforts to clean up and contain the mobs. With so much attention lavished upon the roadway's security, the risk of bandits had also diminished and the general atmosphere among the travelers was carefree as the sun began to rise towards noon.

The relaxed atmosphere gave the young Gramont son the opportunity to consider and admire his two traveling companions respectively.

The first was Viscout Wardes, Captain of the Royal Griffin Knights and Guiche's superior on this mission. At the moment, the man was mounted atop his Griffin, the legendary beast easily keeping pace with the two mundane horses. Both master and mount possessed a sharp and alert posture despite their surroundings, speaking of past experience in battle. The opportunity to work with such an accomplished mage on his first mission was a great opportunity and honor.

His second companion, and surely the one who had occupied much of his time since setting out, was the young Swordswoman Midori. Guiche glanced over slyly. The girl rode at the Viscounts side, long, glossy black hair swaying with the gait of her horse. Guiche noted curiously that while Midori had excellent riding posture she nonetheless looked quite uncomfortable, shifting and squirming in the saddle. Not that Guiche could complain given his position and the black trousers that she was wearing. With her small stature and delicate features, Midori looked endearingly fragile despite her dark garb and sword. More like a princess than a soldier. Surely the notion that such a creature could be a Swordswoman, at home in battle, would have been ridiculous if the Princess herself hadn't introduced her as such.

Really, it was just one of many mysteries about the beautiful young woman. Guiche found he rather enjoyed the mystique, it gave Midori an allure that was lacking from the noble girls at the academy. Accepting of course his radiant Montmorency to who his affections naturally gravitated. To wile away the time on the road, the young Gramont son had occupied himself with idle speculation about the Swordswoman and her origins.

They had spoken little as they traveled, mostly exchanging words when they stopped to rest. Guiche had obediently followed the Viscount's instructions and carefully avoided probing about Midori's mission. In turn, the Swordswoman's interest in the mission assigned to Guiche and the Viscount had been restricted to how it might effect her own. These brief exchanges had revealed almost nothing about her.

Guiche was certain that she was a foreigner, or at least half foreign, no Albionian, and certainly not Gallian or Romalian. Her exotic features might be the result of some mixing of Germanian heathen blood, or perhaps her pedigree arose from beyond the Elven Lands. Guiche had heard stories from his brothers that the people of Rhub Al Khali were pale skinned and dark haired like so.

He was also fairly certain that Midori was not a mage, which made her claims of being a swordswoman even more unbelievable. The idea of that slight frame doing battle without the benefit of magic was almost unimaginable. Midori had neither confirmed nor denied Guiche's suspicions when asked.

"If we end up in a fight, I won't be a burden." Had been all that she said.

Not that this detracted from her appeal. After all, to be sent on a mission paralleling their own spoke of a person entrusted with a task of great importance. This implied a degree of status that would be respectable even among the nobility. And her aloof disposition only made her all the more attractive. After all, any noble son could charm a some maid or commoner girl. If there was no challenge there was no sport, and without sport, well, there was hardly anything to brag about! Given his own families distinguished but lowly status, Father was but a Baron, Guiche had always held it as a mark of pride to win the attention of the fairer gender on his talents and wit rather than status.

A Swordswoman, a commoner, and an agent of the Crown. Certainly a peculiar combination. Guiche had wondered on how she had come to earn such a status and before long the three traveling companions found themselves stopping briefly at the Gallian border before beginning their ascent into the foothills surrounding La Rochelle, the Gateway to Albion.

"Why place the port on a mountain? It must be a nuisance to transport cargo all the way up to the summit." Midori asked as they made their way along a tortuously winding path. This was the back road to La Rochelle, shorter but following steeper and more difficult terrain. Most people bypassed it in favor of the main road which followed an easier ascent from the south. Indeed, they were now the only people in sight. The paved roadway that had continued across the border into Gallia had given way first to gravel and then a simple dirt path.

"Are you really ignorant about such things?" Wardes had asked with a quirk of his eyebrows.

"Excuse my ignorance." Midori replied coolly, brushing a long strand of hair behind one ear.

The Captain looked over to her before answering. "It's a concession to the merchants who ply the routes between here and Albion." Wardes explained. "An airship's wind stones discharge their magic naturally over time, but they are also drained much more rapidly when the ship ascends. It is a common practice to recharge at every port, a process that adds considerable expense."

Midori nodded. "So the ship Captains that travel between Halkegenia and Albion like using La Rochelle as their port to avoid draining their wind stones."

"Exactly." The Captain's sharp eyes glanced over to Midori. "I'm surprised you didn't know this."

"I never needed to know before." Midori had said with a shrug. "And now I do."

The path had narrowed and doubled back on itself, winding its way ever upwards. Guiche was occupied coaxing his horse to continue forward when suddenly, Midori let out a soft sigh.

"You noticed it too?" Wardes asked.

The girl's face scrunched up in a cute little frown. "Mmm. I was hoping I was wrong."

Guiche looked between the two, confused. "Excuse me. What are you talking about?"

"The ambush of course." Wardes said. "You mean you haven't noticed Mister Gramont?

"Ambush?" Guiche's head was suddenly on a swivel but for the life of him he couldn't tell what his companions were on about. They were currently traveling along the cliff face upon a narrow ledge that at some point in the past had been widened by Earth Mages so that the roadway could proceed onward. Ahead of them, the road widened into a rest area a few dozen mails across before tapering back down on its way towards the summit and the city of La Rochelle. There was nobody in sight. "What do you think my sweet?" Guiche asked his familiar who had been traveling along at his side. The bear sized mole sniffed anxiously at the ground, looking suddenly skittish.

"Well, he is kind of useless." Midori said, causing Guiche to take silent offense. There was a soft rustling noise as the Swordswoman slipped down from her horse and began to walk forward.

"Miss?" Wardes asked.

"If you don't mind, I'll handle the ones at the front. I'd like to avoid any unnecessary casualties." Midori said as she reached for the sword on her back.

Wardes frowned, "You're concern for Mister Gramont and myself is commendable, but I assure you we can handle a few brigands."

"Not us." Midori said as she unsheathed her sword, a simple blade of dazzling silver white that glinted in the afternoon sun. Midori walked out about a dozen mails ahead of Wardes and his Griffin and then stopped as her boots crunched against the gravel of the rest area. "We know you're there. Come out now."

For a moment, the only answer was silence, and then slowly, the shadows along the face of the cliff began to crawl and ripple. Guiche made out the outlines of the men by their movements. They had been disguised along the cliff face by their earthen colored cloaks. In the shadows cast by the afternoon light they had become almost invisible. Now, a dozen of them were melting into view.

Guiche carefully reached for his wand as he reigned in his horse. Glancing over his back he felt his heart racing. As if from nowhere, another dozen men had appeared along the roadway behind them. Surely, even with their cloaks, they would have been spotted. Had there been a cave that they had missed? Curious, Guiche mouthed a short spell and tapped his rose wand against the cliff face. The soundings that were returned confirmed that there was indeed a hollow around ninety mails to their rear, but much too regular to be a natural formation. Guiche blanched, an Earth Mage, and in perfect terrain to exploit their affinity!

This part of the road made for a perfect ambush point. It was a chokepoint on the way to the summit which widened after a ways in either direction. Travelers might be lulled into a sense of security by the apparent lack of hiding places and there were ample places for the bandits to make off once they were finished with their victims. Guiche cursed to himself. How had he not noticed?

"Alas, I do believe we're losing our touch lads!" One of the bandits at the front said. The man's face was mostly hidden by his cloak, but enough was visible to make out a thick red beard and an amused smirk. "We got spotted by a little gel!"

Midori swept the gathered bandits with her gaze and then closed her eyes. Her posture was careless, slouched as if exacerbated. "Look, we don't want to fight."

"Good!" The bandit said cheerfully. "That makes our job so much easier." A lively chuckle was shared among the bandits. Even Guiche began to laugh nervously, receiving a peculiar look from the Viscount. "Normally we like to give travelers such as yourselves a little show, but since you've already cut to business we can only oblige by doing the same. Now then, lay down your valuables and surrender your mounts, and we'll let you two go on your way."

"Us two?" Wardes asked calmly.

One of the bandits snickered softly. "Aye." The man eyed Midori and licked his lips. "We think this one will be keeping us company for a bit. Don't worry, we'll send'er along when we're done." Another chuckle passed among the bandits. For an instant, Guiche's fear was banished, replaced with righteous anger. That these . . . these brigands would dare to force themselves on a woman was intolerable! Someone needed to stand up for Miss Midori's honor! That person turned out to be Midori herself.

A look of mild disgust crossed the Swordswoman's face. "Normally I wouldn't mind dealing with all of you. But we have a schedule to keep. Are you sure you want to pick a fight? If you haven't notice, the man on the Griffin is a mage, and I'm pretty good with this sword." Midori took up a low stance that left Guiche mystified.

Though Guiche was no expert swordsman, he had attended lessons at the instruction of his father. The General believed that the sword was a weapon that encouraged adaptability and discipline, traits that he sought to nurture in his sons. Midori had taken a low stance that seemingly left her open to an attack from the front. At the same time, Guiche didn't think it would would really be that easy to exploit.

The red bearded bandit exchanged looks with his companions before chuckling again. "Aye, a couple of fine mages you must be to need a gel to defend you! And you aren't the only one with magic on your side." A wand appeared in the bandit leader's hand and as he snapped his fingers, three of the other bandits to the front and one to the rear did the same. "I know it must be easy to think of us as lowly bandits, but banditry is a business like any other. We know how to weigh risk which is why we aren't in Albion with the rest. Now, why not put down that sword before you hurt yourself, gel."

At Guiche's side, Viscount Wardes' sword-wand had seemingly been summoned into the Knight's right hand as he tightened his grip on the reigns of his Griffin with his left. Guiche could see now why the bandits had chose this spot. The path was too narrow for the Griffin to spread its wings, and the cliff face bellow slanted in such a way that the beast would dash itself against the rocks before gaining enough speed to take flight.

"Ready yourself Mister Gramont," the Captain said. Guiche shakily reached for his own wand, nearly fumbling it as he looked about. He tried to remind himself that Wardes was a Knight Captain, though Guiche had not been given permission to ask, he would be at least a triangle class. Among these lowly thugs, the few mages were probably no better than dot, else they would have some more gainful form of employment. No doubt the fact that they were mages contributed to their rash overconfidence.

Still astonishingly calm, Midori starred down the bandit leader. "So, you'll only attack us as long as you have magic backing you up. Is that it?"

"We're criminals gel, we aren't stupid." The bandit leader replied lightly.

And then, the strangest thing happened, Midori looked relieved. "Well then. That makes things simpler." The swordswoman took one step forward, and then almost vanished, her form transforming into a black blur before coming to a halt behind the bandit leader in a cloud of dust and gravel. A moment later, the tip of a wand struck the ground. The bandit leader blinked owlishly as he held up his ruined focus. The wand's length had been roughly halved, his eyes widened. The leader was already shouting for his men to do something about the girl, and then Midori was back in motion.

Guiche sat and watched, there was little else he could do. All this time, he had been thinking of her as a delicate creature, but that was far from the truth. She was . . . well, Guiche wasn't sure what she was, although she couldn't possibly be human. Was she under some sort of magical enhancement? That must have been it. He must have been mistaken earlier, she must have been some sort of mage after all. But strangely, he hadn't seen her cast a thing. Perhaps a cantrip? Was that blade a sword-wand?

Midori managed to reach the second bandit mage in the space of a heartbeat, again neutralizing him by destroying his wand. Was she really so confident? Guiche's father had once explained that when fighting an opponent who was prepared to resist, to subdue an enemy without killing them was to incur three times the risk.

The distant bit of wisdom seemed to bare out as the fight unfolded. By now, as fast as Midori was, the other bandits were beginning to react. The two remaining mages to the front were leveling their wands just as the commoner bandits managed to bring their own weapons, swords and crossbows, to bare. "Kill her! Kill her now!" The bandit leader roared.

A sharp -twanging- filled the air as crossbows were fired in rapid succession. Four bolts sped towards Midori. The first, fired hurriedly, went wide, easily missing the swordswoman, the second missed only because Midori had already begun moving again. Midori leaned to the side as the third bolt barely creased her cheek. The last bolt however, had been aimed true, right for the swordswoman's heart and at such short range it would almost certainly pierce the metal breastplate that she wore beneath her jacket. Face a mask of utter focus, Midori didn't flinch, didn't even try to dodge, her sword simply traced a silver arc through the air that intersected with the path of the last bolt. The severed pieces spun off to either side, the bolt's shaft still striking Midori, but without its pointed head, and starting to tumble, it was rendered harmless.

The swordswoman proceeded to ignore the four gaping bandits, bypassing them in favor of the next mage. Stumbling back the man waved his wand desperately, summoning up a jet of fire to try and burn the monster that was coming for him.

"No you idiot!" The bandit leader roared as the flailing jet of flame washed over two of the other bandits, setting their cloaks alight and sending them to the ground rolling to extinguish themselves. For an instant, Midori hesitated, unsure how to get close without risking the flames. That moments pause left an opening for the other mage remaining at their front. The man dashed to Midori's side trying to flank her, lips moving in a hurried chant.

Earth magic! Guiche thought. Midori had seen the mage from the corner of her eye and was already turning to counter attack when he completed his incantation. Judging by her posture and following surprise, she had been expecting some sort of projectile attack that she could track and dodge. But this was an Earth Mage, eminently aware of the important of a solid foundation and good footing. The gravel at the swordswoman's feet crumbled to sand and then to a material almost like talc. With her next step, Midori's leg sank nearly to mid calf. All of her speed was for not if she couldn't get the footing to use it.

A snarl crossed the swordswoman's face as she lashed out with her sword, the tip of her blade just barely missing the mage's wand as he leaped back. The third mage, the one responsible for the wildly cast fire spell, was recovering now and aiming for the partially immobilized swordswoman. Midori reached for her belt, retrieving something small and metallic and throwing it at the man. The mage went from incanting to howling in pain and clutching at his shoulder where the weapon, some sort of throwing knife or dart, was sunk down to three small tail fins. Midori turned her attention back to the remaining mage who was hurriedly reinforcing his sand trap spell, trying to completely trap the swordswoman before she could get free. He failed.

Midori fought free of the trap as the mage tried to defend himself. The earth between Midori and the mage rippled and flowed, rising and taking on a humanoid shape. An earth golem. The construct was nothing like Guiche's own masterful creations, just a clumsy hunk of stone shaped vaguely into the figure of a man. The youngest Gramont son almost forgot to take offense that such a lowly Earth mage would attempt to attack Noblemen.

The golem was nearly twice Midori's height and four or five times as broad. As Guiche watched, the swordswoman sank into a low stance, waiting to see what the construct would do.

Slowly, under the direction of its master, the golem raised one clumsy arm and swung downward in a stone braking arc that could pulp flesh and shatter bone. The strike didn't connect, nor did Midori evade the strike. Both the bandits and Guiche were left speechless as the golem toppled forward, suddenly unbalanced from the removal of its right arm. The stone limb lay broken on the ground, the reinforcing magic dissipating after the arm was separated from its body.

The point of separation was impressively smooth, as if cut rather than chiseled or sawed. Indeed, that was exactly what had happened Guiche realized as Midori lowered her sword. The silver blade appeared unblemished by its run in with magically imbued stone. No normal swordswoman, no normal sword.

"Gyah! Blast it!" The mage fumbled directing the golem to right itself. Midori calmly stepped onto the golem's back as it got its remaining arm under itself and began to rise, balancing so that she was left standing atop the stone construct's shoulders as the bandit mage stumbled away. The swordswoman leaped down from her perch just as the golem stood straight. Midori's blade flashed once more and the earth mage's wand was left in ruin, its shaft severed less than an inch from his tightly clenched fist. At her back, the golem went still, becoming nothing more than a tasteless statue.

Midori gave the man no more regard as she walked back to the still groaning third mage and stamped down casually on his wand. She placed the tip of her sword to the man's throat. "Yield." She ordered softly. The bandit nodded stupidly. Then, speaking loudly enough to be heard by the rest of the bandits. "That goes for all of you!"

A shriek of pain erupted to Guiche's rear. Head whipping around, the young earth mage noticed that the mage leading the rear group of bandits had been similarly disarmed by Captain Wardes by the simple expedient of removing the man's entire hand with a wind spell. The bandit mage clutched his wrist, struggling to staunch the bleeding as one of his companions hurriedly began tying a tourniquet. After eliminating the threat posed by the mage, the Viscount had taken to calmly brandishing his focus to cow the commoner bandits. Realizing what he ought to be doing, Guiche did the same for the group at the front.

Midori gave Wardes a dark glare to which the Captain simply shrugged. "You said you wanted to minimize casualties." Her expression became neutral once more and she nodded once.

Finding themselves so suddenly outclassed, the bandits looked to one another, and then, reluctantly sheathed or cast aside their weapons. Slowly Midori stood and with a small flourish, returned her blade to its scabbard. "I'm thankful you've all seen reason."

"Thi-this is impossible!" The bandit leader shouted as he looked at his surrendering men. "Just a gel. Just a little gel! How?!"

Midori sparred the man only a brief hateful glance. "I don't correct the mistakes of murderers and bandits." She said coolly as she stepped back and glanced to Guiche and Wardes. "Now then, we'll be on our way. Guiche, you're an earth mage, right?"

Guiche set up in his saddle, mouth working idiotically before spilling out his reply. "Y-yes! Yes that's correct. How may I be of service?"

The swordswoman gave him an odd look. "Just . . . fashion some restraints so these bandits can't make a nuisance of themselves. We'll report them to the city watch when we arrive in La Rochelle."

Nodding as if a waif of a girl hadn't just destroyed four mages before they could even respond, Wardes spurred his Griffin forward past the shocked bandits. "As you wish. Mister Gramont, see to Miss Midori's horse, and close up this road when you're done with the restraints."

Guiche obeyed his superior's instructions, quickly taking the reigns of Midori's horse and leading it past the rest area where the swordswoman remounted before turning around and setting to work. A series of simple cantrips served to summon up bronze chains around each of the bandits. The men looked displeased but did not resist with the threat of the swordswoman and Viscount still so near. Then, with a short invocation, Guiche caused the cliff face beside the road to stretch outward, blocking passage back down the mountain. A second invocation of the same spell served to bottle the bandits away. Of course, they could attempt to escape by scaling the cliff, if they got free of their chains, but even if they did it would take time. By then, the city watch would be summoned.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Guiche glanced over to the swordswoman. He barely noticed the distant look on her face. Slapping his cheeks Guiche nodded, here was his opening. "Miss Midori, your swordsmanship was exquisite! Truly the beauty of your technique only serves to complement your own."

"Reach." Midori murmured.

"Hmm?" Guiche grunted, still smiling politely. This was generally where the girl swooned at the complement. Though with a little thought he realized it would be ridiculous for Midori to swoon after her display against the bandits. But perhaps a small blush?

"My swing was off." Midori said softly to herself. "I need to adjust." The young woman fell silent as she spurred her horse back into motion.

Wardes nodded slowly. "I must agree with Mister Gramont, your skill is quite exceptional." The Captain's eyes narrowed slightly. "Though I am curious what that sword style was. It didn't resemble any I've seen before."

"My sword style?" Midori asked and seemed to give the question some thought. "It is a sword art of the Far East."

"From Rub Al Khali?" The Viscount asked with surprise. So she really was from the Eastern human kingdoms, Guiche thought.

Midori's lips twitched it what might have been a faint smile. "Farther than that." The hint of a smile faded away and the girl grew quiet. "Tell me. What will the watch do with those bandits?"

The Viscount quirked an eyebrow. "You show striking concern for the well being of people who meant to do you ill."

"Humor me." Midori said. "They've made their choice, I'm simply curious."

Wardes regarded the young swordswoman. "I can't say with any certainty. But the crime of brigandry usually confers either a life sentence in a labor camp or simple execution. The Gallian nobility naturally prefer the former to the latter as it provides a steady supply of cheap manual labor."

"I see." Midori said and then grew silent as if satisfied with this answer.

"Are you concerned that your efforts to spare their lives were in vain?" The Viscout asked, his eyes narrowed. "I could have sworn that you handled yourself like someone who wouldn't hesitate to kill."

With the sun sinking below the peaks it was hard for Guiche to be certain. But if only for a moment, it appeared that Midori's expression had grown ashen. When she spoke again, there was the faintest hint of a tremble in her voice. "That is . . . none of your concern, Viscount."

"As you wish." Wardes said, turning his attention back to the roadway. The strange exchange only left Guiche with yet another mystery. To be so collected in the face of danger, and yet to hesitate at the mention of killing. He puzzled over this strange combination nearly all the rest of the way to La Rochelle until the port city at last came into view around the bend of the mountain.

Sitting atop the highest peak of the tallest mountain in the range that bordered Tristain. La Rochelle was a curtain of mage crafted stonework, ancient castle walls, and glittering lights surrounding a massive ash tree that sprouted from the very peek of the mountain. Among its branches, dozens of ships were docked like birds at nest. The Port Tree's sheer size made that comparison apt and Guiche couldn't help but draw parallels with the World Tree of the Fae.

Naturally, the World Tree was much larger. Rooted at sea level, the crest of the World Tree would easily reach the same level as La Rochelle, dwarfing the port tree like a sapling. Guiche had heard once that it took Yggdrasil Ash tree's a millennium to grow to their full size. Just what did that say about the World Tree?

"That's a big tree." Midori said. "Any reason you didn't tell me about that?" She turned to Captain Wardes.

The Captain shrugged. "As you said. You didn't need to know." The beautiful young woman gave the Viscount an annoyed expression and absently blew aside a stray strand of hair.

By the time they reached the city walls, the sun had fully set. After stopping briefly to confer with the city watchmen and inform them of the bandits skulking on the back roads, the trio made their way up towards the port. La Rochelle was arranged concentrically around the Port and from the sky would have resembled an immense spider's web draped over the mountain side. For reason of defense, only the main road followed an unbroken path from outer curtain wall all the way to the port through three layers of successively more ancient fortifications.

La Rochelle was a wealthy city by virtue of its trade connections and could afford the best oils for lighting its streets. The main street was lit well enough by oil lamps that Guiche found he could easily read the signs hanging above countless inns, taverns, and shops advertising wares and services that would appeal to sailors returning to port after a long journey.

At the base of the Port Tree, they found a kiosk where they could book passage. There would be several ships leaving for Albion the next morning. This seemed to agitate Midori for some reason and she had pressed for if their were any earlier departures.

"I'm sorry Miss." The Clerk had apologized sincerely. "The Captains are refusing to make the run on Albion unless they fly together. There have been too many Pirate raids since the war started." The man raised his hands helplessly. Midori had backed away from the Kiosk to allow Wardes to finish the transaction. Shortly, they each received a stamped receipt to be offered to the captain of their ship, The Lady Gallant, before departure.

The vessel wouldn't be leaving until sunrise the next morning which left them with need of accommodations for the night. In the end, they had settled on one of the smaller hotels near the port which catered to the lower nobility and the rare wealthy commoner. At a place such as this, they would draw little attention.

They had dined in the hotel restaurant before being lead to their rooms for the night by one of the hotel valets. "Is there anything else I can get for you, Sirs, Miss?" The man asked, head bowed respectfully to the three.

"If you could have a bath arranged." Wardes requested.

"Of course sir." The Valet nodded. "There is a bath room at the end of the hall. I'll have the maids draw a bath immediately."

"Miss Midori." Captain Wardes said.

"Hmm?" The swordswoman looked up, she had seemed distracted ever since they had found themselves delayed overnight.

"I was saying, you should take the first bath." The Viscount said.

"Oh." Midori gave a faint scowl but nodded. "Right."

"Mister Gramont. Would you be so kind as to go down to the stables and make sure that my Griffin is being attended to. I wouldn't want him getting loose during the night."

"Of course!" Guiche gave a quick bow and hurried to see to the task.

Being suited for a more respectable clientele, the hotel possessed stables fit even for dragons. The Viscount's Griffin and Guiche's own precious Verdandi had proven no difficulty. The bear sized mole sniffed happily as its master came, receiving a tender stroke on the head and the offer to lick his hand. Deciding that Guiche hadn't brought any food, Verdandi sniffled unhappily and turned around in her pen, settling so that she didn't have to look at him.

"Verdandi! Don't be that way my darling! Did your meal disagree with you. I must say, ground meat surely is no substitute for proper earthworms but we must all make sacrifices for the good of the mission!" The mole snuffled indignantly. "I do believe I remembered there being an empty lot beside the hotel. Let me finish here and I'll let you out to scavenge for some after dinner treats." Guiche said.

Verdandi snuffled again as if to say -Really?-

"Of course my darling!" Guiche promised." Just let me finish with the Viscount's mount and we shall go. The mole trundled back fearfully. Verdandi and the Captain's Griffin . . . didn't get along.

Guiche found the Griffin resting quietly in its own pen. As he approached the animal let out a small, menacing, cry before returning to the meal of raw meat left for it by the hotel staff. The sound of meat tearing and bones crunching created an unpleasant noise. Guiche checked by visual inspection that the Griffin was adequately tied down. Being a trained mount rather than a familiar, and a temperamental beast to begin with, the Griffin was much too dangerous to have loose without its master.

Having done as requested, Guiche unlatched Verdandi's pen and led his familiar outside into the cool night air. Enjoying the mountain breeze as he his familiar began to happily burrow her way into the earth. The poor thing had been forced to walk above ground on the mountain path all afternoon and she'd be stuck aboard ship all of tomorrow. Guiche hoped his lovely familiar would be alright.

Turning his eyes back to the hotel. Guiche notice steam rising from a window at the end of the third floor and suddenly was reminded of the bath. Ah yes, a nice bath would certainly help after a long day riding. The young Gramont son then remembered a more important detail. Midori was bathing first . . . Being a man of the Gramont line, Guiche considered himself to be a great admirer of beauty. Flowers, exotic beasts, and naturally, women.

Surely there would be no harm if he were to peak. No of course not! Beauty was meant to be admired, though naturally a pure maiden would seek to conceal herself from unworthy eyes. That was but the challenge! Glancing about furtively, Guiche stole back across the hotel grounds and through the rose garden beneath the bath window, pausing briefly to admire a lovely rose bush before moving on. There was no one around this late at night, but servants kept odd hours as they attended to their tasks. Whistling softly, Guiche drew the attention of his familiar. Verdandi trundled over, oblivious to the need for secrecy and gave a small snuffle of attention as she sat down before her master.

Guiche raised a finger to his lips. "Verdandi my pet, keep watch for your master. Just as we do at the Academy." The mole snuffled again before waddling down the side of the building. She found what she was looking for soon enough. A servants door and proceeded to block the doorway with her considerable bulk. Guiche would be alerted if anyone tried to exit and would have ample time to steal away into the night.

Now, to get up there. He thought. A trellis had been affixed to the side of the hotel, covered in vines. Sizing it up, he decided it would be enough to support his weight and would put him about where he needed to be. The climb was easy enough, all of those school vacations spent being run across the the Gramont estate by his father had not been entirely in vain and Guiche soon found himself at the half opened window. Taking a breath, it was all about presentation, naturally one couldn't just stare, the beauty of a girl needed to be drunk in gradually.

Slowly, Guiche leaned over so that he could see inside. The air was hot and humid both from the bath water and the lamps that dimly lit the room. Moving in the water, one pale foot emerged enticingly. Guiche's eyes worked upward as the water lapped with each movement. Between the shadows and dim light he could only make out vague outlines as his eyes adjusted, following the line of calves and knees and then the shadow of narrow hips beneath the water. Midori's flat somach and surprisingly broad chest, and that handsome beard . . . wait.

A brief burst of conjured wind issued from the window and blew away the steam, revealing the occupant of the bath to be Captain Wardes. Guiche starred silently. Captain Wardes starred back.

"Mister Gramont?" The Captain asked slowly as he adjusted his hat.

"C-Captain." Guiche replied awkwardly. Yes, most definitely Captain Wardes.

The Griffin Knight betrayed nothing. "May I ask what you're doing?"

"Ah, that is . . . " Guiche stumbled. "Wasn't Midori bathing first?"

"She finished up rather quickly." The Knight said. "I can't imagine why."

"Oh." Guiche said blinking a few times. Well. I see. Yes. I'll just be on my way then, and . . ." There was an ugly cracking pop from above. Guiche looked up as the pop turned to a wooden groan and then another pop and another in rapid succession. The trellis shook softly and Guiche felt a strange lightness as if gravity was no longer fully asserting itself. "Well then Captain." Guiche said as the Trellis slowly parted company with the hotel. "I shall be leaving you to your bath." And then Guiche felt the exhilarating sensation of descent.

There was a loud crashing sound followed by a rustling noise.

"Mister Gramont? Are you alright?" Wardes called out the bathroom window.

A soft moan rose from the ground below. "Quite good. The bushes broke my fall . . . the rose bushes."

"Just make sure to fix it before morning. We can't be held up." The Griffin Knight called before sliding his hat back down and kicking his feet up onto the rim of the tub.


	44. Chapter 12 Part 2

So, now beginning the endgame of Kirito getting back to Asuna. Naturally, things are about to get worse. As usual, R&R is appreciated, as is constructive criticism. Though I especially like people's opinions about the story.

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 12 - Part 2

Having accepted the Captain's offer to bathe first, Kirito was left with the challenge of how to go about doing that. Standing awkwardly outside the confines of the small bathroom, tugging at the collar of his shirt. There was no way he was going to bathe as a girl if he could help it. Even though he could mostly tolerate this form, that would simply be too weird.

The maidservants finished filling the tub with hot water and politely gestured for 'Midori' to enter. To Kirito's dismay, one of the maids attempted to follow 'her', offering to help 'her' undress and to take 'her' clothes to the wash. "That . . . won't be necessary." Kirito said carefully before directing the young woman wait outside. After locking the door and tossing his jacket over the keyhole, Kirito began the process of disrobing, stripping down to his undergarments before pausing to look in the mirror. He couldn't help but grimace.

Clad in only a black short sleeved shirt and a pair of shorts, the faint swell of hips and bosom made it painfully clear that this body was female. At least 'Midori' was modestly proportioned, that had helped a little with adapting, though Kirito was thankful he'd taken a sympathetic Sakuya's advice about the bra. It had helped with certain . . . well, it had helped. Removing that particular piece of equipment turned out to be a little more difficult than expected. Finally without anything to obstruct him Kirito dispelled his disguise and the grime covered form of the gorgeous young swordswoman 'Midori' was replaced by that of the equally dirty young Spriggan swordsman Kirito.

Kirito had noted with some displeasure that the Halkegenian baths were of a western style. That was to say one washed off in the bath rather than prior to soaking. Well, it wasn't perfect, but he wasn't going to complain after two days traveling by horse. Sweat and dust washed away with liberal application of a sponge and a thick bar of some vaguely caustic soap that left his skin raw. Even so, Kirito felt worlds better as he dried himself off.

Dressing in a spare set of nightclothes he'd packed in a riding satchel, Kirito reapplied his faction disguise and 'Midori' emerged from the bathroom, her clothes and equipment folded neatly in her arms.

"Oh, Miss!"

Kirito blinked, the maidservant, a redheaded young woman, was still waiting. "Erm, yes?"

The maid bowed slightly. "Miss. If you would like, I could have your clothes taken to the wash now. I can have them back to your room by morning."

Kirito declined politely. "We have to leave before dawn, so I think it's best if you don't. I'll have to wear this tomorrow and I'd rather they be dirty than damp."

"As you wish, Miss." The maid bowed once more.

Kirito proceeded down the hall to his room. Thankfully, Captain Wardes thought a young woman traveling with two men warranted her own private accommodations. He stopped briefly at the door of the room shared by his companions and knocked. The sound of boots came from beyond the threshold and the face of the Viscount appeared, peering out from the half open door. Kirito noticed the sword-wand held easily in the Captain's right hand.

"The bathroom's free." Kirito said.

Wardes nodded slowly, and then just as Kirito was turning to continue to his own room, he spoke. "Miss Midori. If you could spare a moment of your time."

"Is something wrong?" Kirito asked cautiously. Unlike Guiche who had preceded to make himself a nuisance all the way from the academy, the Viscount had been pleasantly professional and by unspoken courtesy the two had carefully refrained from any conversation that didn't pertain to the mission.

Wardes shook his head. "No. But it is important, about earlier today."

"Oh." Kirito said and nodded reluctantly, well, at least he was prepared for this one.

Entering the Viscount's hotel room, Kirito accepted the offered seat at a small table and waited for Wardes to seat himself. The Captain cast a brief, murmured spell and seemed to cock his head as if listening for something before nodding in satisfaction. He turned back to Kirito.

"I understand that your Mission, as our own, is of the highest secrecy and importance to the Crown." Wardes said. "Naturally, compartmentalization is essential to security and I have no intention of asking you about the task you have been assigned in Albion. But for the sake of both of our missions, I think it is best if I have some idea what you are capable of."

Kirito leaned back in his chair. "I could say the same thing about you." He replied. "I would think I demonstrated well enough this afternoon." Truthfully he had been in horrible form. It had been his first real fight in Halkegenia save for eliminating a few mobs while on patrol around Arrun and he still wasn't entirely comfortable with this body's reach or center of mass.

"In fact, it is this afternoon that I wanted to ask about." Wardes said. "I was willing to accept that you were simply a swordswoman like the Princess supplied, but it is clear now that you aren't merely a swordswoman."

Kirito shrugged, "Shouldn't the Princesses word be sufficient?"

Wardes fixed Kirito with a calm stare. "The Princess is not a soldier, and more importantly, is not here. I am making a decision as a soldier in the field. We have restricted ourselves to need to know information. And I believe I need to know, else we risk endangering both of our missions." The Captain's eyes narrowed. "Without a good idea of your abilities, and your capabilities, we put both of our missions at risk. I need to know what I can rely on your to do in battle, and I need to know if you'll hesitate to kill if needed."

Kirito's eyes widened slightly and he felt his heart beating faster in his chest. Of course that would come up. Kirito brought his breathing under control. It wasn't like he didn't have blood on his hands. The subjugation mission against Laughing Coffin and the murderer Kuradeel. It didn't matter if it was digital or real. It was something that he had been forced to except. An ugly little piece of himself that was willing and able to do something horrible at need. It was something he had been trying to keep at arms length until now.

"So you see, it is in fact very much my concern, Miss Midori." Wardes fell silent for a moment and then added calmly. "For what it is worth. I am a square class mage of pure air affinity with a specialty in lightning based spells. I have served in the Knight Corps since I entered the service of the Crown ten years ago. I have combat experience in skirmishes along the Gallian border and have conducted missions of this sort before on behalf of the Crown. Prior to this, I was assigned to the guard detail of Princess Henrietta."

Kirito nodded slowly, that matched roughly with what he had been told by the Princess and Duchess. Though the lightning magic hadn't been mentioned before now and Kirito was unsure what it might entail in battle. "Very well, Captain. What exactly do you want to know."

Fortunately, the Duchess Valliere had instructed him in exactly what he was to say if questioned about his physical prowess. He had been told that the story was slightly improbable but plausible enough.

"First. You spotted that ambush before even me. And the way that you acquitted yourself spoke of experience in battle." Wardes observed. "A great deal of experience in fact."

Kirito took a breath, crossing his arms. "More like a great deal of training. But you are right, I've seen battle before. And I have killed." He said quietly. "I won't kill needlessly, but I won't hesitate either. You have my word." Kirito shuddered faintly at the thought. It wasn't like he was under any illusion that it might become necessary. He'd just have to accept the consequences of that conviction.

Wardes seemed to weigh up Kirito's answer before his expression grew satisfied. "Very well. Then also, earlier in the battle. Your speed and strength were impressive, well beyond what should be possible without magic of some sort. You're a mage . . . Correct?"

Nodding again, Kirito replied. "Or so I've been told." Warde's quirked an eyebrow as if inviting further explanation. "I'm considered a failure in that regard. As far as can be told, my affinity is wind, at least, those are the only spells I've had any luck with. But I'm unable to properly control it. The only thing I seem to be able to cast spells on is myself."

"So a specialized cantrip." Wardes observed. "That explains your speed, but not your strength."

Kirito gave a pensive look before continuing. "That is . . . a bit more difficult to explain. You are familiar with alchemic enhancements correct?"

Wardes nodded slowly. "I see. Yes that would explain both then."

Kirito gave a small shrug. "Don't expect me to be casting any useful spells. I can't even manage common spells. Though for what it's worth, based on how long I can keep up my speed, I've been told my willpower reserves are around triangle. Does that give a good enough idea of what I'm capable of?"

The Viscount looked thoughtful, "I suppose it does. Thank you, Miss Midori."

"It's no trouble, Captain." Kirito said as he departed for the adjacent room. After setting his clothes and satchel down on the dresser and propping his sword against the nightstand, Kirito flopped down onto the surprisingly soft feather mattress to try and get some sleep. His right hand slid onto the dresser and he tugged a small envelope from the top of the satchel. It was a letter written by Henrietta, the Princesses contribution to the mission.

Kirito held the letter above him, squinting as if he could see through the paper. Not that he needed to. He had seen the letter before it had been sealed, he knew what it said. The contents were brief and simply requested that the Royalists Offer whatever assistance they could in retrieving the lost Faeries and delivering them safely to Tristain. Henrietta had told Kirito that if he could deliver the letter into the hands of Prince Wales, if the Prince 'Valiant' still harbored any fondness for her, then he would help. The Princess had looked oddly ashamed as she had spoken.

Personally, Kirito had doubts about how helpful the Royalists might be. If they were as badly pressed as the Duchess claimed, he doubted the Royalists could spare the resources to smuggle three hundred people out of a country that was mostly controlled by their opposition. But at least the Royalists might be able to give him the whereabouts of the 'Knights of Blood' and by extension, Asuna.

Regardless, he would have to remember to find some way to thank the Princess for all of this. After all, she had been the one to bring up the mission to Albion and had spoken over the Duchesses' protests on his behalf. Having guides who knew the local culture and roughly the lay of the land, one of whom was also a veteran mage, would make getting to Newcastle much easier. Kirito just wished the Princess hadn't been so . . . amused upon seeing his faction disguise for the first time.

There had been an awkward moment of silence after Kirito had cast his faction disguise in that small room back at the academy. Sakuya and Alicia had been speechless. Even the Duchess Valliere had looked on with mild surprise before her expression grew neutral once more.

It had been Alicia who had broken the silence in the end. "Well, nobody will mistake you for a Faerie like that."

Sakuya had raised a hand to her lips to politely conceal her own smile. "Nobody will mistake him for a man either." The Sylph's smile faded as she saw the way that Kirito shifted awkwardly and realized just why he was doing so. "Oh my." Sakuya's expression grew suddenly concerned, "This is a bit awkward for you, isn't it Kirito-kun?"

"It's not a problem." Kirito had answered in an exacerbated voice as he tried to ignore all sensation, a difficult task when his brain was being hammered by nerve impulses that didn't quite fit anything in his experience. "I've dealt with worse."

Even Alicia had stopped her teasing now as she looked on in concern. "But how did this happen?" She asked. "I mean, Mimic was gender locked in ALfheim, just like avatar selection. I would have thought that would have become part of the spell."

Kirito had looked away, red faced, and scratched at his cheek. "I think . . . it's because I messed up." Kirito said, receiving blank stairs from the others in the room. "The Mimic skill needs a sample scan of the race you want to imitate. In game it was for balance reasons to make infiltration a little more challenging." He explained. "I made the mistake of scanning one of the maids here at the academy. It wasn't a problem when Mimicking the other Faerie races so I didn't think it would be a problem with humans either. But . . ." Kirito gestured vaguely to himself.

He froze as the Duchess stepped forward and circled him once. He had the distinct impression that she was memorizing the details of this face. "Princess, with your permission." The Duchess gestured with her wand.

Henrietta blinked in confusion and then shook her head. "Of course, you would know best."

"Excuse me?" Kirito raised a hand.

"This is nothing harmful." The Duchess explained before performing a short chant and pointing her wand at Kirito's chest. A cool almost electric tingle had run down Kirito's body, his skin prickling up like gooseflesh before subsiding. The Duchess frowned. "It appears that I cannot dispel the illusion." Turning to Lady Sakuya and Alicia Rue the Duchesses' eyes had narrowed. "Just how many of your people can use this spell?"

Sakuya and Alicia exchanged glances. "It's a Spriggan specialty since it's illusion magic. But even then its a pretty specialized spell." Alicia thought aloud. "I'd guess maybe a couple thousand people know how to do it."

"It would have been appreciated." The Duchess said slowly. "If you had mentioned this some time before now. You must understand the danger that illusion spells pose to legitimacy. The risk for subversion. An illusion that can't be dispelled easily only complicates the matter. If this became public knowledge among the nobility it might cause problems."

"It's not actually that useful." Kirito explained as he brushed an annoying strand of hair back behind his ear. "The spell doesn't let you choose your appearance, so its not like I can use it to impersonate someone. And once the spell is cast, the appearance is locked so you can't just recast until you get lucky." The Duchess looked unconvinced, eliciting a soft sigh from Kirito. "Do you really think I would have decided to look like this given the choice?"

The Duchess stroked at her chin as if trying to weigh whether this was the case. Wait, she couldn't really think that he would choose to be a girl? Could she? "Princess?" She asked.

Henrietta, having listened carefully until now, stepped forward to get a closer look. "It's quite convincing, wouldn't you agree?" The Princess observed and then extending her hand, tenderly poked Kirito's cheek. "And it certainly feels real."

"Well actually . . . That's the problem." Kirito said as he shifted again, he couldn't help it, his cheeks began to heat up.

"Oh?" Henrietta tilted her head curiously. "Oh . . . I'd have thought it would interesting to find out what it feels like."

"P-Princess!" Kirito stuttered, feeling himself blushing all the way down to his neck.

"Princess Henrietta?!" The Princess's comment had succeeded in the impossible, the Duchess looked shocked.

Henrietta simply smiled humorously. "Oh, its nothing but idle speculation. Certainly you've wondered about it, how your life might have turned out, if you'd been born a man that is." The Princess shook her head. "Think nothing of it." The Duchess had given the Princess an odd expression but had declined to say anything more. "Either way, we should be thankful for how effective the disguise is. It will make it much easier for Mister Kirito to travel freely in Albion, won't it?"

The Duchess seemed reluctant. "I can offer no further objections."

"Then it is decided." Henrietta smiled. "I wish you luck Mister Kirito, or should it be Miss Kirito?"

Felt his face twist up in an annoyed expression. "Neither." He crossed his arms. "If I'm trying to disguise my identity it would be pretty bad to get found out because this face shares a name with a Spriggan."

"Agreed." The Duchess Valliere said. "Do you have an alias in mind. Something that you would respond to naturally?"

Kirito gave it some thought and shrugged his shoulders once. "The only thing that I can think of like that is probably Midori. It's my mother's given name."

"With your features, a strange shouldn't raise too many questions, in fact it would be expected," the Duchess decided, "Very well."

After that, the Duchess and Kirito had spent some time constructing a simple back story in the event that Kirito was forced to explain his abilities. Kirito had also been given a crash course in the geography of Albion among other things before returning to Arrun with Lady Sakuya and Alicia Rue.

Turning over on the bed, Kirito's gaze fell on the window and the moonlight that slanted in through the wooden blinds. In the distance. The partially illuminated bulk of the Port Tree dominated the sky. Its crest smaller but so much closer that that of the World Tree.

A crashing noise came from outside and Kirito was suddenly alert. Rising smoothly from the bed and grabbing Split Moon in one fluid motion, Kirito went to the window and peered out. In the light cast by the twin moons, he could see a figure struggling to fight his way free from a particularly tenacious bush. The bush appeared to be winning. It appeared that the figure had been attempting to scale the outside of the hotel using a trellis. However, the wooden frame had come loose during the attempt and sent them crashing to the ground.

Squinting, Kirito felt his vision focus and the figure resolved into none other than Guiche de Gramont. Kirito frowned. Judging by the way he was flailing about, the fall hadn't hurt him too badly. The idiot would be okay. Probably. Why was he even here?

The fop had been making a pain of himself all the way from the Academy. Though he hadn't fallen behind or otherwise physically inconvenienced Kirito, the swordsman had caught him stealing glances the whole journey from Tristain. He was starting to gain a new appreciation for why Asuna had obscured her appearance when not on the Front Line.

Wait. The idiot had been climbing the outside of the hotel, near the baths . . . Had he been trying to peep?! Kirito felt his face growing hot. If his cover ended up blown because one of his traveling companions was a damned pervert, it would be . . . bad.

Members of the hotel staff were already starting to arrive to investigate the disturbance as Kirito returned to bed. Closing his eyes, he waited impatiently for morning to come.

* * *

Viscout Jean Jacques Francis de Wardes lay awake in bed, eyes gazing up through the ceiling above him. It was not the snoring of the idiot in the opposite bed that kept him up, nor any anxiety about this mission. Years of proving himself in battle, rising through the ranks of the Griffin Knights, and achieving status as a Captain of the Knight Corps had prepared him for much harsher sleeping accommodations.

What kept him awake tonight were his thoughts. The swordswoman Midori, she was an unknown variable, a complication. Unknowns were always bad, they couldn't be planned for. It didn't matter if they aided or hindered. Even an added danger was preferable so long as it was a known quantity. Less experienced men might have welcomed the addition of such a capable swordswoman. But to Wardes, Midori was a bigger problem than the idiot Gramont son.

The problem was two fold. What was she capable of and what was her mission? Answering either would give hints about the other. He reviewed what he already knew.

First, he believed her when she had stated that she could not cast much magic. Though rare, such afflictions did exist and Wardes had first hand experience with them through his connection to the Valliere family. However, he was certain she had not told the whole truth, after all, he had done the same. More likely she had further abilities or talents that she had not revealed.

Likewise, he was convinced that she had seen battle before, the girl did not hesitate in a fight. But just where had she fought and against who?

There was no way to question her further about either without drawing suspicion.

Then the next question, what was her mission in Albion? To be assigned at the last moment and with the support of the Duchess de la Valliere no less was a sign that great trust had been placed in the girl. Even now, Wardes doubted the illustrious 'Heavy Wind' would vouch for someone who had not proven themselves to her satisfaction. Three possibilities came to mind. Assassination, retrieval, or insurance.

An agent such as Midori would be uniquely suited as an assassin. No one would expect the strength and speed of that small body or the deadliness of that sword. Reconquista was as much a movement of opportunists as idealists. Though Wardes doubted that she would be able to reach someone as highly placed as Lord Cromwell. Eliminating certain key people could create a power vacuum that would set Reconquista's ambitions back by months and buy Tristain precious time.

While plausible, Wardes doubted this was the case. The girl seemed genuinely reluctant to kill. Though he didn't doubt her convictions. She simply lacked the demeanor of an assassin. Still, it would be simple enough to pass word to his contacts in Albion when they arrived. Reconquista would not be caught unaware by an innocent face.

The second possibility was retrieval. Midori's mission might parallel Wardes' own, to retrieve some document or artifact from the hands of the Royalists and return it to Tristain. This too was plausible, but Wardes' instincts were that it was not something so simple as another incriminating document or a Royal treasure. If it were, it would be better to entrust its retrieval to the same agent given the mission of recovering Henrietta's Letter. If the contents of the Letter were as damning as Henrietta had claimed, then surely an agent trusted with one mission could also see to the other.

The last possibility was a subset of the second. The letter was of great importance, though Wardes was not privy to its contents. Both Henrietta and Cardinal Mazarin were convinced that if it fell into the hands of Reconquista it would tear asunder the coming union of Germania and Tristain. Under these circumstances, there would be no single agent who could be completely trusted with the mission. So it would only be natural to set one to retrieve the letter and one to watch the retriever.

Wardes grimaced. In the past, he had been called upon to conduct a mission across the border into Gallia to investigate rumors of human experiments being conducted by the Gallian nobility. The products of Gallia's twisted research into perverting the Founder's holy gifts had been creatures of incredible strength and speed. Before he had been slain by one such monster, Wardes' former Captain had commented that they were like Manticores with the minds and forms of men.

Not only had the alchemic enhancements hardened their bodies, it had granted them a fortitude and viciousness that had forced Wardes to sear them with lightning until their skin had burned away, stone like muscle boiled and melted, and iron bones charred. He had achieved the rank of Square on that mission.

When he had returned victorious to Tristain, the samples and documents he had retrieved had been swiftly spirited away by mysterious members of the Tristain Academia. In fact, Midori might just be the product of that stolen research. How ironic.

If Midori really was his watcher and tried to interfere, she would find the same fate as those monsters six years ago. In a way, it would be a mercy. Wardes had perused the documents before handing them off. Unless the Academia had made serious improvements, Midori would have a decade at most before her body started to come apart at the seams. There had been a reason the Gallians had been using prisoners in their research.

In the end, all of this was simple speculation. Planning for eventualities. There was no point in taking it further without knowing more. Vaguely satisfied with his conclusions. Wardes sat up in bed, taking his sword-wand from the nightstand and waved it vaguely in the direction of Guiche. The grating sound of the boy's snoring vanished, leaving only blessed silence. The charm would hold until morning. In the mean time, Wardes laid back in bed and closed his eyes.

* * *

Sir Dunwell entered his private apartments in the Tower of Londinium, face ashen. Though his accommodations were luxurious, he would hardly have noticed in the best of times. Walking over to the window he undid the latch and let in the cool night air. The breeze did him little good. He couldn't forget what Lord Cromwell had shown him.

Now he knew why instructions had been sent to place the cadavers under preservation spells before they were transported back to the Capital for inspection. Standing in a vacated courtyard of the Royal Palace, Sir Dunwell and Sir Wells had watched as Lord Cromwell inspected the bodies laid out on cots. The 'Faeries' had been stripped of their armor clothing so that they could be thoroughly examined by the water mages. The Good Lord Cromwell had studied each in turn, eyes downcast regretfully.

"Such a shame that their past crimes must make us enemies. Wouldn't you agree, Sir Dunwell?" Cromwell had asked with a soft sigh.

"Of course, Lord Cromwell." Dunwell had replied mechanically, the same way he had replied to every order from the man.

Cromwell had stopped at one, a young woman, face small and innocent. From the front, her body appeared almost unblemished. A wood splinter had taken he through the heart from behind as she fled. She would have died quickly. Body laid out and eyes closed, her short brown hair gathered close. She looked deceptively peaceful.

"Such a waste." Cromwell said, and then brightened. "But there's no need for us to remain enemies after death now is there?"

"Sir?" Sir Dunwell asked.

Cromwell placed hand upon the girl's forehead and for a moment the ring he wore flickered with an inner light. When he stepped away, Dunwell's eyes widened slightly. A faint flush was returning to the girl's cheeks and with every second it spread further. Lips reddened and parted with a soft intake of air and brown eyes opened and looked about. The girl rose, seemingly undisturbed by her state of undress.

At Dunwell's side, Sir Wells was already reaching for his cane-wand. Behind him, Scirroco let out a low, distressed cry.

"Welcome back to the land of the living my child!" Cromwell said jovially. The girl looked to Cromwell curiously. "Tell me, what is your name?"

The girl blinked. "I am called Aki, but my real name is Ozu Akari."

Cromwell nodded. "A lovely name." He said politely. "What is the last thing you remember?"

"I remember dying." The girl replied calmly and then turned and looked straight at Sir Wells. "He's the one who killed me." She said. The voice contained no hint of emotion, not even an accusation.

Cromwell frowned and shook his head. "Alas, that won't do! Sir Wells is a righteous Knight of Reconquista, a holy soldier in our crusade against the elves. In life he was your enemy, but in death I am sure you can both be great friends." Wells had taken another step back.

"Lord Cromwell." Wells asked shaken. "What is this?"

The Leader of Reconquista smiled magnanimously. "This is the power of the Founder himself. This is the power of Void! In life these Elves were sinful creatures, the great enemy, but in death even they can be granted the Founder's mercy and be redeemed to our cause!"

"I'm not an Elf." The girl said, receiving stares from all three men.

"Excuse me my Dear?" Cromwell asked politely.

"I'm not an Elf. I was human. Now I am a Faerie. That is what Kimura called us when we woke up here."

"It is what they appear to call themselves." Dunwell said slowly, frowning. He hadn't quite believed that they were Elves, but Faeries? "What do you mean you were once human?"

The girl starred at Dunwell with those dark eyes. "Answer Sir Dunwell's question."

"We were all human once. When we woke up in this place we had been transformed into Faeries. Before that we were in floating Castle of Aincrad in the game of Sword Art Online and before that most of us were residents of the nation of Japan on the plant Earth." The girl spoke calmly, eyes blinking at regular intervals as if it was a affectation rather than a need.

Dunwell had questioned further as Lord Cromwell and Sir Wells watched on, but he had been mystified by the answers and every effort to clarify left him with only more questions. "What about the girl with the wings. Who was she?"

"You must mean Asuna-sama." 'Aki' said. "She was our Leader. Commander of the Knights of Blood and the third strongest clearer in SAO. Only the Black Swordsman and Heathcliff-sama were her superiors." So an accomplished soldier.

"What more can you tell me about her?" Dunwell pressed. The girl starred calmly and then looked to the other bodies. She pointed to one in particular. The man that Dunwell had done battle with. "Arguile-san could tell you more."

Cromwell beamed, "Well then, I do believe there will be lots of opportunities for salvation today, don't you?"

"Lord Cromwell." A voice came from the far side of of the courtyard. A dark haired woman stood, arms crossed beneath her chest.

"Ah, Lady Sheffield!" Cromwell smiled, "We've been having a fascinating conversation with this young Faerie. Why don't you join us?"

Sir Dunwell nodded his head to Reconquista's financier. The woman was a mystery, even to him. All that he had been able to determine was that she possessed immense financial resources, and seemingly, a vested interest in Reconquista's cause.

Sheffield gave a small nod of her head. "I've come to collect you Lord Cromwell. An emergency committee meeting has been called. Your attendance is requested."

Cromwell looked quite disappointed, "We will have to continue this later. Sir Wells, could you see to it that Miss Aki's clothes are mended and returned, I do believe we will have some use of her services. In fact, for now, Miss Aki please obey Sir Wells' instructions and stay close to him. We don't wish to start a panic now do we?"

"As you wish Cromwell-sama." The girl nodded her head as she stood from the cot and approached an uncomfortable looking Wells.

"Sir Dunwell." Cromwell added.

"Sir?"

"This matter with Faeries, most troubling." Cromwell brightened for a moment. "But the Founder graces us so that every trial may grant new opportunity! I will be entrusting this matter to you for the time being. I do believe I will be quite busy for the rest of the evening, but do come by around ten of the clock tomorrow morning and we shall continue where we left off."

Dunwell's eyes swept from the living cadaver back to the man "Of course, Lord Cromwell."

He'd departed from the Palace after that, struggling to conceal his unease, and arrived at the Tower of Londinium as night fell. The lights of a million torches and lamps illuminated the city, revealing the ships in dock by the silhouettes they cast.

Turning from the window, Dunwell took a seat at the writing desk and removed a small book from a lock box. It was an unremarkable thing bound in beaten leather. The thin pages at first appeared blank, but with a short incantation and a wave of his wand, about half of the pages were revealed to be covered in his own neat scrawl. He'd been keeping the book since . . . Since the night on the _Royal Sovereign_. Everything that he observed, everything that he had deduced.

There were too many questions still left unanswered. Not the least of which, who were Reconquista's true benefactors? Dunwell harbored no illusions about the movement's goals, a popular uprising that had been hijacked by opportunists and brought to fruition by powerful backers. But what were the goals of their financiers? To weaken Albion? To distract the eyes of Halkegenia while they made their own play elsewhere?

The supplies flowed through Gallia, but that did not exclude Romalian intervention, though unlikely given the Pope's official statements. Then there was Germania. The Northern Kingdom was wealthy but wracked by internal divisions and the threat posed by Reconquista was forcing Tristain into their hands. The Imperial family stood to gain greatly by entwining the blood of the current Emperor with one of the Royal Lines.

A strong breeze crossed the threshold of the window and Dunwell looked up from his diary. "Were you seen?"

"Am I ever?" A woman's voice asked back. The reflection in the mirror atop the desk revealed a brief flash of pale bare skin. The sound of feet padded across the floor to the dresser and there came a rustling of fabric. When she appeared in the mirror again, she was garbed in a pale blue evening gown. "What you saw, it troubled you." He nodded slowly.

Dunwell starred at a bottle on the table. He had never been a man to drink to excess. But after what he had seen today, he was beginning to appreciate the merit. There was a certain dignity in death. It rendered everyone equal, mage and commoner, Man and Elf. All duties were discharged, all debts were payed. But now, he wasn't so sure. Finally, coming to a decision, Dunwell poured the first shot into his glass and raised it to his lips.

"You saw it too, didn't you?" He asked the reflection of the woman standing behind him.

Green eyes, illuminated by the moonlight, blinked softly. "I did."

"Then what . . . Was it?"

The woman frowned faintly, the expression of displeasure hardly detracting from her beauty. "I cannot say for certain what it was. But I do know what it was not. And that was not Void."

Dunwell snorted to himself, he'd thought not, the Founder's element reappearing was a far fetched notion. Then again, so was the notion of Faeries coming to the aid of the Tudors. "Are you certain?"

Reaching over the Knight's shoulder, a few loose strands of blue hair brushed against his cheek. Dunwell didn't resist as she plucked the small glass from his fingers, swirling the contents curiously. "I'd think by now you of all people would know that nothing is ever certain." And with that statement she took the glass to her lips, downing the shot in a thoroughly unladylike fashion. She held up the empty glass, examining it in the candle light. "So that just leaves a question of my own."

"Hmm?"

"Does this change anything?" She asked, placing the glass back on the table and pouring a second shot. "You already no my opinion, one way or the other."

Dunwell thought carefully, suddenly grateful that he had not taken that first drink. It was a difficult question, after he had taken that first step, committed the great sin, the crime that stained his hands so red that what had come after had weighed hardly at all. All of it recorded for posterity in that little book.

"It does not." He decided.


	45. Chapter 12 Part 3

Author's Note - I had my response written here to one of the reviews, the one about introducing modern technology, however, it ballooned massively as I wrote it, so it's now included at the end of this relatively short chapter.

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 12 - Part 3

Though the fortress and port at Newcastle were still standing, the city itself was all but destroyed. Weeks of bombardment by the besieging air fleet had reduced much of the once thriving city to a shattered and abandoned ruin. Those who had not fled or been killed when the outer walls had fallen, had retreated to the temporary safety of the inner citadel that ringed the port at the heart of the city. Surrounded on three sides by the abyss, the Royalists had prepared to make their last stand.

The signs of destruction could be seen everywhere. Cannon shots fired from high elevation by airships had rained down on the Fort for days, wreaking havoc on buildings and leaving the streets crowded with rubble. The bombardment had eventually died down, Reconquista didn't have an infinite supply of gunpowder to spend on the Royalist problem, but not before almost every structure not built sturdily enough to be considered a castle in its own right had been thoroughly wrecked.

It was among these half ruined buildings that most of the displaced refugees had sought shelter. The families of Royalists and their retainers, and the children of fallen soldiers. There were perhaps two thousand of them in total of which five hundred were able bodied men. Those who could fight were placed on the walls or given the task of tending to the cannons. The rest, the elderly too feeble to fight, and the children who were too young, simply waited.

Some of these unfortunate souls, huddled together in a mostly intact barracks, found comfort as they listened to a song that no one in Halkegenia had ever heard before, sung in a soft trembling voice.

_"There are loved ones in the glory_ _Whose dear forms you often miss._ _When you close your earthly story,_ _Will you join them in their bliss?"_

Caramella wasn't quite sure why she'd recalled it now of all times. Her paternal grandmother had taught it to her when she'd visited the States as a child, but she hadn't sung it in years. Especially after her parents had had their falling out over . . . well . . . her. But even after all of these years, the Lyrics came easily.

_"Will the circle be unbroken_ _By and by, by and by?_ _Is a better home awaiting_ _In the sky, in the sky?"_

Surrounding her, the occupants of the barracks, mostly children and elderly men and women nodded their head appreciatively. No one here save Caramella and maybe some of the other SAO survivors would have any idea what the Lyrics had originally been about. It wasn't like anyone in Halkegenia had ever heard of a 'Christian' much less Christian revival. But that didn't matter much, people found their own meaning in the words.

_"In the joyous days of childhood_ _Oft they told of wondrous love_ _Pointed to the dying Savior_ _Now they dwell with Him above."_

A child, a little girl with messy blonde hair, face pale and dirty, leaned her head against Caramella's side. The adults were polite but anxious around the Faeries, but the children showed no fear. The swordswoman placed a hand atop the girl's head and frowned inwardly as she felt the faint hint of a fever. These people were running short of everything, gunpowder, medical, supplies, about the only things they had in abundance were food and potable water. The Fortress had been stocked with provisions for six months, but that assumed they would be restocking a full Royal Navy squadron.

_"Will the circle be unbroken_ _By and by, by and by?_ _Is a better home awaiting_ _In the sky, in the sky?"_

It was lucky for the Fae that had been the case, otherwise the Royalists might have resented having to feed two hundred and eighty extra mouths. Instead, they were grateful for the extra manpower. Even so, Prince Wales had been forced to fight to make his case before his father and the surviving Royalist leaders. The pointed ears hadn't won them any friends.

_"You remember songs of heaven_ _Which you sang with childish voice._ _Do you love the hymns they taught you,_ _Or are songs of earth your choice?"_

Caramella noticed Kino leaning against the door frame of the barracks, listening as she finished the chorus and the next verse. Her partner in crime looked like he had something he needed to tell her. Caramella's voice trailed off, receiving groans from the children who had been listening and even a few soft looks of disappointment from the adults.

"Sorry kids, but I have to get going." Caramella apologized. She gently wrapped the girl at her side in a blanket and led her to lay down on a cot. The other children were already humming the song to completion as she followed Kino outside.

"Sorry to interrupt you." Kino said. "That song . . . It was pretty."

"Eh? I probably butchered it." Caramella said with a shrug. "What's up?" She asked tiredly.

Kino shook his head. "Asuna-sama sent me to find you. She and Prince Wales want everyone, all of the fighters, to gather up." Kino said softly. "It sounds like they've come up with something."

Caramella rolled her eyes. "Of course they have." Honestly, those two were scary together, a couple of little schemers.

Leaving the barracks, they found themselves not far from the Fort's outer walls. Low, thick, stone fortifications that traced a zigzag pattern across the city. Nishida had said it was something called a star fortification, he'd apparently read about them once, the shape of the fortress walls made it difficult for an attacker to hit them head on with their cannon fire. It must have been pretty effective, because the Rebels had decided it was pointless to batter the walls down with their artillery.

They didn't seem too crazy about storming the Fort either. The Port of Newcastle was built on a peninsula jutting out from the Northern tip of Albion and surrounded by cliffs. The defenders only had to worry about a ground assault from one side, and the fortress, which stretched across the narrowest point of the peninsula, pretty much made that an exercise in assisted suicide.

Making their way through the inner walls and then hiking up the stairs to entrance of the Citadel, a large star shaped structure at the heart of the Fortress capped by five thick stone towers, they received a few curt nods from the soldiers that they passed.

Most of the Royalists didn't quite know what to make of the Faeries. Wales had ordered his men to treat their guests cordially and the Fae had been given free run of the Fortress. So long as they didn't get under foot or linger in sensitive areas, they could go where they pleased.

Most of the SAO survivors had taken the opportunity to make themselves useful, finding tasks around the Fort and offering a helping hand. Anything to occupy themselves and get their minds off of what was happening. The locals had watched on in astonishment as Maki expertly mended damaged clothing at a pace that put all but the most skilled seamstresses to shame, and many a sentry had displayed clear admiration for Kino's excellent night vision. Nishida had made friends among the gunnery crews, chatting them up as he helped to hall ammunition up onto the walls. Hell Kimura was even making himself useful for once helping to conduct maintenance on the Eagle.

After three days, the general attitude towards the Fae seemed to be one of cautious acceptance. But even so, Caramella couldn't shake the feeling that she was an animal under observation. For every appreciative look or word of thanks that was passed their way, there was a suspicious glance or a softly breathed curse. These ears were good for something at least.

The interior of the citadel reminded Caramella of two things at once, a dungeon and a palace. The walls were made of cold gray stone, the windows were small and set high up, and the doors were all constructed of dark hardwood reinforced by iron frames. But those walls were draped in rich tapestries, the small windows numerous and allowed in a surprising amount of light, and the heavy doors opened onto well furnished rooms and apartments. In better times, this fortress had housed many Noble Officers of the Royal Navy, and a certain degree of luxury had been expected.

"So, any idea what Asuna and Blondie have been cooking up." Caramella asked, she hadn't seen Asuna since yesterday afternoon, she'd been holed up with Wales ever since.

The young knife user shook his head. "Sorry, your guess is as good as mine. But it sounds like if we can do this, the Royalists might get us off Albion." Caramella whistled softly, next stop the mainland, and hopefully there they could meet up with some of the other players they'd heard about.

At the heart of the citadel was a large courtyard wide enough across to accommodate a commerce raider like the HMS Eagle with room to spare. Officially, it was an aerodrome meant to dock the Royal Yacht. In fact, it was the entrance to a hole bored straight through the White Isle from top to bottom. At some point in the past, when the first castle had been constructed on this patch of land, the architects had widened the hole, branching outwards to form storage chambers, planning rooms, and an impressive secret dock hidden in the mists below.

Leave it to Wales to have his own private Bat Cave, Caramella thought.

They made their way downwards, the smooth stone walls giving way to the cruder construction of an earlier era until they came to stand before a pair of wide oaken doors. The Guards to either side sparred them only a brief glance. When Caramella had first seen the room beyond those doors, she had known immediately what to call it, medieval NORAD.

The name fit. The room beyond was pentagonal with a high domed ceiling supported by stout wooden beams and stone pillars. Light from a half dozen chandelier illuminated the subterranean chamber, revealing wide tables covered in maps and papers. An immense map of Albion dominated one wall, showing details down to the smallest village and back road while a table near the center of the room held a painstakingly hand crafted model of the topography of the Isle.

Caramella spotted Asuna leaning over the map table, Prince Wales at her side. Asuna's wings would have made her hard to miss even if her brilliant white and red coat had not. It looked like Maki had gotten her hands on some more sewing supplies. But more than just that. Asuna exuded Princess without even trying, and not the kind with the the frills and bows. From the second they had docked at Newcastle, Asuna had kept the Prince's advisers and even the King when he deigned to appear, on the back foot.

Looking around, Caramella noted that she and Kino were not the first arrivals, around two dozen other KoB members were already in attendance along with about the same number of mages who were busily watching the Faeries and trading comments among themselves. Looked like something big really was in the works.

"You're late." The curved blade user Shio commented with a slight hint of amusement. The man stood, leaning against a pillar, his dull red oriental style armor seeming to eat up the light around him.

"I'm sorry I must have forgotten to put it in my phone. We're running on a schedule now? With times? Like regular people?" Caramella asked.

Shio shrugged, "Last one here, makes you late."

'Bite me' She mouthed to the dark haired man, eliciting snickers from her fellow Fae and looks of confusion from the mages.

"If that's everyone," Asuna looked up from the table, "We can begin." Asuna looked over to the swordswoman, "Caramella."

"Asuna-sama." Caramella replied softly, biting down on a curse as she observed the other girl. She didn't think Asuna was sleeping much, or really eating much either.

They'd all dealt with death before, there wasn't a single person in Aincrad who hadn't lost someone they considered a friend. But this was different. A lot of the people who had died hadn't been fighters, they'd been the 'civilians', the players who had built up a hefty safety margin while adventuring on the lower floors, or who had never even left the Town of Beginnings. What the hell kind of business did they have getting themselves killed? Caramella thought angrily. Her finger tips brushed lightly against the hilt of the two handed sword that she now carried on her back. God damn it all!

Worse was the way it was eating at Asuna. The girl blamed herself, as if she could have known what was going to happen and prevented it. And with every day it was getting worse. Asuna withdrew into herself. She distanced herself from everyone. She wasn't even talking to Nishida.

"Thank you all for lending us your time." Prince Wales began. "We have asked you all here seeking volunteers to take part in a vital mission." The Prince's eyes narrowed. "If successful, this will prolong the fall of Newcastle and ensure that the final battle is all the more costly for the Rebels." There were nods and muttered comments of approval from Wales' men.

"In exchange for our assistance, the Royalists have agreed to help smuggle us to the Continent." Asuna explained. "The Royalists are currently conducting maintenance on the Eagle and preparing her for a blockade run. The ship should be ready by the end of tomorrow."

"Passage to the Continent will be expensive for the Royalists." A stout tank named Ivan observed. "This mission must be very dangerous."

"It is." Wales agreed softly. "Allow us to explain." He gestured for the gathered Fae and Mages to step up to the table where maps and diagrams had been scattered. "For the last several weeks, the Rebels have been intermittently bombarding Newcastle. It appears that they have finally worked out the problems with their supply lines. That is, the problems we haven't been assisting them with."

A soft chuckle rose from the surrounding mages. Some of these men served aboard the Eagle, they had lots of experience making Reconquista's supply situation a living hell.

"This is the town of Wallsend located ten leagues south of Newcastle." Wales pointed to a small dot on a map of the continent and then to a larger sketch of the town itself. "There is a powder mill located on the town outskirts. It is the site of Rebel gunpowder production in the area. We're going to destroy it." There was a ripple of low respectful murmurs among the gathered mages and Faeries. "Naturally due to the importance of this mill, the local garrison has been greatly strengthened."

Caramella bumped against Kino, "Hey, this sounds right up your alley." Kino glared up at her before bumping back.

"Prince Wales." One of the younger mages near the back of the crowd waved to draw the Prince's attention.

"Yes Lucane?" Wales asked, gesturing for the others to be silent so the man could speak.

Lucane stepped forward, a dark haired man with the lean build of a soldier. "My Prince, this is a vital mission, I'm sure I speak for every man here when I say I would be honored to be part of it. But . . ." The man glanced to Caramella and the other Fae. "Forgive me my Prince, but can we truly trust these firstborns with such a task."

"And what is that supposed to mean exactly?" Shio asked dangerously. The other Knights of Blood nodded as they glared at the Halkegenian Knight.

"Lucane, explain yourself." Wales ordered gravely.

The mage bowed his head. "I merely mean to say that they are not joined with our cause. Their commitment cannot be assured. And moreover, they are magicless beings, no better than commoners. Surely our own Knights can better see to this mission on their own."

With every word out of the man's mouth, the urge in Caramella to strangle him grew stronger. Fortunately, she didn't have to. Wales starred at his subordinate, the Prince blinked once, twice. "Lucane, you were Knighted just after the Rebellion began, correct?"

"Yes, my Prince." Lucane nodded. "For proving myself valiantly in battle over the fields of Lexington. My squadron held the the traitorous Dragon Knights at bay long enough for hundreds of our comrades to escape."

Wales nodded, "Dragons are fierce creatures, fighting, with them and against them, is challenging at the best of times. Tell me Lucane, how many dragons have you slain?"

The Knight paused as if not understanding the question. "Slain? I slew two Rebel Knights and their mounts before my own dragon was killed beneath me." The other mages gave approving murmurs as if Lucane had done all that could be expected of a soldier in a hopeless situation.

"Very impressive Lucane. Your skill does you credit. Then you and Lady Asuna share something in common." Wales explained casually.

"Excuse me, my Prince?" Lucane looked confused.

"The dragons, you've both slain two." Wales explained, watching as Lucane blanched and looked to the winged girl still standing calmly beside Wales. "Of course, Lady Asuna did so on foot, and without magic."

"Impossible." Lucane breathed softly. Murmurs of agreement rose from the other mages along with lots of uses of the word 'preposterous'.

"I would have thought the same." Wales replied. "That is, if I hadn't seen it for myself. Lady Asuna braved their breath attacks and killed both fire drakes in barely more than the space of a heartbeat. Magic or not, I would count myself blessed to have such a warrior at my side."

"It was luck more than anything." Asuna replied casually. "The dragons were already strafing us."

The young Knight's eyes widened in shock, he turned to Asuna with a look of disbelief and new found respect. "Forgive me my Prince, I had heard but believed it just a rumor, it seemed too fantastic to be true I . . ." Wales placed a hand on the man's shoulder and smiled kindly.

"As I said, I would not have believed it myself." Wales said. "You are correct that the Fae do not have the advantage of magic, but their physical prowess more than compensate. As for their convictions," Wales turned to looked back at Asuna, "You are also correct that they are not wed to our cause. But I do not question that they will honor our bargain."

"Thank you, Prince Wales." Asuna nodded her head curtly.

"If that is your decision my Prince." Lucane said, the man looked suitably chastised. "Forgive me for speaking out."

Wales shook his head, "There is nothing to forgive, your concern does your credit. Now, returning to the matter at hand." Wales swept back around. "The Wallsend mills are responsible for supplying the northern arm of the Rebel Fleet as well as the forces besieging Newcastle. Up until recently, the largest hold up in black powder production has been the Rebels difficulty in acquiring a steady supply of sulfur, but that appears to have been solved."

"Our few friends on the continent could only delay the procurement for so long." A gray haired man offered apologetically.

"To every challenge the Founder offers us a solution, Paris." Wales smiled evilly. "And in this, the Founder and God have been most generous in supplying means to destroy the mill and its stocks. The mill itself will be well warded against fire or earth magic and we are sorely lacking in more powerful mages to carry our a demolitions operation. Instead we will need to acquire the means on site."

"We'll attack under the cover of darkness and use their own stocks to demolish the mill." Asuna elaborated in a clinical voice. "While our main strike force neutralizes the sentries and prevents the alarm from being raised, a second smaller demolitions unit will enter the mill and use the black powder to destroy it completely."

"The Rebels are scheduled to take stock of a large shipment at the end of the week. So there should be ample powder on hand for the job." Wales added. "This will be a dangerous mission. Wallsend is one of the nearest outposts supporting the siege. It will certainly be guarded by Mage Knights and a strengthened Garrison. However, we cannot afford to send more than a small force, both to remain undetected and to maintain our defenses here. No more than a dozen each of Mages and Fae."

Caramella raised a hand, "Not to poke holes in your brilliant plan or anything. But this town . . ."

"Yes?" Wales asked.

"Its out there, and we're in here. How exactly are we getting around that little roadblock?" The swordswoman asked. Somehow, she didn't think punching through Reconquista's army was going to go over too well.

Wales shrugged, "That too, the Rebels have provided for. The bombardment has left much of Newcastle a shattered ruin. All of that debris makes it difficult for Earth Mages to take accurate soundings so Reconquista still doesn't know the full lay of the city. There are a number of tunnels within the city ruins that let out beyond the Rebel lines. They should allow a small force to slip past."

Asuna planted her hands on the table. "I wont force any of you to participate in this mission. But it needs to be done one way or another to pay Wales and his men for passage to the continent. Even if nobody else volunteers, I will still go."

The Faeries were all silent and for a moment Caramella had to wonder why. It wasn't like they hadn't all volunteered for raids before. And they had all fought and killed before. Even Caramella was now a blooded warrior after the ambush at Skiesedge. Then she realized what it was. They'd all volunteered before and they'd all killed before, but they'd never volunteered to kill before. There was a world of different between putting a sword in a man who was trying to stop you from running, and killing someone who you'd never have otherwise met.

Shio was the first to raise his hand, Caramella followed a moment later, then Kino and Ivan. Slowly the number of Faerie volunteers climbed until it reached a dozen. The ones who hadn't raised their hands looked almost ashamed, but Caramella couldn't blame them. If she could keep anyone else from having their hands stained red, well then it would be worth it. Lucane gave them all a suspicious glance and when Wales called for volunteers from among his own men, the young Knight was among the first to step forward.

"The difficulty of this mission won't just be in the execution." Asuna said. "We'll have a hard time getting into position as well."

"That is part of why I wanted the Fae and mages with a good wind affinity. Speed will be of the essence both before and after the mission." Wales explained. "We will have to cover the ten leagues to Wallsend and then return in the space of a single night. Are you all certain that you still wish to volunteer?"

Though they had been hesitant to step forward, none of the Fae made so much as a move to step down. Certain? Caramella snorted. "Like my Grandpa always said, it's never to early to celebrate the Fourth of July."

* * *

STORY SECTION ENDS HERE - AUTHOR NOTE FROM HERE ON.

In response to whoever decided to post in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, btw please don't do that again, it was completely unnecessary and prevented me from proceeding in my normal practice of reading everything in the voice of Morgan Freeman.

On the issue of technological progression, it hasn't been neglected, its simply been less than month since the transition! (This story is horribly paced, gasp!) Also, the Faeries have the much more immediate goal of trying to find a way home. Even so, Sakuya has made passing mention of it in previous chapters and will be making more specific mention pretty soon. Yui even commented that Arrun houses the complete 2024 Gutenberg Library, which includes numerous basic scientific, mathematical, medical, chemical, and engineering texts.

However, speaking as a soon to graduate engineering student, there is a great deal of difference between knowing and doing.

Remember that the author of ZnT (God rest his soul) did his research when basing Halkegenia on the Early Modern Period (17th Century) of European history. (With the exception of anachronisms like modern underwear for the sake of fan service and muskets entering broad usage a bit earlier than in our timeline). This gives us a good idea of the technological capabilities of the setting, which by modern standards are abysmal, like really bad, I don't think people realize how awful they are!

If you've ever heard the term, 'build the tools to build the tools', its basically like that. Only the Faeries don't even have the tools to, build the tools, to build the tools, to build the tools. And unlike other more famous ISOT scenarios, like the 16XX books, the transported Faeries didn't bring any such tools with them from home. Basically, what cements Colbert as a genius is the fact that he managed to build a steam engine at all in the setting.

Basically, this is a world that still hasn't quite figured out mass production and started its industrial revolution. Things like clocks and guns at this time are built by craftsmen who carefully hand make each part and then file the pieces down until they fit together properly. Because there is no mass production, there is no demand for interchangeable parts, and thus no demand for precision measurement/machining. That will all have to be developed and introduced by the Fae from square one before they can get very far in a lot fields (The tech tree is not a game of Civ!).

Concepts like the revolver, breach loader, rifles, steam engines, and even crude computational engines existed prior to the 18th century, but the precision machining necessary to actually produce them economically did not exist until much later. Without meeting these precision requirements, even basic repeating rifles are a long, long way off (Years to decades barring very small batch, trial and error made, painstakingly manufactured batches). Technologically speaking, you cannot even make a unified cartridge on an industrial scale much prior to the early 19th century and the Faeries didn't bring a modern machine shop with them.

What the Faeries do bring is a very large (for ISOT scenarios) number of fairly smart and technically minded people, including quite a few engineers, a modest number of doctors, off duty or former military personnel (most of a fairly low rank), mathematicians, economists, agriculture majors, and even a few really clever kids who know a thing or two about science and chemistry. The problem is, a lot of the 'early knowledge' of these fields no longer exists because we've boot strapped past it (lots of doctors know how penicillin is made, very few know the exact strain of Penicillium that it was first produced from, in fact its initial synthesis was a fluke!), it will have to be reinvented based on a good idea of the end product.

Combining what they know from the real world, with the information available in the Arrun Library, and the knowledge of crafting/magic that they have gained in the transition, the Faeries will be able to do a lot for Tristain's technological development (this will likely piss off the Elves), but think more along the lines of breach loading cannons, breach and muzzle loading rifles with minie balls, and 19th century steam technology, rather than howitzers, repeaters, and steam turbines. (Not to say I wont use magic + science + authorial fiat to introduce a few specialty one off gadgets and large devices later on. -cough- Agnes the Pneumatic Knight -cough- :P)

Similar issues exist in applying other sections of a modern knowledge base.

Machining/Engineering: As mentioned above there are serious limitations in these fields without precision tools, a skilled machinist can only do as much as his tools permit. That's not to say the knowledge won't be invaluable. First, just developing precision tooling and mass production will be invaluable and greatly improve Tristain's industrial capabilities. There are also about as many inventions that can be introduced immediately as there are ones that will require further development, such as the minie ball mentioned earlier, percussion caps, earth moving implements, and certain types of steam engine. Magic is also likely to be very useful in bulk manufacturing once approached scientifically. (The major limitation of Halke Mages is visualization of what they want to create. A better understanding of the natural world will help correct this.)

Logic/Mathematics: From which all other sciences flow. A lot can be done here in the fields of calculus and also algebra if it hasn't been been developed/reached Halkegenia yet. Though the advanced maths are pretty theoretical and probably not too applicable in the current situation, there lots that will be of use as well.

Metallurgy: Between the natural affinities granted by their transformation into Fae, and their real life expertise, the Leprechaun's and Gnomes are going to be scrambling to set up Bessemer Converters for the mass production of steel, both for weapons production and as a trade good. More advanced metallurgy will however, be pretty hit or miss, you can't produce aluminum economically without a well developed electrical grid, and other alloys require rare earths that the Halkegenian's may not even know about yet (though with Earth mages they just might).

Besides all of this, there are also the exotic fantasy materials like Mithril, Orehalcum, Argentum, and Dark Amalgam, that can now be synthesized by Fae alchemists using their magic. The qualities of these exotic materials will no doubt need to be examined.

Chemistry: There's a world of different between laboratory and industrial level chemistry, and while the Fae have chemists, they may not have all of the different types of chemists that you need to go from theoretical batches to industrial production, and especially not with the technology available to them at the moment. Basically, modern chemists figure out how to make something in a test tube, then hand it off to guys who figure out how to make it in a bucket, who then hand it off to guys who can make it in a bathtub, who then give it guys who work out how to make it in giant vats. These people all have different assumptions about what they'll have available in order to produce these chemicals, i.e. precision heat exchangers, micro controllers, stainless steel pressure vessels, things they no longer have. They'll have to build back up from the ground with the help of the local alchemists, the library, and any knowledge inherited from the transition.

Medicine: Water Mages aren't exactly slouches in the field of healing and treating disease. I expect that magic has allowed the Halkegenian's to examine the human body much more closely than was possible much before the 19th century in our timeline. Modern Doctors are often very highly specialized and also dependent on a modern pharmaceutical/chemical industry to actually treat their patients. That said, Modern Doctors also possess a lot of advanced knowledge about human anatomy, infection, various diseases, and the spread of pathogens that may simply not have occurred to the local physicians. Germ theory alone will help to explain the importance of hygiene and waste disposal, (Thank God the Halkegenian's didn't ditch bathing the way that we did OTL after the middle ages. Yes, medieval peasants and craftsmen washed regularly!), pathology can help to isolate sights of infection and prevent the spread of a disease, and advanced understanding of anatomy and human illness can complement the healing magic used by both Fae and Halkegenian Water Mages.

Agriculture: Same as above ^ , modern agriculture requires a developed chemical industry, but any ag major worth their salt can probably explain a lot about why certain farming techniques are beneficial while others are harmful. They can also introduce simple historic innovations like the four crop rotation (thank you Maoyu!), water filtration systems, simple earth moving devices, and things like the McCormick Harvester (Abraham Lincoln's secret weapon in the Civil War, it freed up workers to go fight for the Union Army. The level of machining necessary should be within the grasp of Halk's smiths and craftsmen.)

Agriculture will probably be prominent the soonest as a way for the Faeries to offset the 61k extra mouths that Tristain will have to feed in the coming winter.

Economics/Finance: Ah, the metacognition of making money! Pretty valuable considering that basic market forces seem to hold firm sway in Halkegenia. It seems Mages can't generally produce enough gold or other rare elements to mess too much with the market values. A better understanding of what makes the nations economy tick will also be valuable in setting policies to integrate the Fae into Halkegenia and smooth out the waves they're going to cause.

Don't know if double book accounting has been invented yet, but if not, that could also be a valuable thing to introduce and also help the Fae to get their hooks into the banking business with their still considerable stash of Gold as seed capital. (Lord Rute of the Leprechauns likes to Swim around in the Vault Like Scrooge McDuck.)

Military Science: This is actually a tricky one. It isn't simple at all.

First off, I doubt the JSDF much approves of ranking officers playing full dive games in their spare time, and a military institution is the sort of place where that kind of social pressure really carries weight (Because it can end your career). Anyone in a position much past that of a Lieutenant would be expected to be socializing/politicking in his/her spare time. Furthermore, most officers, like most soldiers in general, are not combat officers, they're specialists who who do not regularly train for combat. Even then, any trained combat officers probably wouldn't be as useful as some might think, at least, not as tacticians.

Modern military tactics sort of presuppose a modern military, they don't actually work well with a different paradigm. Firstly, modern military tactics are not the products of thousands of years of war, that's poetic garbage, strategy and operational arts are the products of thousands of years of war, tactics are the product of however many years it has been since the last major paradigm shift, and it is arrogant (read stupid) to think that this knowledge base can simply be transposed to Halkegenia without closer examination.

Fighting a war in the Early Modern Period with magic, dragon cavalry, and aerial fleets, is something that no modern military officer is trained to deal with. Yes it's joked that the military war games crazy scenarios all the time, but that's quite different from actually fighting them. Especially when said officers are trained to use tools that simply don't exist in Halkegenia, such as automatic weapons, over the horizon artillery, squad level radios, and drones.

The Fae would be better of using any JSDF soldiers as NCOs, field officers, or else advisers to someone with a more general grasp of historic military doctrine. In fact, an avid military historian like Mortimer is probably on an even footing with the best military minds among the Fae for just these reasons. (There's a reason that any JSDF personnel haven't tried to take control of the 'military' forces from Mortimer)

Where the military personnel would be most valuable is in introducing modern training techniques, an understanding of military psychology, logistics, operational arts, and military engineering. These are all potent fields because they are largely meta cognitive on the part of the military. I.E. they are arts and sciences that require the military to examine its operation objectively and were historically in a nascent stage of development at this time. This is very important as the Early Modern period sees the beginning of the formation of standing national armies that can contest and defeat the classic mercenary armies of earlier eras.

Basically, don't teach tactics (develop new ones suitable for the paradigm of Halkegenia), teach operational arts, strategy, and logistics.

Sigh, there, Rant finished. Now I dare anyone to say I haven't considered the implications of the above! :p


	46. Chapter 12 Part 4

Posted early as an apology for my previous rant at the end of last chapter.

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 12 - Part 4

Sir Terrance Dunwell had always been an observant man. From a young age he had learned to pay close attention to his surroundings. So when he was offered a new source of information about his enemies, their origins, and their weaknesses, he naturally listened. He listened, but he did not quite believe.

Dunwell was forced to marvel at the power of whatever magic Lord Cromwell had used to reanimate the 'Fae' even as it sickened him. Not only was it able to restore them to a state that was almost indistinguishable from life, if Lord Cromwell was to be believed, the reanimated Faeries were incapable of deliberately lying to their new masters. This would have proven a great boon if only what the Fae had told them would deign to make any sense.

The Faeries were not warriors, were not even Faeries in fact, the reality was much stranger than anything Dunwell might have dreamed up. Not Faeries, humans, and not warriors, just children and commoners. Impossible, but the girl called 'Aki' and the man who called himself 'Arguile' insisted that it was the truth.

A game, it had all been a game. In the world that the Fae were from, another world, the people had developed artifacts that allowed the mind to be transported into an imaginary realm, a sort of mass consensual hallucination. Such an artifact would have required powerful illusion magic to replicate, but by the methods of artisanry available to the Faeries, these devices could be made available to all but the poorest commoners. Dunwell tried to envision a world with such mastery. His imagination failed him.

In one of these illusory worlds stood a floating castle of stone and iron inhabited by hordes of monsters. This game, 'Sword Art Online', had been anticipated by its followers like a new play on opening night. Ten thousand loyal fans had dove into this world on its opening day to take the role of Ivaldic heroes fighting to reach the top of the castle and earn the praise and adulation of their fellows. That had been what they had expected, the reality had been far different.

A man, the creator of the game and the artifacts, had tampered with the players' 'Nerve Gear' in order to trap them within the illusion and render onto them the penalty of death if they were to die within the illusion. Their only hope had been a bargain offered by their captor, reach the top of the castle and earn freedom. But before that goal had been achieved, their tormentor had been discovered among them and slain by their greatest champion. That should have been the end.

The death of the creator should have released the players back into the real world, and for most it had. However, three hundred of the players had somehow ended up here. Their supernatural strength and skill from the realm of illusions somehow made real in being brought to Halkegenia. No matter how they were questioned, neither Aki nor Arguile could offer an explanation. The only thing that they were certain of was that this could not be a result of the tampering done to their 'Nerve Gear' any more than a wand could spontaneously cast spells on its own.

To think that such physical prowess would simply fall into the hands of school children and commoners. Dunwell would have laughed at the absurdity if he had not witnessed it for himself, and seen with deadly certainty how dangerous these 'Faeries' were.

"Then the winged girl is nothing more than some Nobleman's daughter?" Dunwell asked with disbelief. No, that wasn't right. Even if she had started as some helpless child, the trials she must have faced, even in a world of illusions, had transformed her into the fierce, winged swordswoman he'd confronted at the edge of the world.

Seated across from him at the dining table was the Faerie swordsman who referred to himself as 'Arguile' though the name was apparently only an alias used when playing the illusion games. The man's real name was much stranger, in either case, Lord Cromwell had taken a liking to the Fae's aliases and insisted they be addressed as such. The dead offered no complaints.

Externally there was hardly a mark to suggest the devastating trauma that had led to his death. The Palace water mages had spent much of the night mending the cadaver so that Arguile would possess the lungs needed to speak after being resurrected. Similar work had been done to Aki so that she could move without being hindered by damaged bone and wood splinters. Presently, the Faerie swordsman was dressed in the uniform of a cavalryman, in his clothing having been badly damaged and blood stained.

Lord Cromwell had invited Sir Dunwell and Sir Wells to finish where they had left off the night before over a late breakfast served in one of the Palace's smaller dining rooms overlooking the rose garden. Maidservants bustled in and out of the room delivering a constant stream of plates and trays, sparring the Faeries only a brief glance before begging other business and fleeing. Dunwell narrowed his eyes, rumor was fast spreading, Lord Cromwell would have to make an official announcement soon.

"Our homeland does not possess a formal system of nobility like the one in this country." Arguile explained easily. "But my impression is that Asuna-sama is from a wealthy family, people that you might consider a sort of nobility." Dunwell shifted uncomfortably, there was something quite disconcerting about the way that the resurrected Fae tended to stare while speaking. "However, I would advise that you never think of her as 'Nothing more than a Nobleman's daughter'. Asuna-sama survived on the front lines of Aincrad for over two years. She is anything if not exceptional."

Dunwell nodded to himself, duly noted, he had come to the same conclusion, he had no intention of being caught off guard again.

"These front lines . . . The men and women who fought on them were 'Clearers' such as yourself?" Lord Cromwell asked from his seat at the head of the table.

"Yes." Arguile nodded. "The strongest players organized into the strongest guilds, equipped with the best weapons, and led by the best strategists. Asuna-sama possess all of these things. Do not underestimate her Knights of Blood, most of all, do not underestimate her."

Lord Cromwell leaned back with a bemused expression. "My, this is most fascinating, would you not agree Sir Wells? Oh, my manners, Aki my dear would you please poor Sir Wells another cup of tea."

Sir Wells leaned away cautiously as the Faerie girl obediently poured a fresh cup of tea. Aki's clothing had suffered only minor damage in the fight that had lead to her death, however, her garments had yet to be properly mended and she was instead presently garbed in a cavalryman's uniform requisitioned from the palace quarter masters. The smallest cut of the uniform was barely small enough to be hemmed to the girl's size and combined with the long red riding jacket, she would have looked almost comically endearing if not for the saber that rested easily on her hip.

Her weapon had weathered the battle much better than its master, though prying it from the hands of the Earth Mages had proven difficult, the blade's structure and composition had them quite fascinated.

"Yes . . . most fascinating." Sir Wells said with open discomfort. "I . . . am reminded, not for the first time, of the reports we have been receiving from our agents on the mainland."

"The Fae that have appeared in Tristain and the 'World Tree' that has appeared at the heart of the country." Lord Cromwell reviewed. "Most certainly linked to the arrival of of our new friends." He agreed. "More of these Sword Art Online survivors?"

"Denizens of ALfheim actually." Arguile supplied.

"ALfheim? Another of these imaginary worlds?" Dunwell asked. How many such worlds had the people of that other world created, and was there any risks of others appearing in Halkegenia?

Arguile nodded. "Built upon the same engine as SAO in point of fact. As far as we can determine, it is in part because of ALfheim that our appearance in this world is that of Faeries rather than humans. Our game data was being stored on the ALfheim server after the completion of SAO and must have been interpreted as player data for one of the Faerie Races."

"I do believe it would be most convenient for everyone if we continue to refer to you all as Faeries." Cromwell observed as he took a sip of his own tea. "To avoid confusing our allies."

The Knight Captain snorted at the comment. He knew how this game was played all too well. These resurrected Faeries were more useful to Lord Cromwell as 'Fae' than strange eared humans. Perhaps they would even be labeled 'Elves' when the public was told. The power to turn the Great Enemy against itself would make for a powerful propaganda tool.

"As you wish, Cromwell-sama." Arguile replied without a hint of dissent.

Dunwell steeped his fingers as he thought. "Then these Fae on the continent, they are not survivors of the death game?"

"Doubtful." Arguile said. "I think it would be some time, if ever, before many of the SAO players would be willing to try another full dive game. Although . . . There is possibly one. I recall Asuna-sama telling me that the Black Swordsman may also be here."

'The Black Swordsman?' The equivalent of a runic title? Some sort of mark of chivalry? Dunwell wondered.

"Our reports say that the Fae in Tristain possess powerful magic as well as the power of flight." Sir Wells noted. "Can we expect to see the same from the ones here in Albion?"

The reanimated cadaver seemed to give the question some thought, blinking mechanically several times. "I cannot say for sure." Arguile admitted. "At the time I was killed, none of us had succeeded in materializing our wings, and even Asuna-sama had only demonstrated a limited amount of control over her own. And even if we can perform magic, none of the Faeries in the Knights of Blood know any of the ALfheim spells."

"So we need merely concern ourselves with super humanly strong and swift Faeries rather than super humanly strong and swift Faeries who can also fly and cast magic." Sir Wells commented bitterly.

"What do you plan to do about this, Sir Dunwell?" Lord Cromwell asked.

"Sir?" Sir Dunwell asked.

Lord Cromwell smiled warmly. "You have been entrusted with this matter since its beginning in York and I see no reason to change that. Your service to our cause does you credit. How must we proceed?"

Dunwell nodded slowly and closed his eyes. They were not warriors, they were not Faeries, just women and children. But dangerous women and children, deadly with a blade and allied to the Royalists. Dunwell had cut any lingering trace of sentimentality from himself long ago. He would not underestimate an enemy just because they wore the face of a child. What was worse, the rumors that were spreading like the plague from Skiesedge and Queenswall. They needed to be nipped in the bud before they did disproportionate damage.

"Eliminating the Faeries will be difficult . . . But necessary." Dunwell concluded, glancing to Arguile. The resurrected swordsman seemed utterly unperturbed by the mention of slaying his former comrades. Not for the first time, Dunwell shuddered inside.

"Oh?" Lord Cromwell asked as he plucked a scone from a basket before him and lightly buttered it. It was the first thing Dunwell had seen the man eat the entire meal. "Regrettable but true." Cromwell's eyes brightened. "Their fall will make a great tale to remind the people that the White Isle belongs to Brimir's chosen!"

"Indeed." Dunwell said. "But that will come later. My concerns are over a more pressing matter. There has been word spreading among the men and in the towns around York. Rumors about the Faeries. I suspect they have their origin in the old wives tales."

No, he didn't just suspect. Dunwell's father had been a printer, producing bibles and broadsheets for the church, and from time to time, special orders. Though the Church of Brimir was generally intolerant of Fairy Tales, the least offensive, altered to defer to the Founder's Holiness, had been permitted to be printed in mythology texts referring to the spirits and firstborn races. As a child, Dunwell had read those stories late into the night. A spark of childish wonder flickered in him for a moment, only to vanish. Those old wives tales were about to become something far more dangerous.

"Yes, I believe I've heard something about this." Lord Cromwell sighed. "The worst part of heresy. Just as you think it has been rooted out, it rears its ugly head."

"Be that as it may." Dunwell said. "There is a certain appeal to these old tales among the common people. It is being said that a child of Medb has returned to the White Isle. That these Faeries are just the first and that their brethren in Tristain will soon come to their aid."

"And will they?" Cromwell asked curiously. "Come to their aid that is."

"I can't be certain." Sir Dunwell confessed. "I find it doubtful. None have ever succeeded in an invasion of the White Isle. There is no reason to think things will be any different for these Fae. But even if they do not set foot on the Isle, the unrest that they sew could prove difficult to quell. So far the rumors are located to a few isolated regions, but they will spread with every day the Faerie's draw breath."

For the first time that morning, Lord Cromwell's expression grew sober. Propaganda was something that the spokesman of Reconquista was abundantly familiar with, as a Priest it was almost his native tongue. "Most troubling." Cromwell decided, shaking his head. "But what is trouble but a way to prove our love for God? You have a plan, I suppose."

Truthfully, Dunwell had nothing, but one thing was certain. "First I need to make my way to Newcastle." The Knight Captain said.

"Newcastle?" Cromwell repeated. "You believe that the Faeries are there?"

Dunwell nodded gravely. "I saw the HMS Eagle for myself at Skiesedge. The Royalists are managing to slip the blockade somehow. I suspect they are using the mists to cover their arrival and departure from Newcastle. If that is the case, then Newcastle will be the only safe haven for the Faeries as it is for the Royalists"

Lord Cromwell's frown deepened. "How is that possible? The Admirals have informed me that maneuvering beneath the mists around Newcastle is impossibly treacherous. Would the Eagle not simply be dashed against the underside of the Isle?"

Dunwell sighed, of course the 'Admiralty' would say something like that. To have the most advanced fleet in all of Halkegenia placed into the hands of men who had never commanded anything more than their private Yachts, much less done battle in the skies, it was a disgrace! As he had once told his students, an opponent who did not know the skies was not an intelligent enemy.

"For normal ships and normal crews, the Admirals would be correct." Dunwell explained. "What they neglect to mention is that the HMS Eagle is of an advanced class of Frigates and that she is helmed by Royal Navigators. If anyone can do the impossible, it is the Prince and his men. Wales is as skilled a ship's captain as his eldest brother, and still possessed of the idealistic daring to take such risks casually."

"Then we should send the Fleet to search beneath the Isle." Cromwell decided quickly. "I will discuss it with the Admirals at this afternoon's roundtable."

"That would be unwise, Lord Cromwell." Dunwell rubbed his eyes tiredly as he reminded himself that he was speaking to a novice rather than a seasoned military man. "The Admirals are correct that the underside of the Isle, especially around Newcastle, is incredibly treacherous. We would lose ships simply to the winds and low visibility. Better would be to expand the blockade. I'd suggest expanding the Dragon Knight patrols and assigning ships to take soundings in the mists. There will be only a limited number of safe routes along the underside of the Isle. If we can find them, the blockade will at last be completed and the Royalists will truly be trapped."

"And the Faeries as well." Cromwell said.

"And the Faeries as well." Dunwell agreed. "Then it will only be a matter of reducing Newcastle."

"A difficult proposition, even for our cause." Lord Cromwell observed as he placed his teacup aside.

Sir Dunwell shrugged. "Newcastle is but a single fortress, my Lord. A superbly built defensive position, but with no hope of reinforcements or resupply. It can be reduced in time with little risk. We must concern ourselves only with containing the Royalists and Fae until their supplies are exhausted or they decide to sally for a raid. And when the happens," Dunwell breathed, "My Dragon Knights and I will be waiting."

"And we are thankful that is so." Cromwell nodded vigorously. "However, it would be preferred that the Royalist problem be dealt with sooner, rather than later. We must not be seen to be resting on our laurels by the rest of Halkegenia. Onward to the holy land! Onward to salvation! That is the message we must send!" Dunwell quirked his brow. Lord Cromwell couldn't truly be suggesting they storm the Fortress. That would be idiotic!

Cromwell gestured for Aki to refill his teacup, giving the girl a grandfatherly smile. "Fortunately, an ally to our cause may soon deliver Newcastle to us. And with it, the head of Prince Wales . . . among other things that will greatly aid us in our future campaigns."

"An ally?" Dunwell wondered. Was their a traitor in the Royalists midst?

Lord Cromwell stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Though, with these Faeries now in Newcastle it may be most difficult for him to complete his mission as originally planned. I believe you are right, Sir Dunwell. It would be for the best if you were to be ready to render him any assistance." A thick fingered hand settled on Aki's wrist as the girl set down the tea cup. "Aki my dear, that won't do at all, in death you have been given an opportunity for salvation. Rebirth in the glorious light of our Founder! Smile my child!"

Blinking twice the girl replied. "As you wish, Cromwell-sama." The Aki's neutral expression transformed, her lips curving up in a charming little close lipped smile.

"Much better!" Lord Cromwell said jovially and Dunwell winced. Between the powers of the magic sustaining her and her instructions to act 'happy', it was impossible to tell that the Faery girl had been dead for half a week. The magic must have been doing something above and beyond a normal spell of permanence to preserve her flesh like so in the face of constant activity.

"A thought has just occurred to me." Lord Cromwell said. "Aki my dear, I do believe that you and Sir Arguile should accompany Sir Dunwell and his men."

"My Lord?" Dunwell questioned even as Sir Wells nearly choked on his tea. "Would that not perhaps cause complications. Among the men I mean." He glanced to the ears of both Faeries which truly resembled those of Elves.

"Nonsense!" Cromwell waved a hand. "I am sure your men are disciplined and loyal enough to accept their new allies. I vouch that they will serve you well in your mission. In fact." The Leader of Reconquista looked to both Faeries. "Sir Arguile, Aki, I want you both to obey the orders given to you by Sir Dunwell and Sir Wells as if they were coming from me personally. Is that understood?"

"Of course. Cromwell-sama." Arguile bowed his head.

"As your wish, Cromwell-sama." Aki sounded almost reverent.

"There." Lord Cromwell said with a smile. "Both shall serve you faithfully and I am sure you will find use for them."

"Sir Arguile perhaps." Dunwell nodded reluctantly towards the Faerie swordsman. He had been a challenging in inelegant opponent in life. The Knight Captain suspected that if not for his years of experience, he would not have had the means to defeat him with pure magical ability. "But Miss Aki as well?" He had not been given the impression that she was a warrior.

"In Aincrad I was the guild leader of the Violet Hearts." Aki said as if giving her credentials. "It was a small ten man guild that only frequented the middle floors, but we maintained a good safety margin. I was level seventy three when the game was cleared and specialized in sabers and heavy assault lances."

Dunwell frowned, if he understood these 'levels' they were a way to measure the power of the players within the illusory world much like a mage's rankings but with far more subdivisions. Level seventy three would make Aki quite a capable fighter. "Yet you fled during the battle at Skiesedge."

The girl tilted her head, brown hair brushing against her shoulders. "Of course. I did not wish to die." Sir Wells' grip tightened around the handle of his teacup. "Just as every player did not have the mindset to be a clearer, not everyone who was a strong player is suited to be a soldier." She blinked. "I tried to fight, I cut down a man trying to kill one of the other players." Aki looked at her hands curiously. "I remember that my hands shook afterwords. But that isn't a problem anymore."

"It isn't?" Dunwell asked.

"No." Aki confirmed. "For I have been purified by the Founders holy light, to serve Reconquista's glorious cause, and in doing so achieve salvation!" The words were spoken with utter sincerity, something fed her to be parroted when appropriate. Perhaps it was just his imagination, but the girl's eyes seemed to glint with a hollow light that made Dunwell's skin crawl. "I will not hesitate to deliver the Founder's justice to all that stand before Reconquista's holy cause."

"I assure you that they will be most useful to you." Lord Cromwell promised. "After all, they are both able bodied fighters, even more so now that they have been freed of their earthly frailties. And no one in all of Albion will better be able to advise you on the minds of our new enemies."

Dunwell starred at Aki and Aki starred back. She seemed expectant, eager to please. Or perhaps he was simply trying to place a layer of humanity over what was no more than a fleshy Golem. Yes, that was it. The string of a bow was made from animal sinew, rope from hair, magical artifacts from any number of once living reagents. If he thought of Aki and Arguile as Golems, as tools in the shapes of humans, the bile did not rise in his throat.

"We humbly accept your generous offer." Sir Dunwell said carefully. Sir Wells looked on, white faced. Dunwell glanced to Arguile. "We were not able to retrieve your sword. I will have the quartermasters issue you a new one before we depart."

"That would be appreciated." Arguile said with faux politeness.

Taking a long breath, Sir Dunwell placed his hands on the table and stood. His stomach felt hollow, empty, he hadn't touched a bite. "Then please make ready. I tolerate no hold ups in the forces under my command. We depart for the command post in Wallsend by noon."


	47. Chapter 12 Part 5

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 12 - Part 5

The deck of the Lady Gallant was quiet as the Gallian flagged airship sailed onward towards its rendezvous with the Isle of Albion. Quiet was supposed to be good, Guiche thought, or so his brothers had told him. Quiet meant everything was going to plan. But alas, it certainly was boring and there was hardly a thing to do. He couldn't very well drink while on a mission, and he wasn't willing to risk his purse on games of chance with the crew. After they had hit the trade winds and the sails had been rigged for the short journey, the Captain had allowed his passengers to come up onto the deck to enjoy the view offered by a ship in flight.

The vistas had been a pleasant enough way to pass the time while they sailed over the continent, but once they had reached the sea, it seemed that nothing could be more bland. The monotony of blue beneath them had only been replaced with a monotony of white all around them as afternoon turned to evening and they hit the cloud banks that signaled the approach to Albion.

Captain Wardes had informed them that they would be making port in the city of York, a days journey from the besieged Royalist stronghold of Newcastle. There, the mission would begin in earnest. They would have to find some means of transport to the front lines and then find safe means of passage beyond the siege. The Viscounts original intent had been to fly in under the cover of darkness. Though still a possibility, the task would be difficult for the Captain's Griffin if it had to fly with three passengers.

Guiche had naturally suggested that if they could not fly over the siege, they might simply tunnel under it. Alas, the Viscount had informed them that Newcastle's defenses included significant warding of the landward side approaches. Even Verdandi's impressive tunneling ability would be for not against earth hardened to the consistency of granite.

"If Earth magic was the solution." The Viscount had said. "Reconquista would have taken the Fortress by now."

Midori had seemed indifferent about the whole affair. The girl had studied the map of Newcastle laid out on the small table of their cabin, one hand absently pushing Verdanndi away as the giant mole attempted to sniff her over.

"We'll just have to wait and see for ourselves." She'd said.

Naturally the swordswoman was quite right, Guiche thought as he leaned against the deck railing. There was no point worrying about things until they saw the situation with their own eyes. In the meantime, he smiled, there were better things to be using his eyes for. Much better things. In fact, that much better thing was currently standing mere mails away, practicing.

After witnessing her talents first hand, soundly defeating an entire troop of bandits without taking a single life, a less ambitious man might have tempered his interest. But such beauty could give courage to even the weakest heart and a Gramont was anything if an admirer of beauty. Indeed, her strength was simply another mystery, and another lure that along with Midori's aloof personality made her all the more enticing. Everything about Midori was different and new and therefore exciting in a way that the academy girls simply were not. If he were to be honest, he was finding he was really quite taken with her!

Guiche watched on with admiration as Midori swung her sword through a series of short, controlled strokes. The blades motions were smooth and fluid. Though still a novice himself, Guiche had to confess that her form was as relentlessly beautiful as the young swordswoman wielding it. And he wasn't the only one who seemed to think so given the glances stolen by members of the Lady Gallant's crew. A few of the men had even gathered to shout open words of encouragement, drawing a small smile from the girl as she practiced.

With her hair tied back by a short cord and her jacket cast aside to reveal a dark, short sleeved shirt, brow dripping with sweat, the taut, wiry muscles of her forearms rippling smoothly beneath pale skin; not for the first time, Guiche was struck by her resemblance to some heathen princess. Indeed it was part of her appeal, the alluring mixture of fragile beauty and hidden strength.

At last, Midori ceased in her motions, flourishing her sword before returning it to its sheath with a look of reluctant satisfaction. Wiping her brow with a borrowed handkerchief the girl made her way to the opposite side of the ship, stretching languidly as she went. Midori stood alone, watching the clouds go by, a solitary dark figure against a pale backdrop. The Viscount was below decks tending to his Griffin, there was nobody else around. The crew left her be, they were under close instruction to be on their best behavior with a woman aboard. This was his chance!

Guiche observed carefully as he approached, as with all things worth learning, there was an artistry to courtship. It wouldn't do to approach too swiftly. In his experience, a disciplined girl like Midori would be quite set on her duty. Being seen to interfere would only serve to agitate her. She had to be made receptive to his advances, the dance had to be enjoyable for both parties or nothing would come of it.

"Miss Midori." Guiche said politely as he came to stand at her side. He played with the idea of conjuring up a bouquet of bronze flowers but discarded it, though perfect for charming some girls, he had the impression that it would be much too direct here.

The swordswoman spared him a brief glance and a small nod before returning her attention to the clouds. In the dying light, the white mist was stained a faint, bloody pink. Standing so close by Midori's side, Guiche could hear the soft sounds of her breathing, smell the faint spice of her hair mingling with sweat. Another girl might have looked disheveled after such vigorous physical exercise, but Midori maintained an almost regal bearing. The way her shirt clung didn't hurt either. It was nearly enough to make him forget himself. Ah yes, how to go about this?

"You were in masterful form today." Guiche said carefully.

Yes, a girl like Midori was devoted to her craft. In his experience, no doubt beneath her mask lay a pure and innocent maiden, but first she would need to be flattered, coaxed from her shell. Well that should not prove difficult in the least. Guiche was not so insecure that he could not appreciate hard earned skill and natural talent.

Midori seemed to study him as if deciding whether to answer and then snorted softly. "The footwork was only so so." She said. "And I'm not nearly as confident as a I should be." The girl shook her head, causing her hair to sway in that flowing fashion that she hardly seemed to notice. "To think that just three months would see me getting this soft." She murmured softly.

"Excuse me?" Guiche asked. "Have you been recovering from an injury?"

"Oh?" Midori seemed not to have realized she had spoken aloud. "Something like that."

Guiche wondered if he should press further but decided against it. Again, do not antagonize, the first step was to make her comfortable, so that they might enjoy themselves. "Nonsense." He said. "Even father would have been impressed." In more ways than one, he thought. "Before, you mentioned it was a sword style of the Far East? Then is it from your homeland?"

Midori suddenly frowned. "My homeland? Who told you that?"

"Ah, I did not mean to speculate but your features are quite distinctive. I can only think you carry foreign blood." Though he could swear he had seen eyes like that somewhere before. At the academy perhaps? Certainly his imagination!

Seeming satisfied with this answer, the swordswoman shrugged. "Well . . . I wouldn't know for sure." Midori said carefully.

Guiche puzzled at the reply, then it all clicked. "Oh . . . I see." He said slowly. Yes, that explained it. The men who led the Caravans through the elven territories had gained a reputation for daring and adventure and were as often from the far heathen lands as from Halkegenia. It was easy enough to see how such a thing might come to pass. A young Noblewoman and a dark haired foreigner.

What sort of irresponsible fool wouldn't take measures? That was the first thing that he had been taught by his brothers. Damned heathens! Even as he was thinking this he was already adjusting his strategy. She had presented him with a delicate subject. Perhaps she hoped to be comforted.

"My apologies, Miss Midori." He said respectfully and found he suddenly meant it. "It must have made life difficult for you."

The girl shrugged. "There are more important things than blood. Anyways, I was loved like their own by the people who raised me, so I can't complain. As for my sword style, some is self taught, the rest is from very far away. Further than even Rub'Al Khali."

"Well, it does suit you. No doubt very few have seen its like in Halkegenia." Guiche complemented. "A sword style of rare grace for a swordswoman of rare beauty." Guiche congratulated himself on that last part and waited expectantly. A strange expression flashed across Midori's face and then she looked away. Ah, had he perhaps been too forward?

"Please." She said quietly. "Stop it."

"I beg your pardon?" Guiche asked.

Midori turned to face him fully, and even though she had to look up at him, he had the strangest impression that he was being looked down upon. "I've turned a blind eye to it because of our mission, but it's becoming a problem. You've been stealing glances at me this whole time. I know you tried to peep back at the hotel when I was bathing. And I felt your eyes on me all the way from the Academy. Just what do you think you're doing?"

Guiche blinked a few times, this was . . . new. He'd lost count of the number of times that a girl had flown into a rage at him. Or that he had been called out by his fellow students for his behavior. But he had never received this look of simple disappointment. No, not from a girl anyways. It was quite disconcerting.

"Well . . . That is to say . . . " Guiche struggled to offer an explanation before falling back on his old standby, rush in and hope for the best! "I was simply admiring your beauty. From the moment I saw you, you captured my heart and . . ."

"I captured your heart?" Midori asked. "Really? What about that girl you were talking about over dinner last night? What was her name? Monmon?"

"Montmorency?" Guiche offered weakly, "You were listening?"

"You wouldn't shut up after you'd had a little to drink." The swordswoman said coolly as she brushed aside a stray strand of hair. "It sounded to me like she's your girlfriend."

Guiche thought quickly, drat, this was always a difficult question to defuse. This was why he tended to stick to the first years and trysts whilst on vacation. But he had dealt with this before. "You misunderstand! Montmorency is a dear acquaintance and our hearts are tied by much affection. But in romance, she has never held my attentions as you. No girl has!"

"How many girls have you done this with?" Midori asked with a bite of steel in her voice.

"N-none, I swear." Guiche lied trying to think quickly, it appeared he had already lost this round, he had botched things from the start. But he had recovered from worse! "Forgive me Miss Midori. Perhaps I have been too forward, but that is only because I am certain that this is love at first site! I've never before been stricken with a girl the way I am with you at this very moment!"

Midori starred, hair blowing in the breeze. Her expression softened. So his last hand had worked! Then why did she look so sad? Midori shook her head slowly. "Guiche . . . you . . . sicken me."

"W-what?" Guiche stuttered. It was a familiar insult, but never had it been delivered so calmly.

"You can't play with people's hearts like this." Midori said softly. "It's not a game for everyone."

Guiche's expression soured, it seemed he really was found out, and with that came a flush of embarrassment. "What are you implying? What's wrong with making it a game?"

If precautions were taken, nobody would get hurt. It wasn't like the girl's didn't know what was going on. He wasn't that good a liar after all. They had to convince themselves for the most part. They had to play along. Didn't they?

Finally, a spark of anger flashed across Midori's face. "I am saying that you can't treat love like its a game. If you do, it will rot something that should be very precious. I can't respect a person who whores himself like that!"

Guiche was left speechless. 'Whore himself?' He felt a hint of anger rising to meet Midori's own but even before memories of her skill stopped him, the look in her eyes gave him pause.

"And what would some savage bastard girl know about love?!" Guiche spat. She couldn't be much older than himself. Really, what right did she have talking down to him like that?

And then, again to his surprise, Midori turned back to the clouds, her expression growing melancholic. A closed hand came to rest against her chest, hovering over her heart. It was like she had forgotten he was there entirely. "Its not a game." She said so softly the words were almost lost. "The bonds between people, they are the only thing we have to put our faith in. Don't . . . cheapen them like that."

Guiche's breathing slowed and he blinked rapidly as he tried to understand. Guiche wanted to kick himself, there surely had been signs. As often as he had pursued girls, he had never knowingly attempted to woo one who was already taken. Aside from the obvious risk of scandal, a girl selecting a suitor was a clear signal that she had bowed out from the 'game'.

"Your heart . . . It already belongs to someone, doesn't it? A lover?"

"A spouse." Midori confessed.

Already wed? Not unusual for a girl of childbearing age, but then if she was married, what business did Midori have as a soldier? Surely she should be elsewhere seeing to a home and a family. But that didn't excuse his own behavior towards another man's wife.

"Miss Midori, please accept my apologies, I've been a bit of a heel it seems." Guiche said awkwardly, he wasn't used to admitting fault like so.

Midori gave another small shrug. "It's okay." She said. "I went too far as well. You're a guy after all." Guiche was left confused by the hint of sympathy in her voice. "Just, please . . . stop this. My mission is going to be hard enough without dealing with you making a fool of yourself."

Guiche began to make a reply when the sound of approaching footsteps reached him. "Good. You're both here." Viscount Wardes said. The Captain of the Griffin Knight glanced between his two companions. "Am I . . . interrupting something?"

"Nothing." The swordswoman said quickly.

Guiche simply shook his head in agreement. He sparred Midori one more glance, but that pained look had disappeared completely. She was now leaning against the railing, calmly regarding the Viscount.

Wardes gave the two an odd look. "Very well . . . I was speaking with the Captain a moment ago. He says that we should reach York by late evening, the winds permitting. We'll have to hold for inspection once we reach the Port. Reconquista has been strengthening their security in the past weeks."

"Will it be a problem?" Midori asked.

The Viscount waved a dismissive hand. "We have nothing to hide. Nothing that can't be disposed of if necessary. Once we're in York, we'll have to wait for the horses and my Griffin to be offloaded. We may want to stay in the city until morning."

"More waiting?" Midori asked with another flash of anger. Patience seemed to be the only virtue that she often lacked.

The viscount pulled down on the brim of his hat. "We could always depart immediately. But the roads beyond the city are treacherous, filled with bandits and rogue mercenaries."

"We can handle those." Midori offered, hand brushing against the hilt of her sword.

"Perhaps. But we won't be able to handle the attention it will draw." The Viscount explained. "There will be no help for us once we are on Albion. More than ever, we will need to rely on one another to see our respective missions through."

Guiche felt his palms growing sweaty in anticipation. The Isle of Albion. Their mission, and the danger inherent in it, would truly begin once they made landfall. Looking at his companions this revelation seemed to bother neither in the least. In fact, Miss Midori's mood seemed much improved by the idea.

"Then I'll just have to defer to your wisdom, Viscount." Midori said calmly.

"Time is of the essence." Wardes offered, "But so is discretion. We do ourselves no favors taking unnecessary risks. And from the news I've heard, Reconquista is not yet prepared to move on Newcastle en mass. The Fortress will still stand and the Royalists will still be there in another day's time."

Midori nodded and said nothing more. The skies were growing dark, the evening sky tinging a pale dim blue as the sun sank beneath the horizon. But there was still enough light to see by. And through the clouds ahead, the darkness began to grow deeper. Guiche squinted, at his side, Midori moved towards the bow of the ship, climbing up on part of the rigging despite the protests of the crew. A shadowy shape was emerging from the cloud banks, taking on depth and substance as it stretched off for as far as the eye could see in either direction.

Guiche licked his lips. He'd never seen the floating continent before, not in person. Even in the waning light he had no words to describe it. It was like looking edge on at the end of the world, tall cliffs shrouded in an endless curtain of mist that spilled down towards the sea below. From this vantage, it might seem that Albion was not a floating continent, but rather the top of some tremendous plateau.

There were whistles and calls of 'land ho!' from the men on duty and the ship's Captain began to shout orders to the deck hands, turning the ship North so that they might come in over the gently sloping low lands on their approach to York.

"Miss, Miss you need to get down from there!" The Captain called. "Blast it girl! We have to bring in those sails. Do you want to get knocked off!"

So softly that Guiche had to strain to hear, Midori spoke. "That's it. Isn't it?"

"Indeed." Viscount Wardes said. "Albion. The White Isle."


	48. Halkegenia Offline Set 4

-Halkegenia Offline Set 3-

-My normal disclaimer, these Omake are independent of but inspired by the main story. They do not necessarily overlap and are not spoilers for future events unless later adopted into the story. Though I will say that some things from the Omake may work their way into the story much later on. (I'll let you be tormented about that after reading the second omake in this set.)

-Boss Battle- AKA Sir Dunwell, the Most Interesting Man in Albion

"Hold up!" Caramella said.

"What is it now?" Wales asked.

Caramella squinted. "That's a big door." The Faery Swordswoman observed. Indeed, the entrance to the gunpowder storage chambers built into the old dungeons of Wallsend Castle were impressive. A pair of thick oaken double doors three times the height of a man. But what did that have to do with anything?

"So?" Wales asked.

"She's right." Asuna said, grimacing as she drew her sword. "Is their any other way around?"

Kino shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Lady Asuna? Dame Caramella? Would one of you please explain." Wales ask with a slight hint of exacerbation. The gunpowder stores were just beyond the chamber ahead. They were almost there!

Caramella sighed. "Look, I don't know about you, but a big door means only one thing to me. A boss fight."

"Boss fight." Wales repeated, mystified.

"Yo, Asuna, lets get ready." Caramella said.

"Right!"

++Party Menu++  
++Asuna++ 400/440 HP 10000/10000 MP  
++Wales++ 220/250 HP 1730/3000 MP  
++Caramella++ 300/350 HP 1000/1000 MP  
++Kino++ 200/320 HP 1000/1000 MP  
- Select Wales - Equip: Adv. Cane-Wand  
- Select Caramella - Equip: Sword of Fallen Heroes  
- Select Asuna - Unequip: Lucky Rabbits Foot - Equip: Silver Wedding Band  
- Select Kino - Equip: Baseball Cap

"Really now!" Wales fumbled with his Cane-Wand. "Time is of the essence and we've had the element of surprise so far. The very idea that we might have some massive battle on our hands is patently-" Wales placed pushed the immense double doors open. "-Ridiculous!"  
-boss battle- AKA The Most Interesting Man In Albion

The room beyond was an immense rectangular chamber, nearly empty save for the torches lining the walls. A broad skylight lit the room from above and on the fare side of the chamber stood a matching set of double doors, the entrance to the gunpowder storage.

Between them stood a single solitary figure. A graying man in the uniform of a dragon Knight Captain. Calmly, he drew his cane-wand and readied himself for battle.

++Sir Dunwell the Eastern Gale++

"Now do you believe us?" Caramella said.

Wales glared at her. "Well, there's only one." A crash came from above, a dark shape bursting through the skylights.

A draconic form settled to the ground behind Sir Dunwell and let out a deafening high pitched cry.

++Scirroco the Rhyme Dragon++

Caramella gave Wales a murderous look. "Oh, I just hate it when I'm right!"

* * *

-You're Having the Next One- AKA "I'm so going to get hung for this"

Yuuki Asuna, Kirigaya Asuna, Asuna the Flash, Knight Captain of the Knights of the Order of Blood, and now one of only two of the exceedingly rare 'Maeve' Faeries in the world of Halkegenia, straightened out her nightclothes as she climbed the stares to the bedroom she shared with the love of her life.

After the insanity that was Albion, the Faerie Lords had quietly conferred ownership of a townhouse just off of Arrun's main street to the young couple. A sort of unspoken reward for their services prior to and during the battle at Newcastle. Though it wasn't their scenic cabin on Aincrad's 22nd floor, the townhouse was spacious, with thick walls that were warm in winter and cool in summer, and a small private garden that Asuna found very peaceful. Asuna had fast come to think of this place as her refuge. A safe place to be with her loved ones. She and Kirito had spent their entire 'second honeymoon' decorating and making the place a fit home for their odd little family.

She paused at the doorway to the bedroom to gather her thoughts. She had never been more thankful for this place. The last few months had been . . . trying . . . for all of them.

Thankfully Yui had been as blessedly helpful as ever and Suguha had made herself available whenever possible, even though the whole situation still intensely disturbed her sister in law. Asuna couldn't shake the feeling that the Sylph girl blamed her for this. Though Suguha was too kind a person to let it push them apart. To be honest, Asuna did bare a good portion of the blame for Kirito ending up this way. This whole mess, for good and ill, was exactly half her fault. She would have said more than half, but Kirito wouldn't let her.

Taking a breath, Asuna opened the door. The bedroom she shared with Kirito was simply furnished but comfortable, representing both Kirito's usual minimalism and Asuna's own tastes. The walls were of a soft, warm, earthen color that seemed to open up under the light cast by the bedside ore lamps and the floor lamps beside the balcony doors. A queen sized bed had been arranged beneath a pair of tall wood blinded windows, currently open to let in the night air.

Kirito was already in bed, dozing with a book held loosely in one hand. Asuna smiled faintly, even now, Kirito had a tendency to look so childish while sleeping. Leaning over the bed, careful not to disturb Kirito, Asuna plucked the book away and read the cover. Of course it would be 'The Three Musketeers', she thought. Judging by the quality of the paper it was a cheap reprint made in parallel with the translated copies that were spreading throughout Tristain.

Given the condition Kirito had contracted in Germania, it hadn't been possible to get out much save for some light training and trips to the hospital. Consistently, the advice from the doctors was to get lots of rest, drink plenty of water, and keep stress low. Unfortunately, this precluded most of Kirito's hobbies not to mention job. Left with precious little to do, Kirito had filled the time with self improvement, reading and studying up on Halkegenia.

"Asuna . . ." Kirito whispered softly, eyes cracking open.

"Oh, Kirito-kun." Asuna said and then smiled as she placed a hand to Kirito's cheek. "I'm sorry I woke you. How are you feeling?"

Sitting up slowly, Kirito rubbed at one eye, yawning sleepily and blinking a few times. "Actually, I've been feeling pretty good. Did you just get back?"

Asuna nodded and then said thoughtfully. "The doctors said it's going to get harder again pretty soon. Maybe I should take some time off." Without even thinking about it, Asuna's hand had fallen into Kirito's own. Not for the first time, she wanted to say this was all her fault, in the end, she'd burdened Kirito with this so unexpectedly. But that was no way to think. This should be a happy time. And Asuna found that she really was happy, even if this wasn't how either of them had expected things to progress.

Kirito smiled and gave her hand reassuring squeeze. "Hard I can deal with. I just . . . wish the Doctors would stop prodding me all the time."

Asuna sighed. "Well your condition is pretty important to track. This is something that can only happen to a Fae after all. They can't be sure there won't be any complications."

Kirito nodded, "That's why I'm not complaining. It's better that they learn everything now."

"Are you sure you're really okay with that?" Asuna asked cautiously. Kirito sat up a bit further and winced. "Your back?"

A small apologetic smile crept across Kirito's face. "Ah well, everything else has been feeling better, so I just thought . . . "

"Lay back down and I'll try to help." Asuna instructed, helping Kirito to shift positions so as not to aggravate anything. Once Kirito was laid out, Asuna crawled onto the bed and pulled up the back of the heavy black sweater. The aches and pains were something she'd gotten used to helping with, and this particular one had an easy fix. Pressing her knuckles into Kirito's back, she gradually adjusted her position until she thought she was at the right spot and then applied pressure.

A small sigh of relief from Kirito confirmed that she'd found the right place. "So, how was work?" Kirito asked.

"More of the same." Asuna said. Honestly, most girls had their first job at a fast food restaurant or a supermarket. Her's was as the Commander of a military unit. She hadn't been confident at first. She wasn't eager to jump back into the fighting and killing. But most of the job was far from that. "Mostly paperwork. Every time I think about Heathcliff-sama I can't help but feel a little sympathy. Then I remember that I have to do it all with physical ledgers and hand written reports! Caramella and Leafa are absolutely terrorizing the new recruits, it looks like we'll have a ninety percent dropout, again!"

"But that's good isn't it?" Kirito asked. "We agreed we'd rather have the new Knights of Blood remain an elite unit rather than expand too quickly and compromise quality."

"That's the idea." Asuna admitted. "But we still need to grow the unit. We're only at half of our paper strength when you consider that Argo raids us for muscle all the time. And then there's the squad assigned to Henrietta's security detail and the attached forces to the Dragon Knights." Asuna's smile widened, "And also, the special assault team is still waiting for their leader to get better."

Kirito scowled and brushed aside a stray strand of hair. "I still don't know what I'm going to tell them."

Asuna applied a bit more pressure, feeling the tension in Kirito's back draining away. "Well, you can probably tell them anything you like. You know Klein will back up your story."

"He better!" Kirito grumbled and then suddenly took a sharp, surprised breath.

"What is it!" Asuna asked, suddenly worried.

A small shiver worked down Kirito's slim spine and she turned over to look at Asuna. "She . . . kicked."

Asuna's eyes widened, Yui and Suguha had told her about the last time, but she hadn't had the chance to feel it for herself yet. "May I?" She asked quickly.

"Well . . . she's yours too you know." Kirito replied, voice containing a note of encouragement. Carefully, Asuna reached under the sweater, wrapping her arms around the other girl's waist until she came to a region of taut swelling. Then, waiting patiently, it came again, a soft -bumping- sensation, a bit like feeling the vibration of a drum. This feeling, it was a small life's first efforts to interact with the world. As she held her hand against Kirito's belly, she thought she could almost see the child in her mind. Their second child, their second daughter. It was wonderful, but . . .

"Hey, Kirito-kun." Asuna said, suddenly feeling weary.

"Yeah?" Kirito asked, resting her head against a pillow.

"I'm not too selfish for being happy . . . am I?" Asuna asked. "I mean, you've have to deal with all of this because of me." And it was a lot to deal with, a whole lot, really, it was totally unreasonable to ask this of anyone.

"It happened because of both of us." Kirito corrected. "She's fifty percent of both of us, remember. Besides, the specifics shouldn't matter too much. She's our daughter and we'll love her the same either way"

"Un." Asuna nodded as she leaned in and placed her own head against Kirito's shoulder, long black hair brushing against her cheek.

The Germanian diplomatic mission had been viewed as vital to securing the resources necessary to successfully retake Albion. Not only did Germania have vast natural resources and great financial wealth, it's technical expertise was among the best in Halkegenia. It was with the help of the Germanians that the Ostwind class aerial battleships, vital to overcome Reconquista's naval superiority, had become a reality.

But the Germanians had been paranoid about the Fae even as they had sought alliance with Tristain. Given the nature of Germania, wracked with political intrigue and backstabbing, Henrietta had been reluctant to leave without a contingent of her most potent guards. A decision that had ended up proving intensely fortuitous both for Henrietta and the current Germanian Imperial family.

Under observation almost constantly for two and half months. There had been almost no opportunity for either Asuna or Kirito to drop their disguises. And then, one night after returning from a ball, both of them slightly more drunk than they ought to have been, all of their jokes about Asuna's appealing male physique and Kirito's faultless beauty had seemed a lot more serious.

When at last they had left Germania two weeks later, Kirito had nearly panicked when he seemed unable to dispel his disguise. Of course, the reason had been discovered not long after. It seemed Cardinal-sama didn't like to interrupt the miracle of life. The revelation had left both parents to be in a state of near catatonia while the doctors calmly began to explain the changes the expectant mother would start to experience.

Saying that Kirito had been unhappy with the circumstances would have been a massive understatement. For the first couple of months, Asuna had even caught her in front of the mirror trying to track her progress, silently dreading everything that was to come. But Kirito was anything if adaptable. They'd sorted things out, each of them voicing their fears and comforting the other in turn.

Once they'd settled back down in Arrun and explained the situation to Yui and Suguha, and then waited for Suguha to regain consciousness, they'd gone about contacting their friends and making arrangements for the black swordsman to take a leave of absence from his duties. Officially, this had been to recover from injuries sustained in Germania while in the service of Princess Henrietta. Combined with some help from the Faerie Lords, keeping Kirito's condition a secret had become attainable.

Once the child was born it would be fairly trivial to have her 'adopted' into the Kirigaya household. And hopefully in a few more months, life would go on, and Asuna would have her husband back.

"There is just one things." Kirito said.

"What?" Asuna asked. "Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing like that. It's just." Kirito shifted a little and gave Asuna a sly look. "I swear I'll be the most understanding and supportive husband ever, but you're having the next one!"

* * *

-Welcome to TRIST-Tristain Royal Institute of Science and Technology- AKA How Agnes learned to stop worrying and love SCIENCE!

Agnes Chevalier de Milan found her head on a swivel as she was lead through the recent brick and wood construction of the newly founded Tristain Royal Institute of Science and Technology. Located roughly halfway between the Capital of Tristania and the Faerie City of Arrun along the highway connecting the two, the Institute had sprung up almost over night at the behest of both the Crown and the Faerie Court. With a name that contained two Faerie words, Agnes expected it to be strange, and she wasn't disappointed.

Upon arriving at the front gates of the Institute, a walled complex that covered around twenty acres of otherwise marginal land, she had been greeted by of all things a Pixie who introduced herself as Rose.

Agnes had had dealings with the small Faeries in the past, particularly the Vespid Knights, whose bravery and discipline belied their small size, but the girl who had greeted her was not of any of the types she had met before.

By appearance she looked slightly older than the Princess, with dark black hair pulled back in a tidy bun, slip like body, and a pair of long, thin, amber shaded wings. She was dressed in no nonsense white blouse and long black skirt, a pair of half moon spectacles rested low on her nose, allowing her to look over the rims imperiously at the mystified Chevalier.

"May I ask for your name?" The Pixie had asked with a slight look of annoyance, as if Agnes was wasting her time.

"Agnes de Milan, I'm here to see the head of Research and Development." Agnes said.

"And I presume you have an appointment? The chief is very busy!" The pixie said, arms crossed in front of her like a teacher awaiting an explanation from her student.

Agnes caught herself stumbling as she thought how to answer, finally, she fished around beneath her cloak and held up a letter for the pixie to look at. She had expected the authoritative looking piece of parchment to send the girl fleeing to find a Faerie or Mage to direct her, Agnes was quite surprised to see the Pixie squint, lips moving quickly as she read the contents of the letter and gave a small nod.

"Everything seems to be in order." She said. "Please follow me."

Agnes dismounted from her horse and lead it to a water trough beside the gate before following after the Pixie. "I didn't know very many pixies could read." Agnes observed.

"Do you really think a worker at the institute has any excuse to be illiterate?" The young pixie woman asked. "Even the cleaning staff have to be able to read so they can understand the danger warnings."

"I see." Agnes said.

She watched the pixie carefully as they traveled first past brick dormitories, and then the administrative buildings near the center of the compound before heading towards the wood and brick warehouses that filled over half of the walled in space. The noises of crafting, the sound of hammers, the clanging of furnace doors, and the screech of grinding stones filled this part of the Institute.

Along the way, they frequently crossed paths with others, Faeries and Mage researchers going about their business as well as more pixies with even stranger wings than Rose. These girls were, if anything, even bigger than Vespid Knights, with dark skin and surprisingly muscular builds, most possessed short cropped hair in a variety of colors and a set of of bee like wings.

Again to Agnes' surprise, people frequently stopped to ask Rose for instructions, listening to her as if she were in charge before running off.

"Chief Hyuuga would normally be working in the steam lab right now, but she's been called away by Lord Mortimer and Prince Wales for a planning meeting." Rose explained, looking at Agnes from the corner of her eye. "You can ask, I don't mind."

Agnes frowned, she didn't care for people second guessing her. "You're not a normal pixie, are you." The personality was off, even for a Shaman, and the wings were wrong for any of the types she knew.

Rose sighed. "There's not really a name for me yet, but I've been calling my type 'Philosopher'. Of course, I'm the only one so far, so who knows, maybe I'm just a dead end in Pixie adaptation."

"Adaptation?" Agnes asked.

Rose sighed again. "Most animals adapt over generations to environmental pressure. Pixies are different, we're born as Little Sisters, fully formed but limited. If we stay within our limits, we stay as Little Sister indefinitely, but if we push those limits we undergo a blossoming that adapts us to our new environment."

"That's how Knights and Shamans are born." Agnes nodded, she'd learned that much talking to the Vespid Knights who had volunteered to serve the Princess.

"That's correct." Rose agreed. "The Count who lives near our Garden taught many of us to read so that we could learn all about the outside world. I found I enjoyed the challenge of grasping new ideas and read everything I could. One day, I simply began to blossom. My Elder Sisters say I almost died because they didn't realize I was blossoming until they found me collapsed on top of a book. When I recovered the next day, I was like this. As far as I can tell, I'm some sort of intellectual type, hence calling myself a philosopher."

"And the worker bees?" Agnes asked as she saw a trio of the larger Pixies joking among themselves as they worked together to heft a surprisingly heavy looking instrument into the air.

"Artisan Pixies. They started to show up among the little sisters who volunteered to work here, they all love crafting things with theirs hands. Almost all eighty of them have blossomed and the ones who haven't are already showing signs. The Shaman's are very anxious about this development, they don't know what to make of us." Rose explained. "Actually, studying Pixies adaptations is my own field of research."

Agnes blinked a few times, so not only a unique sort of pixie, but a researcher? How very strange. When she voiced this thought, Rose stopped in her tracks. "It's not strange at all! It's perfectly natural to want to know more about oneself." She placed a hand to her chest. She caught herself and shook her head angrily. "Unfortunately I don't have as much time for my own research as I would like. Mainly I have to keep this place from blowing up when Hyuuga of Colbert senpai aren't around." Rose frowned a little. "Actually, I have to do that when they're around too."

They finally made it to the building that Rose referred to as the 'steam lab' a large warehouse that was filled with a complex array of brass pipes, hand controlled valves, exotic looking instruments, gauges, boilers, and pistons arranged into various mechanisms. A handful of researchers were busily manipulating the machine at the center of the mess which hissed and spat steam from its pistons as is slowly rotated a large flywheel connected to a pulley system and a series of weights.

"It's a low pressure steam engine." Rose explained. "This one's just a proof of concept that we use for testing purposes. We already have smaller, more powerful designs built, and even better ones are in the drafting stages, but there have been some issues in development."

"These are what Prince Wales and the Admirals want to use to power airships, aren't they?" Agnes observed the machine. Though Agnes respected the knowledge that the Fae possessed and viewed it as the key to leveling the playing field between Commoner soldiers and Mages, she still had a healthy degree of suspicion when it came to Faerie 'technology'. Like magic, it seemed to breed arrogance in some people who thought possessing a powerful tool made themselves more powerful when in fact they were the same person simply controlling dangerous forces irresponsibly.

"Rose-kun, you're back again. Haven't seen hide nor hair of Hyuuga though." A calm voice observed. A stout Faerie, a Gnome, a little on the short side for his race, with white hair and mustache was approaching.

"That's fine. She'll be back soon enough, that mecha fetishist is drawn to machinery like a moth to flames." The pixies head turned to the scurrying workers. "How is the efficiency today?" Rose asked the Gnome in a businesslike manner.

"Well, I can't rightly complain. With the new piping we're getting about two percent more than the last run, but it's like I told Hyuuga, tweak it all you want, this is an old fashioned design with old fashioned drawbacks." The man spoke with a slow, unhurried drawl before turning to Agnes and giving her a small nod. "I don't think we've had the pleasure of introductions, people round her call me Rucks."

"Agnes de Milan." Agnes replied, shaking the Faerie's hand.

"Unless chain mail is in this season, those clothes ain't just for decoration. So what brings a Chevalier to the Kingdom's knife drawer." Rucks asked, dark eyes measuring her up.

Agnes thought about it and then shrugged, her business here wasn't a secret. "I'm supposed to be meeting with Chief Researcher Hyuuga about the weapons that the Firearm Squadron will be field testing. Namely, there have been hold ups and . . . "

A wail like a banshee's scream followed by a loud -bang- tore through the open doors of the steam lab, causing everyone to freeze in their work. The researchers looked horrified, as if something had gone terribly wrong. The only ones who responded differently were Rucks who started ordering the others to stick to their work and Rose who was even now removing her reading glasses to rub at her eyes.

"It's her again, isn't it?" Rose groaned softly. "Last time the paperwork kept me up all night."

Rucks nodded sympathetically. "Lets go make sure that Gal hasn't hurt herself . . . again."

Curious, and not knowing what else to do, Agnes followed behind the Faeries as they trotted from the lab and made their way towards a smaller all brick building near the back wall of the compound. Others were already racing to the scene including a worried looking Leprechaun who was fighting her way to the head of the pack, silver hair swishing behind her. Dust was already rising through skylights on top of the building as a heavy iron door, like one might find guarding the entrance to a powder magazine, swung open and a figure in heavy protective gear stepped out into the light accompanied by a cloud of dust and a quartet of coughing Artisan Pixies.

Agnes tried to think how to describe the armor. It certainly wasn't anything that one might find on a battlefield. Indeed, although it looked appropriately protective with layers of plate, chain mail, and heavy quilted cloth, it was notably crude, favoring protection over articulation, and would have been impossibly heavy and hot to fight in. Rather, it appeared to be some sort of protective equipment meant specifically for the lab.

"Hi-chan!" The silver haired girl shouted as the face plate of the armor came up to reveal the face of an unkempt, gray haired Leprechaun girl blinking owlishly in the afternoon sun.

"Oh, hey Yuyu." The girl said as her friend slammed into her, hugging her tightly before looking her over.

Once satisfied that the other girl wasn't hurt, worry turned to anger. "And just what do you think you were doing?!"

The first girl's expression turned a little embarrassed. "Oh, I must had made a mistake in the calculations somewhere. I thought I left myself plenty of margin, but I guess not. Well, that's why you always do lots of tests before you let a person put it on."

"Tests? You call this a test!" Yuyu shouted, the gathering researchers, seeing that their fellow was unharmed, had already started to disperse back to their own jobs. Agnes wondered just how regular this occurrence was for them to be so blase about it.

"I'm going to have to fill out the accident reports, and then document everything in triplicate." Rose looked mortified. "And then, then I'm going to have to have to write up a report for Hyuuga-senpai!" The pixie looked ready to pull out her hair.

"We should count ourselves lucky." Rucks said. "No one was hurt, and the building looks okay. So she hasn't done any more harm than usual."

"Lucky? Lucky!" Rose shouted with surprising volume for such small lungs. "Am I the only person around here who understand the magnitude of this situation?" Her head whipped around an angered glare directed straight at the Leprechaun researcher. "And YOU! Hegent! I have had just about enough of your ridiculous project!"

The Leprechaun, Hegent's, eyes widened and she raised her hand in that strange prayer like fashion that the Faerie's used to express apology. "Ah, I'm sorry Rose, I'll tell you what, let me write the accident report for you! I was at ground zero so I can definitely say exactly what happened!"

"Okay, what exactly happened?" The second Leprechaun girl, Yuyu, pressed. "I need to know so I can knock you upside the head if you try to do it again!"

"Ah well, I thought the new pressure vessel could take it, so I decided to try and tweak one of the jets for more power." Hegent explained, hands gesticulating as if she was trying to outline something in the air. "But I guess the quality wasn't what the Earth Mage's claimed. The whole thing came apart in the test chamber." She smiled mournfully. "I think the whole spare turbine is a complete write off."

"You're not getting funds released for a new one!" Rose said as she settled onto Rucks' shoulder. She shook her head. "Well, lets see how bad it is." Rucks nodded in agreement. Not knowing what else to do, Agnes followed her hosts, curiosity getting the better of her.

The interior of the building was a wreck. What it looked like to Agnes was that someone had set off a charge of gunpowder without the flame and smoke. Fortunately, whatever fool had done so had at least erected a barricade around the charge before hand. Sitting surrounded by metal plates and sandbags, a broad stone slab at the center of the room contained the remnants of some Faerie device consisting of an odd arrangements of spools, tubes, and pressure vessels. The source of the noise was now clear, a metallic canister on the device had ruptured, pealing open like the skin of a fruit.

As Rose and Yuyu surveyed the damage and Hegent attempted to explain herself, Agnes glanced over to Rucks. "Just who is this person, might I ask?"

"That," the Gnome gave a small nod, "Is Hegent, sharpest Leprechaun you're ever going to meet. She's one of our problem solvers. Smart in a whole mess of ways, but not in all the ways she ought to be. Put a hangup in front of that girl and she'll give you ten solutions in five seconds. Course, its fifty fifty that any of them will work. Still, I'd rather have her around than not. Her little pet project piqued a few ears when she presented it, pointed and otherwise. She tinkers on it here now and again when we don't need her anywhere else."

"And what exactly was all of this?" Agnes gestured to the wreckage.

"Finally! I'm glad someone asked!" Hegent had turned from the argument she was having with Rose and with clear delight, started leading the Knight of Milan and the rest further into her workshop. The damage didn't appear to extend much beyond the sandbagged barricade and the rest of the small building was filled up with work benches covered in papers, tools, and half completed pieces of a second device resembling the first one.

"Here she goes again." Rose said, exasperated.

They were swept along to the very back of the workshop where a white tarp shrouded something mysterious and man sized. Hegent turned to her audience, smiling like an artist pleased with her creation as she pulled away the tarp to reveal . . .

Agnes didn't quite know what to call it. It was unlike anything she had ever seen before. Standing like some crude mannequin, a set of articulated metal leg braces led up to a complex belt assembly holding a pristine copy of the ruined device back on the pedestal, two long, thin, silver tubes protruding, one to each side at about hip level. above that, a simply articulated series of metal joints, like a crude spine, covered in padding, led up to padded neck brace and pair of handheld controls that appeared to be attached by thin hoses to the hip assembly.

"What is it?" Agnes asked.

"You had to ask her that?" Rose hissed.

"It's a jetpack." Yuyu said, a term that held no meaning to Agnes.

"Allow me to introduce the Three Dimensional Maneuvering Gear." Hegent announced proudly. "With this, a human will be almost as mobile as a Faerie." Agnes was dubious of that claim, but at the same time she couldn't deny that she was intrigued, listening closely as Hegent continued. "The original purpose of this project was to construct an ultra heavy suit of armor lightened by wind stones for the assault forces to wear, but we had to ditch that idea when we found we couldn't armor the wind stone well enough to protect against damage. In fact, this," Hegent smacked her heavy steel chest plate, "Is what's left of that project. It was kind of a complete waste of time in the end." She shrugged.

"But it got me thinking that we were looking at wind stones the wrong way, instead of using them to improve protection we should see about using them for mobility! Now obviously a wind stone on its own can only lift, so that's not very useful. However, one of the Mages we smuggled out of Albion was researching a way to get a charged wind stone to release wind bursts on demand. His original idea was to try and destroy an enemy ship from the inside with its own wind stones, but it didn't work out quite like he wanted. What I realized is that we could use his charm to generate thrust from a small, charged wind stone contained within a heavily reinforced pressure vessel and use that to propel a person through the air!"

Some of Hegent's enthusiasm faded as she continued. "Of course, there's some problems, we can't get enough power out of these small wind stones to actually allow unrestricted flight, not without rupturing the pressure vessel. And the stone has to build up a compressed air charge before it can be triggered. Also, maneuvering with just the thrust pack is difficult, so I equipped it with these pneumatic anchor launchers so that the wearer can latch on to a target and use the built in turbine to wind the cable back in." The girl patted the hip assembly where a small spear gun hung to each side.

"Does it work?" Agnes asked dubiously.

"Don't even think about it!" Rose said suddenly. "This thing is a death trap! The only one who even managed to get it off the ground was the Black Swordsmen and he nearly broke his neck when he landed. The demand placed on the user's coordination and reflexes is just impossible. The only people who could fly one are Faeries, and they don't need it!"

"Well, that's not technically true." Hegent said thoughtfully. "I mean, the bracing system is designed so that a healthy human can take the strain as long as the limiter valve is engaged, and once he got the hang of it, Kirito-kun managed his short test hops just fine." She gestured for Agnes to come closer and began to explain the controls. "See? Thrust direction is controlled with the legs and hips, the anchor launchers are fired using these triggers on the bottom of each gun, the throttle is on the left hand control and the these two triggers wind and release the anchor lines using a turbine driven by the windstone. Anyone can do it!"

"Which is why you sprained your arm when you tried it yourself?" Yuyu asked her friend dangerously. "Anyone isn't Kirito the Black Swordsman."

"Erm?"

"And nearly crashed through the Cafeteria window." Rose added.

"That is . . ."

"It's a good thing you had your wings to stop yourself." Rucks agreed. "Or we'd still be cleaning your off of the east wall."

The Leprechaun looked crestfallen at these comments, an expression that was so childish it even elicited a hint of sympathy from Agnes.

Even Rose seemed swayed. "Look. You always follow safety procedures so it's not that much of a problem and Lord Mortimer is sponsoring this project, so I can't actually make you stop. Just please accept the limitations of your invention as is for now. At least until I'm done this months budget."

"You mean it?!" Hegent looked overjoyed. "You're not going to shut me down?"

"Like I said, technically I can't . . . hey put me down!" Rose shouted as Hegent took hold of her and hugged the tiny administrator lovingly to her cheek.

"Thank you Rose! You're the best spontaneously actualized intelligence I know! Now all I need is a test pilot!"


	49. Chapter 13 Part 1

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 13 - Part 1

The town of Wallsend had once been exactly what its name implied. In an earlier era, the route to Newcastle had been fortified by an outer wall stretching in a rough semi circle almost ten leagues from the port, turning the entire peninsula into a sort of immense fortress keeping out the marauders and savage war bands. Wallsend had originally been the site of a 'league fort' constructed along the wall to provide housing for the garrison, anchoring the northernmost end of the peninsula on which Newcastle stood. But that had been long ago.

As the Kingdom of Albion had gradually become more tightly unified and siege technology improved, the wall had become obsolete and unnecessary. It had been gradually dismantled, its stones becoming the building material for a trio of outer fortifications that ringed Newcastle proper. An attacker would have been forced to reduce these castles in turn or else risk harassment from the rear while moving on to siege the city itself.

The castles too had fallen by the wayside with time. Two had been completely demolished in previous conflicts and uprisings. Their high stone walls built to resist trebuchet and ballista had been no match for cannon. They lived on now in Newcastle's modern fortifications, supplemented with brick to absorb the impact of cannon shot. Ironically, the advent of cannons had also sparred the last castle, after a fashion.

Gunpowder had first been brought to the continent by traders from Rhub Al Khali. The recipe for producing the most effective mixtures, the exact ratio of sulfur, to saltpeter, to charcoal, and the optimal size and shape of the powder grains, had all been a closely held secret for a time, but only a time. The Kingdoms of Halkegenia had seen the utility of gunpowder for themselves and had wasted little time in replicating the far eastern Kingdom's advanced weapons. In concert with magic, it was a powerful new tool for siege and naval warfare. In fact, it had been the advent of shipboard cannons that had spurred confidence for the second to last crusade.

A modern war demanded large quantities of gunpowder. More than could readily be produced by an army in the field, making its manufacture, storage, and transport essential to a campaign. Gunpowder production was dangerous, requiring skill to prevent sparking while producing a high quality product that would ignite reliably and with a degree of consistency in power to be made useful in gunnery. An accident in production could not be allowed to spread or a whole powder mill could be destroyed in a matter of moments.

The Castle at Wallsend had found new life, its walls reinforced with fire wards and turned to the task of holding destructive forces in rather than weathering them from without. The stone of its keep and turrets had been recycled to construct the mill buildings, and its dungeons and cellars had been converted into powder storage.

Despite all that, it was still a castle, built to keep people out. Getting in undetected would not be easy. Not for normal humans anyways. Fortunately, they weren't normal. It was questionable whether half of them were even human. In the dimness it was impossible to tell the mages from the Faeries, all were garbed in deep blue cloaks meant to conceal them and break up their profiles in the dark of the night.

Slipping free from Newcastle had proven half the challenge. The Rebel forces had the city encircled just outside of cannon range, but they were reluctant to approach the fortress walls as long as the Royalists could still use their own cannons. Newcastle had been a Naval Port and there had been ample cannon shot stocked before the siege had started. In fact, the only thing they were short on was gunpowder.

Moving through the ruins of the city under the cover of twilight, they had made use of an old underground canal to make their way out into the marshland beyond the siege. From there, their small group of trained mages and blooded Fae had managed to slip away without being spotted. But there had still been close calls. The Rebel patrols might have been unwilling to approach the Fortress, but they were diligent in their sweeps of the surrounding countryside.

The journey to Wallsend had taken the better part of an hour on foot. The Faeries had natural speed and endurance while the mages utilized a wind speed buff to keep pace, allowing them to make good time even over broken ground. They had arrived at the edge of the forest overlooking the town and its attendant castle just as the sun completely set.

The castle wasn't very big. A squarish set of walls surrounding an inner courtyard and rectangular keep. Even in its prime it would only have been able to house a small contingent. And by now, with its outer walls partially dismantled and much of the interior taken up by storage and the milling equipment, there wasn't much space left for accommodations. The responsibility for housing the local garrison had been transferred to a more modern Fort built on the far side of the town.

Asuna blinked, feeling her vision returning to normal with a slight sense of disorientation, like she'd been starring at a computer monitor for a bit too long. At her side, Prince Wales lowered his spy glass.

"No sign of extra dragon patrols." The Prince observed. "It is as we expected. The Rebels have grown complacent."

"Yeah, well, I'd probably be pretty complacent too if I knew all my enemies were bottled up or dead." Caramella whispered at Asuna's side.

"Don't get too confident." Asuna warned, recalling the information that had been given to her by Wales' subordinates. "The troops here at Wallsend are front line forces."

"And traitors to King and Country!" The young mage knight Lucane spat at the ground at his feet.

"That may be." Wales agreed. "But this is not the time for vengeance. Ending the lives of traitors is not our goal tonight." The Prince's eyes narrowed. "Am I understood Lucane?"

The Knight placed a hand to the hilt of his sword-wand. "Of course, my Prince." He said reluctantly.

"Good." Wales said. "Now then. The castle only has a light garrison. Most will be quartered in the new Fort. If the castle guards are alerted we may still be able to complete our mission, but if they alert the Fort . . . That cannot be allowed."

There would be killing tonight. Guards would have to be taken by surprise and eliminated before they could sound the alarm. Cold blooded murder. But that wasn't what they were here for. Asuna looked over her shoulder. There were twenty four of them in total. Twelve Faeries and twelve of the Royalists' surviving Mages. All of the Faeries had seen battle and all of the mages were of at least line class.

"Lady Asuna, take Lydel and his men with you." Wales said to Asuna. Though they had planned the mission together. Once the operation had begun, there could be only one leader. Asuna and the other Faeries had agreed to subordinate themselves under the Prince for the duration. Wales turned to a sullen looking mage who's clothing was festooned in small pouches. "Lydel, take your men, go with Lady Asuna and destroy the stores as we planned. The rest of you, with me."

"Yes Sir." Lydel nodded softly.

The mage and three of his fellows came to stand at Asuna's side. Lydel and the others were 'sappers', combat engineers. Their job on this mission was to make sure that the powder stores were completely destroyed, and the mill along with them. The task of protecting the sappers while they worked had been left to Asuna and three of the other Knights of Blood, Caramella, Ivan and Shio. The rest would go with Wales. There task was two fold, to eliminate the patrolling guards and any unexpected arrivals, and see to the mill's stocks of sulfure.

"Lydel, Bartholomew, Lucane. Start your time pieces now. We have seventy minutes to complete our tasks and return here." The gathered mages each removed a hefty pocket watch and did as instructed. The watches apparently weren't very accurate, but they could at least be expected to keep reasonable time for a little over an hour.

"Good luck, Kino." Caramella gave her partner a wave as she followed after Asuna.

Sweeping in from the forest, moving in a crouch through the grass, the walls of the old castle, the powder mill, rose up above them. It was a dark and almost moonless night. They would be almost invisible, but the guards would also be on high alert for any suspicious signs. This was the most dangerous part of the mission. Before they were inside the walls. The guards had the high ground and could sound an alert that would be heard by the main garrison forces stationed on the opposite side of the town. The only advantage they had was the element of surprise.

"Stop!" Asuna whispered, raising a hand. The hiss of her voice didn't travel far before it was swallowed up by the sounds of water gurgling in the mill run. A pair of massive water wheels, used to power the mills, sprouted from the old stone defensive walls.

The water wheels were motionless in the run, the mill was closed for the night. Up above on the walls, a pair of guardsmen paced, stopping from time to time to look out over the wall before resuming their patrol. Just as they turned to begin back down the wall a bird call echoed across the the field. Wale's detachment swept in, sixteen blue blurs racing across the no man's land between the forest and castle walls.

They reached the mill run, and as one, they jumped, vaulting the five meter channel and nearly bouncing from the stone wall of the castle. But the walls were old and weathered, and provided plenty of foot and hand holds to the climbers. Clinging like spiders, they moved vertically almost as fast they had across the flat ground, the Faeries standing out as they moved slightly faster than the mages. They climbed the ten meters to the top of the wall in the blink of an eye before slipping over the edge.

Asuna held her breath. There were so many things that could go wrong at this very instant. But no alarm was sounded. There was no noise, no signs of struggle. Finally, the signal they had been hoping for arrived. A long coil of rope spilled over the edge of the wall and Asuna gestured to advance. They made it to the wall and up the side in the space of a few heartbeats. Looking around, Asuna immediately spotted the bodies of the two guards, she swallowed. The others were nowhere in sight. They'd have already move on in their sweep.

Asuna's eyes swept across the top of the castle. She caught sight of the other bodies and briefly glimpsed a quartet of hooded figures sinking back into the shadows as the final guard fell to the ground, a hole the size of a thumb blasted into his temple by a wind needle.

If Wales' intelligence was correct, there would be sixteen guards assigned to the mill at night, rotated continuously, one at a time, so that there was never a vulnerable point in the guard rotation. All sixteen guards would have to be removed and then the men in the barracks within the castle, another thirty two men, incapacitated. While Asuna had grown to be able to stomach killing a soldier who was facing her and threatening her life, the idea of killing men in their sleep still made her skin crawl.

She shook her head. There was no time for that, if she hesitated, she'd put them all in danger. Looking around, Asuna matched the layout of the castle courtyard with the one she had committed to memory. Standing on the eastern wall. The main courtyard was laid out below her. The building in the far North West corner was the castle's keep, or what was left of it in any case. The highest floors had been dismantled and used to reinforce the building directly beneath her feet. Those would be the mill houses where the grinding mills were located. That was their first stop.

"Caramella." Asuna whispered to the other swordswoman as she helped the last of Lydels men up the rope. "Keep watch here with Ivan until we're done, Shio, you're with me."

"Right." Caramella said, giving a small nod to Ivan. With the naturally enhanced night vision granted by their observation skills, the two of them would be able to spot any signs of trouble.

A stairway along the inside of the wall granted access to the courtyard and Asuna, Shio, and the four mages soon were standing before the doors to the mill. That was when they encountered their first problem.

"This door is warded." Lydel reported as he examined the chain and heavy padlock holding the iron door shut. "Not just fire wards to contain an explosion either. They really don't want this door opened."

"Guess we didn't catch them completely unprepared." Shio muttered.

"Can you break through?" Asuna glanced over her shoulder.

The mage offered her a look of disgust. "Its warded against transmutation and this lock won't budge for any spell that I know."

"I don't suppose you brought any lock picks?" Shio quirked an eyebrow.

The mage rolled his eyes."As if a mage lock would be susceptible to some commoner craft . . . but there are ways." The mage placed his wand to the lock and began to chant.

"I thought you said it was warded . . . " Shio trailed off.

A thin stream of water had been conjured from the tip of Lydel's wand and was now directed across the surface of the lock. Lydel's chanting changed and the waters began to frost over, turning to ice. A faint creaking -pop- came from within the padlock. Another whispered chant caused the ice to once again revert to water.

Lydel gave the lock a stiff yank and frowned when it didn't budge. "This usually works." He muttered.

"Just needs a little elbow grease." Shio said, "May I?"

The mage backed away and watched quietly as the Faery swordsman got a good grip on the lock and pulled. The lock creaked then gave way, snapping open. The chain was pulled free from the door and Shio gestured for the mage to lead the way.

"I guess Faeries are good for something." Lydel said. In the dim light, his expression appeared amused.

The inside of the mill was pitch black, even Asuna's night vision ability didn't help when there was almost no light at all. The skylights above had been shuttered and nobody sane would have left an open flame in a place like this. After closing the door behind them, Lydel and one of his men magically conjured up a source of light.

Before them, outlined in dark shadows, stood a quartet of mills. Each of the four grinding mills was attached to a thick wooden axle that led to an overhead system of gears, pinions, and belts that provided power from the water wheels. The whole arrangement reminded Asuna a little of the grinding wheel in her friend Lisbeth's weapons shop back in Aincrad.

After looking things over, Lydel gave a small snort. "This should be simple enough. Look, they've left the last load of powder out to dry. By the Founder, we hardly need to help them destroy this place. Bart, Miles, help me load all of this lovely powder the Rebels have left us back into the mills, then we'll set the timer.

Asuna watched the mages work. For people proficient in magic and openly disdainful of 'commoners' they seemed to know quite a lot about gunpowder. She would have though they would viewed it the same as they did swords and crossbows. "We're sappers, milady." The man named Bartholomew explained. "Fortification, siege works, demolitions, there be no time for us to discard any tool that helps us with our work."

Their 'work' was soon finished and Lydel retrieved a small device of polished brass from his pocket. It had the appearance of a large pocket watch, but there was only a single hand on its surface and the back appeared to consist of the same sort of mechanism that Asuna had seen on the more advanced handguns. Lydel had been all to happy explain his 'ingenious' device to anyone who would listen. It had apparently taken him the better part of a year to devise and refine.

What it was, was a time bomb without the bomb. The clockwork timer could be wound and set for any period of time from instantaneously to up to an hour. When the timer finished its countdown, it would trigger the wheel lock mechanism. Lydel's igniters allowed a saboteur to get well clear before their tampering was unpleasantly, and often quite fatally, discovered. Combined with a charge of gunpowder, it represented a magicless, almost undetectable device for mayhem.

Given the size of the mill and the need to escape after completing their mission, it had been deemed impractical, not to mention dangerous, to simply destroy the powder stores one at a time. Instead, a dozen of Lydels timers would be used to detonate them almost simultaneously. With any luck, they would be on their way back to Newcastle before the Rebels realized what was happening.

Lydel inspected his handiwork with a glint in his eye. "All set. Bart, check your pocket watch. The first timer is set for sixty minutes."

* * *

Kino felt his breathing slow and steady as he kept watch outside the guardhouse. After neutralizing the guards . . . after killing the men up on the walls . . . he and Wales had moved on quickly to their next task.

Kino looked down at his hands. They were clean, at least, they looked clean. His knife skills were good, the man hadn't suffered, he had died almost instantly in fact. It still made Kino feel dirty. But it was better this than letting something happen to Caramella, or Asuna, or any of the others for that matter. He had this skill, so he had to use it when necessary so that others wouldn't have to. That didn't make it any nicer, but he could live with it that way.

Wales had seen the way he had hesitated when they approached the guard house. The building held the dining and barracks facilities for the guards on this side of the town. There would be at least twenty or thirty of them inside at this time of night. They had to kill them all to make sure the alarm wouldn't be sounded.

"Kino, I want you and the rest of the Fae to stand guard out here." Wales instructed. "Keep watch for anyone returning."

"I . . . " Kino hesitated when he saw the kind look in the Prince's eyes. Wales was trying to spare them, at least this little bit. "Understood." He couldn't help but sound a little defeated.

Wales and the other had gathered at the doors of the guardhouse, crouching beneath windows lit by flickering candle light. With a single gesture from Wales, the doors were opened, four of the mages entering through the front, and four more through the side. The candles in the windows were blown out instantly, plunging the guardhouse into darkness. Kino heard the sounds of fighting, a few muffled shouts, and then the noise as one by one, the men within fell. The fighting itself lasted only a matter of seconds. The rest would be cleanup, executing the remaining men in their sleep. It took all of three minutes, and when it was over, their mage allies filed out of the building one by one. Wales' expression was neutral, but there was a look of cruel satisfaction in the eyes of Lucane as the Knight emerged behind him.

"We'll post sentries here in case we missed anyone." Wales instructed, gesturing for two of the mages to brake off and wait behind the castle gates. If anyone else arrived, they would ambush them to prevent an alarm being raised. "The rest of you, lets move on to the warehouses. The sulfur needs to be disposed of. And then we need to make quickly away from this place. Lucane, how much time?"

"Fifty minutes left." Lucane said as he checked a pocket watch.

"Then we have forty minutes to get the sulfur into the river. Quickly now!" Wales took the lead, Kino falling in behind him. The warehouses sat on the opposite bank of the mill run, where the run waters returned to the river. A wooden dock had been constructed along the edge of the Tyne where barges could dock to offload supplies and take on gunpowder for delivery to the Rebel forces.

There were more men here, three guards on the opposite bank of the run. Two were conversing among themselves, a third stood on the wooden docks, Kino squinted, he was smoking a cigarette. Wales tapped Kino gently on the shoulder and they broke off from the others, slipping down to the bank of the run and into the cold river water before scaling up the opposite side.

"We'll have to take the first two together." Wales whispered. "Leave the last to me. On three." Kino nodded, hand slipping another throwing dart from the pouch on his belt, a dark smooth torpedo of black iron that tapered to a point at each end. Relying so much on his disposable weapons, Kino had been grateful to learn that the weapon's smiths among the SAO survivors had been able to make use of the tools in Newcastle to practice their craft. The darts were difficult to use without a high thrown weapons skill, but in the hands of a master thrown weapon user like Kino, they were deadly at close range.

Wales mouthed the count silently and then as one they rose over the lip of the bank. Kino's dart left his hand just as Wales raised his wand. The dart struck the first guard at the base of the skull, the speed and weight of the impact severing the vertebrate and killing him instantly. Wales' own attack struck with a muffled hiss of compressed air. The second guard was thrown forward onto the ground, blood flowing from his nose and mouth. Turning swiftly, Wales reached out with his cane-wand.

As the last guard threw his cigarette into the river and turned back towards the warehouses, a blade of wind covered the distance between him and the Prince. The man's body fell onto the deck, his head fell into the Tyne.

Seeing the deed was done, the others crossed over the run via a footbridge and spread through the warehouses, eliminating any remaining guards and seeking out what they had come fort.

It had happened that sulfur was a rare commodity for the Rebels, and even rarer for the Royalists. Wallsend was probably the biggest stockpile in this part of Albion. If removing it from the hands of the Rebels was good, arranging for it to fall into the laps of the Royalists was even better.

It had, of all people, been Kino who had mentioned it while looking over the maps of Wallsend and Newcastle and realizing that the names of two rivers matched. A major river, the Tyne, ran past Wallsend on its way towards Newcastle. In fact, the water wheels that powered the mill were driven by a mill run that flowed from and back into the Tyne.

Rather than throwing the sulfur away, they could deliver it right into Royalist hands by dumping the shipping casks into the river and allowing them to float their way towards Newcastle under the cover of night. Within the limits of the ruined city, volunteers would be waiting with nets to hall up their catch and transport it into the Fortress to feed the Royalists' own powder mill.

"This is it!." Lucane announced, swatting the side of a sturdy looking wooden cask marked with a series of Halkegenian symbols and some sort of shipping logo. "The bastards! They're being supplied by Gallia."

"We already knew that." Wales muttered. "But you're right, it's shameful to think this would be tolerated. Reconqista is a threat to all of the Royal families of Halkegenia. Joseph truly is the Mad King as they say. Lets get the casks in the water."

There were two warehouses along the dockside. One was a quarter filled with saltpeter, the other was half filled with casks of sulfur. It was more than could be moved readily in the time they had, but whatever they couldn't throw into the river, they would burn when they fled. With only thirty minutes to work they would be lucky to get even half of the sulfur.

"Heh, reminds me of my job IRL." A former ninja build player by the name of Schneider grunted as he pushed his tenth cask into the water. Between the enhanced strength of the Faeries and the magic of the mages, they were making good time. Maybe they could even get more than half.

"This is IRL." Kino said as he pushed the cask away from the dock with a pole. The center of the river ran deep and swift from here to the port. Wales said that if they could get them away from the shore, few of the casks would get caught on the riverside before they made it to Newcastle.

"Yeah, I mean the IRL with electricity, indoor plumbing, and easy access to porn." Schneider observed, receiving a roll of the eyes from his fellow Faeries and looks of polite confusion from the mages."

"Lucane, how much time do we have left?" Wales asked

"Twenty minutes until time. Ten more minutes here." The man sounded anxious. No one wanted to be here when the time reached zero.

As Lucane, Schneider and the others vanished back into the warehouse and Kino worked at the casks with the barge pole, Wales swept the vicinity for any sign that they were being watched. But the only signs of life were a few faint torch lights from the direction of the Town and the chirping of the spring insects.

Without looking up from his work, Kino spoke. "Hey, Wales . . . Thanks for back there . . . And, you know, everything else . . ."

Wales quirked a brow. "Whatever for?"

Kino struggled to explain it. "The Royalists. They aren't doing too well. All you have left is Newcastle and the Eagle, right?" Wales winced. "You're really going out of your way to help us."

The Prince shook his head softly. "Please, Kino, I don't deserve your thanks. The truth is I am using you." The Prince smiled sadly. "Such despicable conduct on my part, isn't it?"

"I don't think so." Kino said as he pushed another cask clear of the dock. "I mean, your responsible to your people first, right? It's noble that you'll help us at all."

"That may be." Wales admitted, though he looked unsatisfied with the conclusion. "But truthfully that is little excuse." Taking a breath, the Prince sighed. "I will be gone before too long, and the remaining Royalists with me."

Kino stayed quiet. It wasn't that he hadn't known. Wales had never lied to them about the circumstances that the Royalists found themselves in. But it wasn't something he liked to linger on.

"Even with their gunpowder curtailed and this sulfur to supply us. It's only a matter of time before the Rebels defeat us. Either they'll starve us out, or they'll accept the losses to storm the Fortress." Wales smiled coldly. "I rather hope for the latter so that we might have our last act of defiance." Shaking his head again. "If I was truly as noble as you claimed, I would be able to ask nothing for your passage to the Continent and keep a clear conscience before my men."

Kino shook his head. "Couldn't you run? I mean . . . There's a lot of people in Newcastle but Halkegenia isn't too far away. And people like Captain Thorn would have helped if you asked . . . So why?"

Wales chuckled softly. "Why would we fight to the last? If only it were so simple Kino . . . The truth is, I can't run, no matter how much I might wish to." His expression softened. "I am as much as symbol as a man, Kino. To run would be to offer evidence of everything the Rebels claim about the Royalty. My men and I will fight to the last. But we aren't so vainglorious as to drag bystanders down with us. When the time comes, the Eagle will depart Newcastle one last time with our women and children. I can only hope that Tristain will offer them refuge."

"That's where you're sending us, right?" Kino asked as the last cask was pushed away. Wales nodded.

The Royalists at Newcastle still received intermittent messages by means of carrier birds, many of them the familiars of the wind mages that resided within the Fortress. The news they had received about happenings on the continent was as bewildering to the Royalists as it was encouraging to the Faeries. There were Faerie's in Tristain, thousands of them. Not only that, the Kingdom of Tristain had entered peaceful negotiations with the Fae within their borders. If the SAO survivors could make it to Tristain, they would be safe, at least for a while longer.

Schneider and the others were returning with the next load. A dozen mages and Fae using their strength and magic to lift or role the casks down to the edge of the dock and into the water. They were working up a good tempo now and hardly paused to spare Wales or Kino a glance before trotting back to the warehouse, Lukane offering a muttered warning. "Eight minutes."

Kino and Wales had fallen silent. There really wasn't anything else to say. The peace was shattered by an odd rattling at the far side of the dock. Both of them were suddenly on guard. Kino dropped his barge pole and drew a knife as Wales raised his cane-wand. A trio of narrow, rectangular wooden structures sat off to one side of the dock. As they watched, the door to one swung open.

A man, a burly looking guard, stepped out, still buttoning his trousers. The man saw the two cloaked figures on the dock, then he saw the corpses of the other guards. The Guard starred at Wales and Kino, Wales and Kino starred back.

'Oh you have got to be kidding me!' Kino thought in a very Caramella like fashion.

The silence was broken as the guard dropped a partially defaced almanac and turned to run. Wales was already casting a wind bullet like the one he had used earlier but to his bad luck, the man's unfastened trousers fell down around his ankles, causing him to trip. The blast of bone shattering concussive force washed cleanly over the man's head, blowing a melon sized hole in the out house behind him.

"Attack! Attack! We're under attack!" The man shouted as he grabbed at his pants with one hand and snatched up a torch hanging at the end of the dock with another. He was making a straight line for a wooden stand a short distance from the end of the dock. Three long wooden tubes were lined up and angled so that they would fire over the river. Flares!

"Kino!" Wale's barked, snapping the young knife user from his mystified state.

Without a second thought, a throwing dart flitted from Kino's hand. It didn't connect. Though his aim was true, Wales had just cast a wind spell, the same one he had used to trip up Kino in York. The guard stumbled, falling once more to ground and striking his jaw against the cobblestones hard enough to crack teeth. The torch in his free hand tumbled away, rolling across the dock and coming to a halt a few paces from a palette of shipping casks.

"What's going on out there?" Schneider shouted as he appeared in the wide doors of the far warehouse.

Wales advanced calmly on the man, cane-wand at his side. A look of clear annoyance crossing the Prince's face. The guard fumbled for a pistol on his belt raising it just as Wales blasted it from his head with another air bullet. The Guard screamed as his hand was shattered.

"W-Wales!" Kino stuttered.

"Kino, put out that torch before it starts a fire." Wales said calmly. "You don't need to see this."

Kino nodded and turned slowly towards the fallen torch, and then went pale. He didn't know how long he was frozen for. He suspected it was one of those moments that only seemed long but had really been very short. He recognized the logo on the casks sitting here on the dock. It was the same one he had seen back in York. As he watched, the flames licked against the side of one of the barrels with a sparking hiss.

"Get clear!" Kino screamed, turning on the balls of his feet and breaking into a run for the edge of the dock. He almost broke Wales' neck as he grabbed the Prince by the collar of his cloak and dragged him along with all of his strength, leaving the hapless guard to his fate. Just as he and Wales struck the water, all hell broke loose.

* * *

"What was that?" Asuna asked as the castle trembled faintly.

Lydel looked up from his work, suddenly growing tense. "Sounded like gunpowder."

"Did one of your igniters go off?" Shio asked cautiously.

"No . . . That sounded too far away." Lydel decided quickly.

Asuna was suddenly worried, she knew in her bones that something had finally gone wrong. "Are you sure?"

Lydel gave her a look of mild disbelief. "If it was one of ours, trust me, we would know."

"Either way, we need to get going." Asuna said, "If we felt it all the way down here, then they definitely heard it at the Fort." And reinforcements might be racing for the castle even now. They needed to get above ground and see what was happening. Wales and the others might need their help.

"Fine." Lydel said as he stood and wiped his hands on his pants. They were standing in the last of twelve store rooms built into castle's cellars. Reinforced by the castle foundations, the thick stone walls were meant to compartmentalize an explosion in case of an accident. It had taken the better part of their remaining time to break open the locks on each room and place the igniters.

"It won't do them much good either way. We're done here." Bartholomew observed as he stepped gingerly over the corpse of a guard. "Maybe if we're lucky, they'll get caught in the blast when this place goes up."

"Wait, it's going to be that big?" Shio growled as he followed the first sapper out the door.

The Royal Engineer gave a small shrug, a glint of delight in his eye. "This place was rebuilt to contain an explosion, but it wasn't designed to hold twelve simultaneous explosions. At very least, the concusive force is going to crack the castle's foundations and bring the whole thing tumbling down, and that's only if the store room walls don't start to break up and we get sympathetic explosions."

"You could have explained that in the briefing!" The swordsman hissed.

"Why? If something went wrong, we'd never know." Lydel snorted as he raced quickly after them.

"Never mind that." Asuna said, she really didn't want to think about it now that it had been brought up. "We've completed our mission. We won't have the head start we hoped for, but this was always part of the worst case scenario." They just all needed to stay calm and everything would be fine, she thought.

Reaching the entrance to the castle keep, Asuna looked up to see Caramella standing on wall above them. The swordswoman seemed preoccupied staring off to the north.

"Caramella, what's happening?" Asuna shouted. "Have reinforcements already arrived?"

"Whatever it was, it wasn't me! It came from the direction of the barge dock." Asuna could see the concern writ large on the other woman's face.

"Lydel, how much time do we have left?"

The Royal Engineer checked his timepiece. "Sixteen minutes remaining until time."

Coming to a decision, Asuna started to snap off orders. "Shio, Lydel, Caramella, do a sweep of the castle and gather up anyone from Wales' group that was left behind, then get out of here, head back to the rendezvous, do you understand?"

"Hey wait a minute, what about Kino and Blondie?" Caramella snapped. "That blast . . . They need our help!"

"I'll go find them myself." Asuna said. "Caramella, please, I'm trusting you with this."

Asuna could see the conflict in Caramella's eyes. Knowing the other woman, the odds were good that she wanted to say 'no'. After all, Kino was with Wales, and Caramella didn't really trust anyone else to look out for him. Instead, blowing air through her teeth, the older swordswoman nodded. Putting hands on hips she started shouting like a drill instructor from her perch. "Alright, what're you all waiting for? Shio, you've got five minutes, take one of the mages and make sure everyone is out. I'll go with Ivan and check the wall, we'll gather at the rendezvous. Now move it!"

Asuna was already racing off in the direction of the castle gate and the docks beyond as the group scattered to obey their instructions. Racing up the the half lowered draw bridge and landing lightly on the opposite side of the mill run, Asuna looked up as she heard the first blood chilling cry. Dark, now familiar shapes were approaching in the skies above, and she felt her stomach twisting up as she remembered the night almost a week ago. It only caused her to run faster.

When she saw the docks, she let out a small gasp. Half of the wooden barge dock had been reduced to kindling, and of the two warehouses fronting the water, one had partially collapsed while the other was already beginning to burn. She saw a handful cloaked figures emerging from the collapsed warehouse, coughing and stumbling forward.

"Schneider, Lucane!" Asuna shouted to the Faerie and Mage. "What happened."

Lucane leaned Schneider against what was left of a warehouse wall. The Faerie didn't look too badly hurt, his cloak was torn and stained with blood, but judging by the way he moved, his injuries were mostly superficial. At least, that was what Asuna hoped.

"We missed a guard." Schneider wheezed. "He tried to sound the alarm, Prince Wales stopped him . . . but the idiot . . . he set off some gunpowder on the dock. Just . . . our luck, eh?"

"Powder in a powder mill." Lukane cursed. "Who would have thought?"

Schneider snickered, wincing in pain. "You've been hanging around us too long. Caramella's snark is rubbing off on you."

"Where are Kino and Wales now?" Asuna demanded.

"I . . . I don't know." Schneider panted.

Lucane's expression grew dark. "The Prince was on the docks right before the gunpowder was set off. But I saw young Kino dragging him off the edge with not a moment to spare. Quickly, Lady Asuna we must find the Prince!" The young knight made to take a step forward and then nearly fell, clutching at his side. Probing beneath his cloak, the Knight's hand came away covered in blood. "It's but a flesh wound." Lukane offered weakly.

Asuna batted the Knight's hand aside and pulled his cloak open. She grimaced. She didn't know much about medicine, the fact that he could still stand was probably a good sign, but he had been hurt, his side sprayed with wood splinters. He needed a doctor, or at least a mage with some healing spells. "You're not finding anyone." Asuna said, looking up as the cries of dragons came once more.

The others, both Faeries and mages were staggering from the debris, Asuna counted a half dozen in all. They all looked worse for the wear but none were as bad off as the first two. "All of you, we're leaving now. Withdraw to the fallback area and head for Newcastle.

"But the Prince?!" Another mage, face covered in soot protested.

"That's right, and the others!" A Faerie tank named Lukes said. "They were inside the warehouse getting the next load."

Asuna looked up, the dragons were beginning to circle overhead, homing in on the source of the disturbance. Between the darkness and the smoke, they couldn't quite see what was happening on the ground, but that wouldn't last long, and from the sound of it, there were more on the way.

"Lukes, Eidel." She snapped off the names of the two closest Faeries. Both men stood up straight. "Come with me, we need to Find Wales and the others. The rest of you, do you think you can get Lucane and Schneider out of here?"

"Yes, Lady Asuna!" One of the mages answered swiftly. Wales had made it clear that barring his orders, his men should defer to her. The roars of dragons sounded again, followed by a sharper, high pitched noise that chilled Asuna.

"Kyuii!"

Asuna was running again, Lukes and Eidel chasing after her. Everything was coming apart, she thought. They had to get out of here quickly, but they couldn't leave anyone behind. Not again! The inside of the warehouse was somehow in worse shape than the exterior. Overhead beams and wooden shelves had collapsed or tumbled over. Casks lay shattered on the ground, spilling their yellowish contents across the stone floor.

Lukes cursed and a moment later Asuna saw why. A Faerie was laid out, a man named Arata, pinned to the ground by a ceiling support, skewered. Asuna felt her legs tremble beneath her as Lukes ran forward and checked the man for signs of life. The tank looked up and shook his head. "I'm sorry Asuna-sama." He grunted.

A groan came from a pile of wood in one corner. "Quickly!" Asuna gestured, helping Lukes and Eidel to pull debris free from a collapsed stone wall. Beneath, they found a trio of survivors, an unconscious mage and two more Faeries.

"You guys okay?" Lukes shouted.

"Y-yeah. One, of the Fae said. Oswyn here shielded us, but he got clocked pretty hard on the head. My legs are pinned but I can still feel'm at least, and Marco is holding up this damn wall!"

"We'll get you out." Asuna said, her ears piqued up as she heard shouts and the sound of dragons from outside. They were running short of time.

The mage, Oswyn was pulled free and laid down down first, his breathing was shallow but steady. Next came the pinned Fae, his legs freed with help from Eidel. Once the other two were clear, Marco scrambled free as the masonry he had been leaning against collapsed completely.

A moment later, the whole warehouse shuddered as something crashed into its side and the sound of a Dragon's roar erupted, close and deafeningly loud.

"Take Oswyn and run for the rendezvous. Lukes with me!" Asuna ordered.

Through the partially collapsed warehouse door, Asuna could make out a fire dragon stocking along the front of the docks and the sounds of battle. The warehouse shuddered again as the dragon suddenly crashed into it as if struck. The dragon's roar was followed by a gout of flame that jetted out over the river. That's when Asuna saw Wales, sopping wet, Kino at his side.

"Asuna-sama!" Lukes shouted as Asuna raced out ahead, vaulting one fallen beam before skidding beneath another and rolling out into the midst of battle.

"Lady Asuna!" Wales called before diving to the side as the fire dragon lashed out with its tail. "Fortuitous timing!"

So close to the Mill's precious sulfur, the Dragon Knight was holding back his dragon's breath attack, only allowing the drake to spit flames only over the river. While the dragon's Mage rider occupied Wales, the dragon focused on Kino, spitting focused jets of flame at the nimble knife wielder.

Kino ducked and dodged between the remains of the dock, countering with a pair of thrown darts. The first sank into the scale's near the dragon's snout, barely fazing it. The second got lucky and struck right in the eye. The mount roared in pain, nearly shaking its rider loose and giving Wales the opportunity to counter attack while the mage was distracted.

"Traitor to King and Country!" Wales roared as he plunged forward, a wind spear forming at the tip of his cane to impale the out of position Rebel Mage. The blow never landed.

"Kyuii!"

A miniature tornado crashed into the dockside between Wales and the grounded dragon, the storm of gathered wind diffusing and forcing Wale's back. The Prince managed to keep his feet beneath him, releasing his wind spear and using the compressed air to dissipate the blast directed at him.

A second rebel mage stood on the dock, cane-wand raised as if it were a sword in en guard position. Asuna shivered, she knew this mage. She couldn't have forgotten him so quickly. The mage from Skiesedge . . . The one who had killed . . . Asuna grit her teeth, feeling a familiar cold anger overtaking her.

"Wales, be careful. This is the one who killed Arguile!" Kino cried out.

Wales glanced to Asuna and then back to the dismounted mage. Recognition dawned. "Dunwell . . . I should have known a traitor like you would show himself eventually!" The Prince's eyes narrowed.

"Traitor my Dear Prince?" The man, Dunwell, asked. "I'd have thought you'd have clearer eyes than your brothers. No matter."

Asuna saw the man beginning to shift his weight, preparing to attack. Asuna willed herself forward, feeling the now familiar burst of energy stretching through her wings as they stood on end behind her back. She covered the distance between herself and Dunwell in the blink of an eye. It was a testament to the man's speed that he was able to block her first thrust, his cane-wand becoming encased in a nearly invisible shell of air.

"Lady Asuna!" Wales cried in surprise and then he was guarding as the air around him began to combust. The mage atop the dragon had recovered.

"I'll hold him while you and Kino escape!" Asuna shouted as she readied her sword. She'd pushed Dunwell back when last they'd fought, she'd do it again here!

"We're not leaving you!" Kino said as he threw his last dart at the fire mage, trying to distract him from the Prince.

Asuna and Dunwell danced around one another. Though he couldn't match her speed or strength, Dunwell's skill was certainly greater than her own, and beyond that, he had something she didn't, magic, and true experience fighting for years against living, breathing opponents. All things considered, they were about equally matched.

"This isn't an argument Kino." Asuna ordered as she broke away for an instant. She couldn't give Dunwell even a single instant to cast. At that very moment, her life was depending on her speed. "Wales, if any of us can escape a dragon on foot, it's me, take Kino and run!"

Then there was no time for any more words as they were caught up once more in their separate battles. This fight was completely different from their last, she could sense it. Before, she had faced Dunwell only briefly, a man unsure of his enemy. This time, the mage's tempo was faster, more sure, he'd learned from their last fight and this time he wasn't exhausted. They ran across the dock, trading sword strikes, Asuna landing a grazing strike on Dunwell's shoulder as the mage creased her cheek with a wind blade.

Dunwell managed to put some distance between them, giving himself a precious half second to cast. Asuna's eyes followed the point of his focus, dodging the aim just as the tortured remains of the dock between the cane's tip and the river disintegrated into a shower of wind whipped splinters. The destruction overshot the docks and traveled outwards, turning the river water white with froth before bursting in a geyser near the middle of the river.

Asuna had only an instant to be shocked. She'd seen plenty of powerful magic since arriving in Albion, but she hadn't realized a mage could wield so much power on such short notice. Though the thought filled her with fear, it barely slowed her down, more than ever, she had to keep him from using his magic.

Asuna peppered Dunwell with a series of rapid fire thrusts, Faerie speed and her ingrained sword skills allowing her to move at a speed that would be impossible to block. The mage was forced to shield himself with magic, the tip of Asuna's blade sinking deeper into a shell of solidified air with each strike. A final powerful thrust pushed through the shield, nearly skewering Dunwell before the mage released his spell in a blast of air that pushed them apart.

Asuna skidded back as Dunwell was sent crashing into the burning warehouse, bursting through a flame weakened wooden wall in a shower of sparks. Asuna raised her rapier calmly and followed.

She remembered what Caramella had told her, her premonition about the man who had killed their friend. This man . . . She breathed . . . First at York . . . This man . . . Then at Skiesedge . . . This man! It couldn't be coincidence. He was pursuing them, sabotaging them at every turn. He was too dangerous to let live. She would kill this man!

The inside of the second warehouse was alight, the embers casting a ghastly glow across the walls and the broken casks of saltpeter. The smoke was thick, and cloying, burning at Asuna's lungs. Dunwell was nowhere to be seen. Asuna paused letting her senses adjust, listening for anything strange over the groans of wood and the cracking of the fires. She'd always found her senses growing acute in the middle of a fight, like her brain was overclocking to examine everything around her with preternatural attention to detail. Dunwell's strategy probably would have worked if she'd been any less aware of her surroundings.

It would have been a perfect attack if the windspell hadn't had the briefest charge up. She knew the sound from hearing it when Wales cast it himself, a faint, sharp hissing as the air built up before release. She jumped back as the smoke above her parted. The stone floor where she had just been standing shattered as the wind bullet impacted.

Another hiss and she rolled forward as a smoldering wooden beam at her side was blasted into ash and embers. Through the smoke, from the corner of her eye, Asuna saw a shadow, larger and more solid than those cast by the flames, she spun around and struck out. Dunwell countered with a quick parry with his cane that left him out of position. Asuna tried to take advantage of the opening only to receive a powerful kick to the stomach that bounced her back and left her momentarily winded.

Dunwell kicked up a cloud of spilled saltpeter, drawing it into the shape of a thin blade around his cane. Caramella had told her about this, some sort of abrasive attack. Guarding wouldn't work. She danced back, evading the mages thrusts. Her feet caught on something, a fallen cask, or a push cart, she stumbled to regain her footing as Dunwell saw his opening.

The shape of the dust cloud changed, extending and broadening. It was no longer a duelist's blade, it had transformed into a broadsword. Dunwell swung his cane one handed, and Asuna ducked, feeling a few loose locks of hair parting company with her scalp. Another strike came, overhead and fast and she side stepped, a wood and stone wall behind her exploding into sparks and splinters.

Asuna realized almost too late what was happening, Dunwell was driving her back into the corner of the warehouse where the stone walls and intact roof would give her no place to run or evade. She was trapped! There was only one thing left to do, she had to finish this with the next strike. 'I'm sorry Kino.' She thought as her rapier reached out to meet Dunwell's next attack.

She had always loved this type of Rapier even after she had traded up. Her attacks had always felt so light and swift and perfectly aimed. A rush of confidence would come each time she held the blade in her hands, like she could take any challenge.

The blade struck Dunwell's wind-saltpeter sword and for an instant it resisted, the Aincrad alloy glowing white hot as particles of saltpeter struck, heated, and began to react. A hot metallic chemical scent filled the air as the beautiful sword was eaten away. Asuna pressed forward, sacrificing her rapier to still Dunwell's attack for one moment. The mage's eyes widened as Asuna sank beneath his blade, and a balled fist came up into his sternum.

There was a satisfying oomph as Dunwell was thrown off his feet. She hadn't been able to put much power behind it, but her Faerie strength should have been more than enough to lay the mage out flat. Or it would have been if he hadn't fallen back with the blow to spare himself.

With grace that was surprising for a man of his years, the mage converted his fall into a backwards roll, coming up in a crouch, clutching his stomach as he leveled his wand. Asuna moved without hesitation, in her right hand the remains of her sword ended jaggedly twelve centimeters from the hilt, the edges still glowing sullen red. In this physical world the sword had not disintegrated into particle effects when it had been destroyed. It wasn't much but it would have to do.

Asuna locked blades with Dunwell, the hilt of her ruined sword and the hand span of remaining blade pressed against the wood and brass shaft of the mage's cane wand. Again for his apparent age, Dunwell proved startlingly strong, using the leverage offered by his now longer cane, he barred his right arm across the cane's shaft just below its tip to hold Asuna at bay. It was only a partial success as his boots began to skid across the floor and the shaft of the focus began to creak under the abuse.

For heartbeat, the two locked eyes for the first time and Asuna trembled. Soft brown looked into sullen gray and she saw no hint of fear or regret. He'd killed people, innocent people, but this man wouldn't beg for mercy even if she demanded it. At that moment, Asuna knew why killing could come so easily.

"You . . . You!" Asuna screamed as she pushed with all her might. Dunwell's cane went flying from his hands, the mage skidding back. His right hand rose to his mouth, and with a sharp exhalation, Dunwell let out a sharp trio of whistles.

"Kyuii!"

A moment later, the side of the warehouse shuddered.

"Kyuii!"

The wood and masonry creaked and gave way, collapsing in a shower of dust and debris as the ceiling between Asuna and Dunwell collapsed. Tree trunk like forelimbs crashed through the walls, tearing clumsily at the sides of the warehouse. A sleek draconic head, elongated and smooth when compared to the fire dragons she had seen before, burst through the wall.

The dragon's head swung towards her, its mouth opening wide. Ausuna knew what was about to happen. She ran, jumping up onto a row of casks and bursting through the thin wood shutters hung at head height along the back wall of the warehouse as the interior was washed with a short burst of flame. She came rolling to a stop, struggling to her feet as the entire wall began to collapse, the dragon battering it apart with its wings before settling facing Asuna.

The dust cloud spread out, enveloping the surroundings. Cylindrical corridor formed as her opponent stepped forward calmly from the wreckage wielding his retrieved cane-wand. Dunwell seemed utterly unfazed by the chaos around him.

Asuna stumbled back, holding what was left of her sword. Dunwell came to stand before his dragon, master and mount watching her calmly. Then, from the dust all around them, shadows began to take shape. To her left, three men in uniforms like Dunwell's own, and to her right, another four. She took another step back and shook her head softly. As she had told Prince Wales, she was the fastest of their group, if anyone could hope to escape a dragon, she knew it was her. This was all she could. She only hoped that Wales and the others had been able to flee.

Movement to her left caught her attention, a blur approaching swiftly and silently. The shape exploded from the dust and into the dim evening light and Asuna felt a hand closing in a cool, vice like grip around her right wrist, squeezing softly until she released the remnants of her sword. Asuna starred.

"Dunwell-sama." The man spoke calmly, looking past her to the wind mage.

This wasn't possible. Asuna thought. This wasn't possible. This wasn't possible. How could this be possible? Caramella and Kino had seen . . . Had seen him die . . . They'd wept for him as if he were their own family. But here he was, standing above her in the uniform of a Rebel soldier. Alive. Stopping her. Why?!

"Arguile . . ." Asuna whispered.

Behind the Faerie Swordsman, a dozen figures emerged through the smoke, more Mages and commoner soldiers.

"I apologize for my tardiness, Dunwell-sama. I have brought the reinforcements."

* * *

"Caramella we have to go now!" Ivan shouted he took hold of the rope hung over the side of the castle wall.

There were way to many dragons sweeping in the direction of the main gate for them to head out that way. Luckily, when this powder keg went off, literally, it was going to give Reconquista's eyes in the sky plenty else to worry about than a couple dozen pseudo humans fleeing for their lives.

"I know that!" Caramella cursed bitterly to herself. "But damn it, we have to make sure everyone gets out! Hey, Bart. How much time do we have left?"

The Royal Engineer at her side checked his pocket watch. "Seven minutes."

"Then leave me the watch, I'll wait five."

The mage gave her an uncertain look before shaking his head. "Lydel isn't back yet with your man."

"Damn it, Caramel." Ivan grunted.

"Ca-Ra-Mel-La." She said mechanically. "Ivan get out of here and go meet up with the others."

"I . . ." Ivan began only to be interrupted by a low roar.

Caramella paled, one of the dragon's had finally decided to sweep towards the castle, it had spotted them and was already beginning to swoop in, mouth opening to spit fire. "For God's sake, Ivan go!" Caramella shouted as she grabbed Bartholomew by his cloak and jumped down onto the roof of the mill building. Fire washed over the top of the castle, but judging by the lack of screaming, Ivan must have taken her advice for once and gotten clear.

"You okay!" Caramella asked asked as she carried Bart down from the top of the powder mill.

The man looked shaken by her little evasive maneuvers stunt but gave her a jerky nod. "Y-yeah."

"Okay, screw it, Ivan's right, it's too hot . . ." She bit off another curse " . . . to stay here. Lets get back up and over the wall before that oversized chicken makes another pass."

"Caramella!" Shio shouted as he and Lydel approached from the far side of the courtyard.

"Took you long enough!"

"The bastards dropped some mages on the far side of the castle, we had to deal with them first." Shio said. "Nothing like that over here?"

Caramella frowned, "Not that I know of." Her ears perked up as she heard the sound of boots running along the burned stones above them. She spun around, drawing her two handed sword as a petite silhouette plummeted from above, landing delicately less than a meter from Shio. The swordsman was already bringing his blade up to cut his opponent down when he froze. He looked like he was seeing a ghost. Probably because he was.

"Aki?" Shio stuttered.

"Hi Shio!" The small woman said brightly, an eery plastic smile spreading across her face.

It was Aki alright. Caramella had run into the young woman often enough to know her by name. She'd been one of the 'civilian' group leaders and well liked by everyone. Energetic and full of humor. They'd lost her at Skiesedge, she'd died trying to protect others. But here she was, pointy ears and all, either that or some alternate universe version of her that served in the Rebel Army. Caramella's instincts were already reacting, even as her mind returned only complete confusion.

"Shio, get back!" She shouted.

It was too late. That brief flash of hesitation had sealed Shio's fate. Aki's hand came up, batting aside Shio's sword hand, and then without a hint of mercy, she drew her saber and smoothly drove it beneath Shio's breastplate and through his heart. Shio gagged, looking bewildered as he stumbled back, his life escaping him.

"Bye Shio." Aki said equally brightly as the man fell to the ground

Caramella's fight or flight reflexes kicked into overdrive firmly on the fight side. Even before Shio had breathed his last breath, she was already on the attack, the bloody minded animal part of her brain taking control.

What the hell? What the hell was this? Because there was no way this was Aki. There was no way this was one of the SAO survivors she'd spent two weeks struggling alongside across the countryside of a Kingdom that wanted them all dead!

"What the hell!" Caramella roared as she clashed with the deranged nega-Aki before her. The mage's stumbled back confused at the sight of a Faerie killing one of her own. "What the hell are you?"

"I'm Aki!" The girl wearing Aki's face smiled. "Don't you remember me Caramella?" The girl leaned in. Despite Caramella's best efforts, she wasn't making much progress against her guard. "Remember, you shared that roasted apple with me? See, its really me?"

"Bullshit!" Caramella hissed as nega-Aki skipped back, a wide smile on her face. Bartholomew and Lydel had finally gotten over their confusion at seeing a Faerie murder another Faerie, both mages were now readying to cast. "Aki is dead!" She shook her head angrily. Wait, had anyone really seen Aki die?

"Dame Caramella, get back." Lydel grunted as he aimed his wand at nega-Aki.

"Wait!" Caramella raised a hand to stay the two mages. "Aki . . . what else do you remember. Tell me something that only Aki would know!" Caramella demanded. They hadn't been close, but there were a few things, after all, they'd lived closely together for two weeks.

Aki blinked rapidly and then nodded. "When we shared that apple and I gave it back, you bit the same spot and I joked about it being a second hand kiss. You went completely red!"

Caramella would have blushed at the memory at any other time. Now it only served to confirm the girl's identity. This probably wasn't a mage who'd interrogated her and put on her face as a disguise.

"Aki . . ." She said pleadingly. "Aki, you've been brainwashed. Do you understand?" Caramella didn't think it usually worked like this. Could you really take someone and turn them against their friends in less than a week? Then again, magic. "They must have done something to you. Drugged you."

The other woman tilted her head. "No, they didn't brainwash me." She said in a matter of fact tone. "My head's never been clearer. It's nice, I don't have any of those worries or lingering doubts. I'd think you'd like it too Caramella."

'Which just proves it.' Caramella thought as Aki took a step forward and then another step.

The swordswoman stepped back and prepared to guard. "Aki, please Aki, snap out of it! I don't want to hurt you, but I swear I'll fight you if you make me!"

"That's alright." Aki said. "I don't mind!"

The girl lunged forward with her rapier and then was stopped in her tracks. While she had been distracted with Caramella. Bartholomew had rushed in and delivered an air needle through Aki's chest.

"No!" Caramella screamed. "What the hell have you done?!" They could have captured her and taken her back to Newcastle. The mages there might have been able to deprogram her. They could have saved her! Caramella was about to launch into a tirade as Aki's hands closed crushingly on Bartholomew's shoulders causing the mage to hiss in pain.

Aki Frowned. "Don't you know. Its rude to stick your hand into a girl's chest without introducing yourself?" Reaching back, Aki's right hand speared into Bart's ribcage with a sickening crunch. The mage's eyes went wide and then he screamed out as Aki squeezed at his insides.

"Bart!" Lydel shouted, trying to do something, but he couldn't get a clear shot. The life was squeezed from the mage in a matter of seconds and Aki easily cast him aside.

More than the second casual murder, Caramella felt her blood run cold as she got a good look at the hole in Aki's chest. She didn't care how high level she might have been, there was no way she should still be alive with something like that blown through her. That left only one thing. This world had magic after all.

Caramella felt her hands begin to tremble. She was . . . Pissed.

"Lydel . . . Tell me she isn't what I think she is." Caramella gritted out.

The Royal Engineer grimaced. "A zombie. The forbidden arts." He retreated a bit to stand beside Caramella and raised his wand in a guard. "I've never heard of a zombie retaining this much intelligence before." As he spoke the lifelike Aki probed curiously at the hole in her chest. "She must be animated by very powerful magic. Caramella, there's no time for this, we have to go, this whole place is about to explode."

"I won't let you!" Aki announced as she looked up at them and raised her saber with a smile. "Dunwell-sama ordered me to stop anyone trying to escape!"

Caramella smiled viciously. "Is that so?" All mercy had drained from her now. "Lets see just how well you can stop us once I take off your damned head!"

This thing wasn't the kind, vibrant girl who had endured SAO and hoped to one day return home. It was some magically animated freak. A mage's puppet dancing on strings. As long as it existed, Aki, the real Aki, could never have peace.

"That's okay Caramella-san!" Aki said as they crossed swords once more. "Cut me to pieces as much as you want! I'm a holy soldier of the Founders glorious Reconquista now! Death is meaningless to those who have seen the Founder's light!"

"What are ya'now a Jehova's Witness?" Caramella spat as she beat the smaller girl back. Aki might have been at a decent level in life, and she was fearless in death, but Caramella wasn't some slouch who had slummed around on the bottom floors either. But good as she was, this was taking too much time.

"Caramella, drive her to the left, this way!" Lydel shouted. Eh? Lydel was pointing for her to get Aki between them and the powder mill. Well, Lydel was supposed to be the brains here. Spinning about, Caramella traded places with Aki and batted out with her sword, staggering the smaller woman. Before she could recover, a wind hammer threw her against the wall of the powder mill.

"That's your brilliant plan?" Caramella shouted, she was greatly disappointed.

Aki was already rising, brushing herself off. "Swords and Magic will not stop a holy soldier of the Founder." She announced.

"Oh?" Lydel asked as he glanced one last time at his pocket watch and whispered something under his breath. "What about time?"

Aki tilted her head just as Caramella felt the air growing solid around her and Lydel. Aki took one step forward, and then the whole world blossomed into smoke, fire, and pain before going blessedly dark.

The world returned to Caramella a moment later as she felt the ground beneath her kick. She let out a cough, rising to her feet. Her head was throbbing and her ears were ringing. She tallied off, two arms, two legs, a head, all the important bits were there. She almost fell over as the ground gave another kick. Looking around, Aki was gone, so was the powder mill. Okay, Lydel did good work.

"Lydel" She coughed, she saw the Royal Engineer a few paces away, covered in rubble.

He was bleeding pretty bad from his head, but he was still breathing. The ground shook again twice more, each time more violently than the last. The cobblestones of the courtyard began to rattle.

"Lydel, speak to me!" Caramella said as she shouldered him and began to look around. She could hear shouts approaching from across the courtyard, and they didn't sound friendly.

"Heh, just knew that one would go off first. Never got the springs quite right." Lydel chuckled painfully. "You Gotta . . . Get out . . . Leave me . . . I've done my job."

Caramella was already moving, half carrying the man as she picked up speed towards the far wall, the earth was kicking massively and the the castle walls started to give way, the highest stones tumbling down as the walls began to shift and separate.

"What're you talking about?" Caramella panted as they picked up speed. "Job like this? When we get back to Newcastle, you and me are gonna do nothing but talk fireworks!" Something small and fast whizzed past Caramella's cheek, and then another. It looked like the musketeers had arrived. Either they were stone cold stupid or they didn't know what was happening.

The next kick almost turned the world upside down. That must have been one of the powder rooms beneath the keep, because the whole monolithic piece of castle was leaning inwards likes its foundation had just been destroyed. They were almost to the far wall, if they could get over that, they'd be dumped out into the river. The thing was, Caramella wasn't sure she could do it with a passenger. Only one way to find out.

Caramella began to pick up speed, the muscles in her legs coiling up.

Damn it! Caramella thought. She felt the frustration building up within her. Nobody else was dying tonight! 'Shio.'

She felt an electric tension spread down her back. One good jump, that's all she needed. 'Bart.'

The tension grew sharper, it felt like the muscles of her back were stretching, splitting painlessly, extending to become some separate new part of her. One good jump! 'Aki.'

The last kick was the worst. The center of the courtyard swelled up, nearly throwing Caramella and the pursuing soldiers, the ones who hadn't wised up and run, off their feet. The courtyard swelled up, and then it began collapse like a sinkhole, and it was taking the whole damn castle with it. The keep began to sheer, its entire top half falling towards Caramel and Lydel.

"Damn it!" Caramella shouted as she kicked off the ground with all of her might.

* * *

"Get the infantry units to put out those fires. The mill is a lost cause but we can still save the Saltpeter and Sulfur stocks!" Sir Wells ordered the gathered Knights and soldiers before turning back to his commander.

Sir Terrance Dunwell calmly brushed himself off as he surveyed the wreckage. The Old Castle of Wallsend was gone now, and Reconquista's entire local store of black powder along with it. How . . . Unfortunate. He thought with disgust. The Garrison commander had assigned only a handful of mages and soldiers to the defense of the Castle, viewing his Fort as the priority and neglecting that the only reason one built a Fortress was to protect something.

"I must apologize Dunwell-sama." The Faerie swordsman at his side offered. "I did not expect Asuna-sama to be capable of doing such a thing so unflinchingly."

The entire left half of the man's face was covered in a thick Gauss bandage, a consideration made for Dunwell's men rather than the undead Fae's well being. Though Arguile assured that the 'Founder's Blessing' would restore him soon enough, few would be able to stomach the sight left by the Faerie Girl, Asuna, when she had driven the remains of her sword into Arguile's skull.

The blow had very briefly incapacitated the Zombie, a detail that Dunwell quietly filed away. So they weren't quite the golems of flesh that he had first thought.

"No matter." Dunwell said. "Sir Wells, what are the casualties?"

"Forty commoner soldiers and eight mages of the Castle garrison. Five of our response team mages, seventeen foot soldier, and Sir Candor's fire dragon. No losses among the Knights." Wells said and then frowned. "And apparently Aki is missing." He added as if reporting that a field cannon had been misplaced.

Thinking of the Zombies as weapons made things so much simpler. They were just tools that could move on their own and obey orders, or at least most orders. Aki seemed to view Cromwell's instructions for her to 'be happy' as a standing order of the highest priority.

"I do hope she wasn't completely destroyed." Arguile said. "It would be a shame to lose her skills."

"More likely buried beneath the castle rubble." Dunwell said, and she could stay that way if only for the ongoing attempts to rescue survivor's who might still be in the debris. As a matter of fact. "Arguile, you have a great deal of strength, please go lend it to the men searching for survivors."

"As you wish, Dunwell-sama." The undead Fae turned to obey his command and Dunwell watched him go with a faint sense of relief.

"Sir Wells, we've done all we can here. I want you to take command of the pursuit forces and sweep towards Newcastle. The survivors will no doubt try to return to the Fortress before morning."

The Mage Knight nodded, "Yes, Sir Dunwell! And you sir?"

Dunwell lifted a scrap of white fabric stained with blood. "I will deal with the Winged girl." In the confusion she had fled into the forest, but she was injured and without a weapon, and more importantly, she was separated from her comrades.

He examined the piece of cloth as he recalled that look of cold hatred in the girl's eyes. He couldn't blame her for raging, fate had set her on this path, and now she stood before the inevitable, just like him. But . . . They all had choices in how they fell.

When he was sure that the Faerie Swordsman was out of earshot, Dunwell added softly. "Take no risks Sir Wells. These Fae, and the Royalists with them are to be considered the most dangerous of opponents. Nothing but their complete destruction is acceptable."

"Sir?" Wells asked.

"I am telling you to ensure their complete immolation." Dunwell said, watching as understanding dawned.

"As you wish, Sir Dunwell."


	50. Chapter 13 Part 2

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 13 - Part 2

It had not, Prince Wales thought, been the most successful operation in his career. Wading from the knee high waters onto the banks of the Tyne, the Prince Valliant took stock of his senses and his surroundings, stifling a grunt of pain as he probed at his tender side. Nothing broken, just bruises, some water magic and he would at least be able to move unhindered, for a while anyways. Beside him, Kino was struggling ashore still dressed in his sodden winter jacket along with a large, red haired fairy named Lukes.

"Kino, are you hurt?" Wales asked.

"I'll . . . live." Kino panted before glancing over to Lukes. "What about you?"

The larger Faerie gave a small nod. "I've been better, but I don't think I got hit or anything. Glad we all decided to ditch the heavy armor for this mission though, otherwise I'd probably be sitting at the bottom of the Tyne right now."

Wales agreed with the sentiment, glancing over his shoulder, the Tyne had deposited them some distance from where they had started. The castle was nowhere in sight . . . No, that wasn't quite right, the previous site of the castle could be seen in the distance, plumes of smoke and dust rising from the remains. Of the former strong point, nothing but broken masonry remained. A trio of dragon's were circling high above the ruins but there were no others in sight. The explosion had either forced them down, or else their riders were busy attempting to rescue their comrades from the rubble.

It truly was a miracle that they had made it out, in part thanks to Lukes delivering a fatal blow to their assailant's fire dragon. As the castle had begun to come apart with the detonation of the first of its powder stores, they had taken shelter once more in the river. Though Wales had been loath to return to the Tyne's chill embrace so quickly. He was starting to feel this was becoming a habit.

"If we can all move, we should get going, the others wont wait long for us at the rendezvous." Wales said. And the Dragon Knights would not wait long before they returned to the skies in search of the people who had destroyed the mill, time was of the essence.

"Wait, what's that?" Kino pointed out into the smooth waters of the Tyne where where a small shape was traveling quickly, producing a thin wake at its back. A head, two heads, were held just above the surface of the water. Both were known to Wales.

Careful to remain sheltered along the shoreline, Wales took aim with his wand and threw a whistle to the swimmers. They came to a stop, traveling with the flow of the river, one head looked about, and then spotting the source of the call, started to make its way towards shore. Stumbling onto the banks, looking slightly less dignified than a drowned rate, Caramella set a bloody and unconscious Sir Justin Lydel down gently on a soft patch of ground.

"Caramella!" Kino cried, racing up to embrace the swordswoman as she sank to her knees. The woman returned her partner's gentle embrace, looking tired, but relieved to see him well.

"Well, I've got a suggestion . . . Let's not do that again." Caramella said. "Any chance that'll become policy?"

The Prince shook his head as he looked over the unconscious Royal Engineer. "I'll take it under advisement. Did you see how Lydel was hurt?" Wales began to tenderly probe the man's forehead. He was breathing, that much at least was a good sign.

"Don't know. I think it was debris from the mill. We were still inside when the place started going off." Caramella suddenly grew sober, her arms constricting slowly around Kino. "Wales." She said quietly.

"Caramella." Kino whispered. "You're hurting me." The Faerie woman's embrace stopped growing tighter, but it didn't loosen either.

"What is it?" Wales asked, speaking as he worked on Lydel. His first aid expertise wasn't the best, but he had been trained as a soldier, that meant being able to deal with minor battlefield injuries. Concussion, fracture shoulder, some serious bruising along the chest, Caramella was right, the man had most likely taken a glancing blow from some piece of masonry.

"Reconquista . . . The Rebels . . . Those bastards . . ." It was a enough to make the Prince look up.

This low, dangerous growl wasn't something that Wales had ever expected to hear from the Faerie woman. Caramella was a girl who wore her heart on her sleeve, but it was a fiery heart as brave as that of any Knight. Her anger was always hot and bright, but this, this was cold hatred, vengeful hatred.

Wales stopped in his work on Lydel. He had already done what he could for the man, stabilizing him so that he could be carried to safety.

"What is it Caramella." Wales asked, a hint of concern creeping into his voice. "What happened?"

"What happened?" Caramella spat, "Those fuckers took a friend of mine, killed her, and then turned her corpse into a propaganda spewing killing machine! That's what happened!"

"Caramella?" Kino looked frightened at the outburst.

"Aki, Kino, it was Aki. One of the people we lost at Skiesedge." Caramella's voice trembled as if her outburst had blown out the flames of her anger and now she was in danger of collapsing into despair. "Those Reconquista bastards used some sort of Necromancy to make her body dance to their tune."

Both Lukes and Kino stiffened up, growing looks of horror spreading across their faces. "Caramella, are you sure." Wales asked tensely. "Are you sure that it was this girl? And are you sure that she was truly an undead and not under some spell?"

Caramella glared at him, anger glinting brightly in her eyes. "I saw Bart put a hole half the size of my fist through her chest before she tore out his heart with her bare hands and a bad one liner!"

Wales bit off a curse, shaking his head slowly. "Cromwell, to think he would stoop so low as to use the forbidden arts. And he dares to accuse us of heresy! I thought my disdain for that man could sink no lower."

"Wales." Caramella said slowly. "Promise me something. Aki . . . She wasn't just some shambling freak, she looked so alive, and she still remembered us . . . She could still think, but she wasn't Aki any more, she was just some thing with Aki's brain trapped inside." Caramella stopped and shuddered. "Wales. You know fire magic, right?"

The Prince nodded solemnly. "If I see any of these abominations I will give their departed souls peace."

"No." Caramella said quietly. "Not just that. If they can make one, they can make more."

Wales felt his mouth going dry as he suddenly understood.

"Promise me, that if Kino of I go down, or if it looks like one of us is going to be captured." The swordswoman starred into his eyes. "You promise me you don't stop until there's nothing left of us. Do you understand? I will not become something like that!"

"I . . . Understand." Wales offered softly. "But first, lets try to avoid ever being in that situation. We need to start moving, the patrols will be searching this area before too long. Lukes, can you carry Lydel on your back?" The Faery was a large man and with his strength he would have no trouble with the slender mage.

Caramella released her hold on Kino but it was several moments before the boy did the same. "Yeah . . . Lets get going . . . Did everyone else get out okay?"

"We don't know." Kino confessed with a look of worry.

"Most of the men were on the far side of the warehouses when the gunpowder on the docks was set off. They should have been clear of the blast, and if they had the sense to follow orders they'll have retreated immediately. Kino and I simply had the misfortune of being spotted by the first Dragon Knights to arrive." Wales explained as he helped Caramella to her feet and they began to hike away from the shore. "But Lady Asuna . . ."

Caramella's eyes narrowed, "That happened to Asuna?!"

"She got into a fight with a Dragon Knight." Kino said anxiously and then quietly added. "It was the same one who fought Arguile."

The swordswoman's face paled and she began to walk faster, taking the lead of their small group. "Damn it, damn it, damn it!"

"Caramella, we simply have to have faith in Lady Asuna's abilities, she is an able fighter." Wales attempted to reassure her.

Caramella spun on him. "And Arguile was too! The big guy was almost as strong as Asuna and it didn't do him any good! And you just left her there to fight alone?"

"We didn't have a choice." Wales whispered as they began to parallel the roadway, staying within the shadowy concealment of the treeline for safety. "Asuna insisted on fighting him to give us time and we had our own opponent to deal with. We lost sight of her, and not long after that the powder magazines started to go off. It was all we could do to get clear ourselves." The response did little to placate Caramella, not so much as sparring Wales a second glance. "Caramella, I have not known her long, but I have faith in Lady . . . in Asuna. If anyone could escape in that confusion, it is her."

"Not good enough." Caramella bit out. "Not nearly good enough, not with the Rebel's taking a play from the frickin Army of Darkness!"

Wales blinked in confusion, some powerful force from that dream world of Aincrad?

"I'm not heading back to Newcastle until I know for sure that Asuna got away." Caramella growled and then stopped in her tracks. "And I think I know how to find out." The swordswoman lifted a hand to one of her long ears, as if listening carefully to the near distance. Sinking down low, she started to make her way towards the road.

Wales heard it not long after, the gallop of horses hooves, but only a single set. The Prince looked to Caramella, or more accurately, he looked at her eyes. A feeble, unnatural glow had filled them, the telltale sign that the Fae sworsdwoman was using her preternatural senses, the observation ability.

"Rebel Army soldier on horseback, coming this way, fast." Caramella said.

"A patrol?" Wales asked.

Caramella snorted. "No, unless they think so lowly of us that they'd only send one guy."

"Then a messenger." Wales decided. "He's probably been sent to alert the nearby towns and the siege forces. The Dragon Knights will be reserved for pursuit and to alert the Siege commander."

"So he might know what's going on . . ." Caramella trailed off.

Wales frowned, "Perhaps, but . . . " Before Wales could finish, the swordswoman stood up and stepped casually out onto the road. The horseman saw her but could do nothing to slow down as Caramella unhooked her scabbard from her back, and without removing the sword from its sheath, batted firmly for the oncoming man's stomach.

The Faerie skidded back a handful of paces, the messenger's horse continuing on a bit further before coming to a halt. The horse's rider was sent tumbling to the ground with a loud -ooph- as he was winded, only saved from the chance of death by Wales reaching out a levitation spell to cushion his fall. Even as he lay groaning on the ground, Caramella advanced, coming to stand over him, she grabbed the man and dragged him back off the road and into the dark of the forest, Kino hurrying to retrieve the messenger's horse before anyone else came along and spotted it.

By the time the man had recovered his senses enough to struggle, Caramella had him pinned, a knee against his chest and a hand over his mouth. A deranged little smile gracing her lips.

"Howdy!" Caramella said cheerfully. "You must be a Rebel Soldier, usually when I meet you guys it's the other way around, boy does it suck to be you tonight!" She said with mock cheer. "But I'll tell you what, here's a limited time offer. Tell me everything I want to know and I promise you'll be alive when the sun comes up. Do we have a deal?" She took her hand away from his mouth to allow the man to answer.

"And what reason do I have to believe anything said by stinking allies of the Royalists!" The man spat. Without a moment's hesitation, Wales reached down and cuffed the man across the jaw.

"Well if the carrot doesn't work, we also have a really big stick." Caramella said, hooking a thumb over her shoulder. "Back where we're from, 'stumpy' over their is apprenticed to the Royal Interrogator."

The man glanced over to Kino who was, admittedly, not the most intimidating sight. "You expect me to believe that?"

"We're really good at torturing folks back home. It's an art form, so we have to start them young. What do ya think all those different Knives are for?" Caramella asked with a vicious little smile. "Hey, Kino, why don't you show him?"

"O-oh." Kino stumbled, and then catching on, gave a shy little smile. "We use these flat ones to slice off thin layers of skin." The boy explained as he drew one of his throwing daggers. "And, this one here is good for getting at the deep tissues. Did you know it takes a long time to die from a stomach wound? Lots of people beg to be put down." Kino pulled a couple of his throwing needles from his jacket, tiny darts, less lethal and more incapacitating. "And these I'm really proud of. I can tap these into your spine and make it feel like you're in pain anyplace in your body. Since all the nerves run to the spine, I can even make you feel like you're losing a limb all over again!"

Even knowing it was all a ludicrous lie thrown together on the spot, Wales felt nauseous, judging from Caramella's expression she seemed mildly shocked herself. Of course, if that was how they were feeling . . .

The man shivered softly, legs kicking feebly as if trying to run from the boy who was still talking lovingly about his 'implements'. "P-please! I'm just a messenger, I don't know anything but what I'm told! I just deliver reports to the garrisons!" The man stumbled quickly, keeping his voice low.

"Well what do you know, that's exactly what we wanted to hear!" Caramella said.

"You just departed from Wallsend correct? You're delivering news to the other garrisons of the attack?" Wales stepped in.

"Y-yes. To put them on high alert. The dragon knights are all being directed by Sir Dunwell to take up chase of the fugitives . . ." Wale's cuffed the man again.

"I mean the Royalists!" The messenger corrected.

Wales leaned closer. "You said Sir Dunwell . . . There was a girl at the powder mill fighting him . . . Do you know anything about that?"

"The winged girl?" The messenger asked, gasping as Caramella pressed down on his chest. "She fought with Sir Dunwell and was almost captured, but she escaped, fled in the confusion when the magazines went off! But she was wounded, possibly badly. I've orders to put the Garrisons on high alert, she has the highest priority to be killed on sight! Ahh!" The man struggled.

"Anything else we need to know?" Caramella hissed softly.

"I heard that at last sighting, she was fleeing south, a dragon was sent to pursue her from the sky, keep her from fleeing towards Newcastle. Sir Dunwell plans to take up the pursuit himself! Please! That's all I know!" The man begged pitifully.

"Yeah, I bet it is." Caramella sighed before pushing off from the man's chest and rolling him onto his side. The soldier struggled feebly as Caramella put him into a choke hold and began to apply pressure.

"What are you . . ." The man managed to gasp out before going still. Caramella waited a few seconds longer before releasing him and glancing to Wales, who after a brief search was able to find the man's pulse.

"Kino, tie him up and gag him." Wales instructed. "Then lead the horse a bit deeper into the forest. That should ensure they aren't found until morning." By then they would be long done with this place.

"Well." Caramella said. "What now?"

"I don't know." Wales confessed, mind racing.

Kino looked back and forth between the Prince and his partner. "It sounds like Asuna is in trouble. She's hurt, and the Knight that kill Arguile is after her."

"That guy. Every single time it's that guy! Who the hell is he?" Caramella stormed to and fro in a rage.

Wales placed his fingers together before him. "He is Sir Dunwell, Knight Captain of the 4th Dragon Knight Squadron and a traitor to the crown."

"Frickin figures." Caramella spat. "Damn it, he killed Arguile and now he's going after Asuna!"

"Caramella . . ."

"We have to do something! If they get their hands on her . . . " Caramella breathed heavily. " . . . If they do to her, what they did to Aki!"

"Caramella!" Wales said.

"What?!" The Faerie swordswoman turned on him.

"Going against Sir Dunwell hastily is a fools gambit. Believe me, I understand your hatred for him. I more than anyone would love nothing more than to see his traitorous head on a pike." Wales breathed.

"Oh? What'd he do, kill your dog?" Caramella snapped moodily.

"My Eldest Brother." Wales said flatly.

Caramella recoiled, blinking rapidly and then shook her head, never one to lose momentum. "Well I'm sorry!" She shouted angrily. "I'm still going. He said they're herding her south. If I can catch up, maybe I can lure them away, or help Asuna fight her way back. Look, I don't care if fighting this Dunwell guy is impossible." Caramella balled her fists. "Asuna has done everything to try and keep us all safe. She's been protecting three hundred of us! If I can't protect just one of her . . . How am I supposed to face the big guy in the next life?"

Behind her, Kino was looking up at the sky, and without further explanation had gone to examine one of the nearby tree's as if sizing it up.

Wales simply smiled softly, Caramella really was the sort of person who would fight even if her eyes were filled with tears. "I said it was a fools gambit. Luckily, we're three fine fools."

Caramella blinked in surprise and then gave Wales a wide eyed look. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm no fool." She grinned. "You in this with us?"

Wales stood and straightened out his clothes. "Of course, as you say, we must rescue Lady Asuna from a fate worse than death. I did after all promise you passage to the Continent, all of you. Though some have departed this world. A Prince of Air will keep his word to the last. "Lukes?" The prince turned to the large Faerie swordsman who had remained silent tending to Lydel throughout the discussion.

"Yes, Prince Wales?"

"It appears the Knights have been tasked mainly with hounding Lady Asuna and the others. Do you think you can get Lydel back to Newcastle on your own?"

The Faerie gave an uncertain nod and then answered more confidently. "Yes, Prince Wales, I think I remember how to make it to the passage we used to depart the city ruins."

"Good." Wales said simply. "Then that just leaves how we are to find Lady Asuna."

"That part's easy." The voice of Kino came from above them. Wales looked up to see that the knife user had climbed to the top of one of the tree's and was now silhouetted against a star filled sky, arm pointing to the south. "Like you said in York, we just have to follow the dragons."

* * *

Guiche de Gramont blinked groggily in the early morning light as he spurred his horse to follow alongside his two companions. They had departed the Port of York not but an hour ago, following a road that ran sloping down from the high cliffs heading North towards Newcastle. Midori rode beside him, displaying her characteristic charming lack of grace in the saddle while attempting to take a bite from the loaf of bread they had purchased when they had set off. The swordswoman seemed to think there was no time to waste, and at her insistence, they had departed just before dawn after staying the night at an Inn near the docks.

Since Midori had confronted him aboard the Lady Gallant, Guiche hadn't quite known how to act around her. Naturally, he had to act in accordance with her wishes, she was a taken woman after all, to continue to pursue would be to spit upon her honor. But her comments had stuck with him. She couldn't respect him? He sickened her? They had been delivered so calmly and with the same note of disappointment as . . . 'As father', Guiche thought. That similarity had bitten in a way that simple anger had not.

But afterwords, Midori had behaved as if the whole thing hadn't happened. She hadn't responded like the other girl's he had scorned, shunning him and peppering him with insults, instead, she continued to treat him cordially if somewhat distantly as a traveling companion. It was as if she expected their talk to have settled the whole matter. It left Guiche quite confused. In his experience, women didn't forgive such transgressions easily.

Was this some sort of second chance? He wondered. Midori had said his conduct would make her mission more difficult. The mission . . . Yes he had been quite a heel, the mission had to come first!

Casting Midori another sideways glance, he supposed Miss Midori was simply being a professional. It was conduct he should seek to emulate. Of course, that wasn't to say he couldn't continue to admire, he was a Gramont after all, but only from afar. As a conquest, he decided, Miss Midori was sadly as unattainable as the fair Princess.

"Its hard to believe this country is a war zone." Midori commented after swallowing her bite of bread. "It looks so peaceful."

Captain Wardes gave a small shrug. "This area is of vital importance to Albion's commerce. Even during war some places will continue to thrive."

Guiche gazed about the countryside. He had to agree. The port city had been as lively as any Guiche had ever visited. As they traveled, they were stopped for inspection by troops in Rebel Army uniforms. The men had been polite but quite thorough, even insisting that Miss Midori remove the hood of her cloak.

When questioned about the measures the infantry Captain who had stopped them at the checkpoint had delivered surprising news.

"Are you just arrived on the Isle?" The man had asked, casting his glance between Wardes, Guiche, and Midori as if sizing the three up. "Strange times to be arriving for business other than war."

"Our business has to do with the war." Wardes assured. "My half sister here is betrothed to an officer in the Good Lord Cromwell's army."

The infantry Captain looked over to Midori who simply lowered her head demurely, as if trying to hide beneath her cloak. "The arrangements were made some time ago of course, before this whole business started. In his last letter, we were informed that Wesley was serving at one of the Forts ringing Newcastle. We are here only to confirm the wedding arrangements, and to give the betrothed some time together, and will then be returning to Gallia."

The Captain seemed to be weighing the story before Midori spoke. "Please Sir." The swordswoman said in a small voice. "I just want to see that he's safe. Brother promised we could get there before nightfall."

The look on that innocent face softened the Rebel Officer's expression, he looked old enough to have a daughter Midori's age, he gave the girl a reassuring nod. "I understand. Fear not, the Royalists are well pinned in Newcastle and the field commanders have been ordered to postpone any further offensives for the time being. I'm sure you'll find him safe. But be warned, it is dangerous ahead, if you wish to approach the Forts you must remain on the roadways."

"Is there a problem?" Wardes asked.

The Rebel Captain turned to Wardes and nodded again. "By order of Sir Dunwell, commander of the 4th Dragon Knight squadron, anyone found off of the roads or open fields is to be treated as a Royalist soldier and killed on the spot."

"What!" Guiche spluttered in surprise. "Isn't that a little harsh?"

"Harsh, but necessary." The Officer said. "We received word only a short while ago that just last night, a team of Royalists managed to slip through the siege and sabotage a gunpowder mill outside of the town of Wallsend. And it was not just mages loyal to the Royalist's cause." The man's eyes narrowed, causing a scar beneath his left eye to pucker. "They had Faeries in their company."

'Faeries?' Guiche didn't miss the sharp intake of breath from Midori. In any other girl he would have taken it for a gasp of fright as did the Rebel soldiers who looked on solemnly.

"Faeries?" Wardes asked. "You mean like those spied in Tristain?"

So the rumors they'd heard around the docks were true? Guiche wondered. It did seem the Fae had a tendency to get themselves in trouble.

"Aye." The Officer said, letting out a heavy sigh. "I've not heard but rumors but people seem to think they're the same ken. Other stories have that they are Elven agents sent to aid the Royalists, but if that were true I'd have to think we'd all be dead by now. They're allied to the Royalists in any case. Not but a week ago they aided the Royalists in heinous sabotage at York. There have been spottings of them since, most recently at the powder mill last night."

"Then we will have to be on guard." Wardes said seriously.

"That you will." The officer agreed. "But worry not, the roads are safe from here to the Newcastle siege. Sir Dunwell is a fine officer, he'll have the Royalists and their Faerie allies bottled up soon enough. Just head along straight from here, you'll have to explain your business once you reach the siege."

"We understand, thank you." Wardes gave the infantry Captain a small tip of his hat and they departed quickly, continuing down the road at a distance eating gate.

Once they were out of sight of the soldiers, Midori spurred her horse faster, forcing Guiche and the Viscount to keep pace. Behind them, Verdandi let out an indignant squawk at having to keep up with the horses.

"Miss Midori?" Wardes asked.

"We have to hurry." The swordswoman said, eyes not meeting those of the Viscount.

"Does this have to do with the Faeries?" Guiche asked, receiving a suspicious look from Wardes. Midori's expression turned bitter.

"Would you care to explain, Miss Midori?" Wardes pressed. "Or would doing so risk your mission?"

The swordswoman was silent as they settled into a canter. The girl's normal awkwardness in the saddle had vanished, she seemed completely focused on simply riding. Silence was all the answer that was needed. Even Guiche could guess that Midori's mission had to do with the Faeries. Was she here to smuggle them from Albion? Perhaps it was at the request of the Faerie Lords.

"All you need to know is that I have to make it to Wallsend to investigate." Midori said.

"Then I'm afraid we will have part ways when we reach the next town." Wardes said. "Our own mission awaits us in Newcastle.

"Fine." Midori said without hesitation. "If need by I can make it the rest of the way on my own."

Guiche looked between his companions, alarmed, "But Captain Wardes, weren't we ordered to aid Miss Midori if possible?"

The Captain gave Guiche a small nod. "That we were. But this is her mission, we have our own. We mustn't endanger it." Looking back to Midori. "You heard that officer, a powder mill was destroyed, sabotaged during the night. The Rebels will be on high alert."

"I know." The swordswoman said, a grim look overtaking her.

They road hard in silence from then on. It filled Guiche with anticipation and a healthy feeling of dread. They would be parting ways at the next town and suddenly the future didn't seem so certain. How exactly were he and the Viscount to make it past the siege? And what of Miss Midori? Surely she was strong and amazingly skilled, but she was still just a lone girl. Would she be alright on her own? If not for his commitment to the mission, Guiche might have offered to accompany her without a second thought.

Running their horses and the Captain's Griffin at a full canter, they made the town of Gateshead in just under two hours, placing them a mere fifteen leagues from Newcastle and just beyond the perimeter of the siege. Gateshead turned out to be a less prosperous place than York, a small town of no more than a few hundred, watched over by a sullen looking fort set high on the nearby hill. They entered the town through its namesake gate, all that was left of a larger defensive fortification that judging by the grass grown foundations had once stretched past the town in both directions.

"If we are to part ways here, then I should at least wish you luck." Captain Wardes said as they entered the town square and he brought his mount to a halt. A few onlookers seemed curious to see such an exotic beast. Griffins were not particularly common outside the service of Tristain, but they were not unheard of either. Most would likely think that the Viscout was a mercenary here to pledge his services to Reconquista. "Mister Gramont, we will be staying her until nightfall, see to a room at the tavern."

"Y-yes Sir!" Guiche said, dropping down from his own horse. "And what will you be doing? If I might ask?" Guiche added quickly.

The Captain glanced swiftly from side to side. "I will be making arrangements for our infiltration this evening." He said softly. "We will need to know the lay of the besieging army if we are to slip past.

"Oh, yes, very good Sir." Guiche nodded quickly. Naturally they wouldn't be able to sneak by in broad daylight. "Then you can leave it to me!"

The Viscount gave Guiche a small nod and departed across the town square. Turning back to the matter he had been entrusted with. Guiche stopped as he noticed Midori had dismounted. The girl had produced a map from her her small traveling satchel and appeared to be in the midst of examining it. Curiously, she seemed to sound out whatever it was she was reading under her breath, like a child. It was again painfully endearing, testing the limits of his honor as a Gramont son.

"Is something wrong Miss Midori?" Guiche asked.

The girl frowned. "I need to find the way to Wallsend, its to the North, but its not on my map." She said as she returned the map to her satchel. Guiche caught a glimpse of strange markings scribbled all over the more delicate cartographer's script, as if the map had been marked up with notes.

"Ah, well, there's a signpost just over there." Guiche pointed to where a tall wooden poll was affixed with the names of towns and their directions. "It should be as easy as reading the name off of that."

Midori squinted at the signpost, and then her expression soured.

"What is it?" Guiche asked. He couldn't imagine that the swordswoman's eyesight was bad given how easily she had spotted the ambush two days ago. He started feeling a little worried, had he already done something else to upset her? Wait, he thought, she was moving her lips again as if trying to sound out . . . It couldn't be . . . "Miss Midori?" Guiche asked cautiously. "Are you, perchance not literate?"

Midori suddenly looked intensely flustered. "I can read just fine." She said with a hint of irritation. "Just not . . . this script."

'This script? The Romalian alphabet?' Guiche thought, how was that possible? Even in Germania, which used it's own bastardized writing system, a noble would be expected to be able to read in at very least one of the Birmiric tongues. He shook his head, that wasn't important right now, what was important was that Midori needed to know something so that she could see to her mission.

Scanning down the signpost, Guiche pointed. "There, that's it, the third one from the bottom." Midori followed his hand and then nodded. "Got it. Thank you, Guiche."

It wasn't much, but the words were so sincere that they made the young Gramont son's heart flutter. Midori was already spurring her horse when Guiche called quickly. "Wait!"

Midori cast a look over her shoulder. "What is it now?"

It had actually just occurred to Guiche, but if Midori didn't know the alphabet, it might be hard to memorize the written name of Wallsend. "You should probably copy the name down, in case there's a fork in the road along the way." He offered, hoping he didn't sound too foolish. Surprisingly, Midori gave a small nod of agreement.

"I'm afraid I didn't bring a pen." She said.

"Quite alright!" Guiche said quickly, fishing through his own satchel he found what he was looking for, a graphite pencil, useful to write or make note while traveling. "I have something to write with, if you happen to have anything I could . . ."

"Use the back of this." Midori said quickly, fishing out her map and offering it to him. Guiche nodded, taking the folded piece of paper. He took the opportunity to note the oddly angular text that marked one corner, written neatly beneath the name of a town. He didn't know what it was, but it wasn't Romalian, nor Germanian either.

"There." Guiche said, handing the map back, 'Wallsend' written neatly in pencil at the corner. "You shouldn't have any problems now."

Suddenly, a cry of "Oyez, Oyez, Oyez!" was heard across the square, accompanied by the tolling of a bell. Standing tall in his colorful robes, a town crier was beginning an announcement. "By order of the Holy Army of Reconquista, all good citizens of the town of Gateshead are asked to listen and obey! In connection to the matter of Sabotage announced just this morning at the powder mill at Wallsend which claimed the lives of many good soliders, the army requests the assistance of the citizenry in running to ground dangerous fugitives."

At Guiche's side, Midori was suddenly completely focused on the announcement, the map held tightly in her hand all but forgotten. "Miss Midori?" He asked, receiving no answer.

"The first among these fugitives is Prince Wales Tudor, Crown Prince of Albion, third son of King James of Albion, wanted on charges of heresy, piracy, reckless endangerment of the public, and resisting the lawful forces of Reconquista. The Prince was last spotted last night at the site of the powder mill explosion. Any information leading to the Capture of Prince Wales will be rewarded with a sum of up to five hundred silver marks!" The crowd of gathered towns people began to mutter among themselves and for good reason, five hundred marks, even with the questionable financial practices of the Rebels, represented enough silver for a commoner to live comfortably for the rest of his days.

This was terrible news! Guiche thought quickly, looking every way for any sign of Captain Wardes, but the Mage Knight had already vanished. They were here to retrieve a letter from the Prince. If he was captured . . .

The town crier continued. "In addition to the Prince and his Royalist forces, a number of the illusive Fae, first spotted in York, are believe to also be at large. First among them is a Faerie girl wanted on charges of aiding enemies of the Kingdom, inciting heresy, murder, and sabotage. She was last spotted before dawn traveling South from Wallsend towards the siege and Gateshead. This girl is estimated to stand two and two thirds mails in height with a weight of eight and half stone. Defining features are long hazel hair, a pair of gossamer wings, and elongated ears likened to those of an Elf. She is believed to answer to the name Asuna. Any information leading to the capture of this enemy of the Kingdom will be rewarded with a sum of up to four hundred marks!"

Guiche was dismayed by the number. Reconquista would offer almost as much for a Faerie who couldn't have been in Albion for more than a few weeks as they would for the head of the Crown Prince who had been fighting them for over half a year? It only reinforced his assessment from earlier, the Fae had a knack for getting themselves in trouble.

"Miss Midori, I apologize but I need to go find Captain Wardes, he'll want to hear of this! Miss Midori?" Guiche finally looked back and realized that his companion had vanished without a trace. Guiche looked down at his familiar who was busy sniffing the ground at her feet."Do you have any idea where Midori went my pet?"

Looking up at him, his lovely and remarkably intelligent familiar gave a small shake of her head. "Well that's quite odd." He hadn't heard her leave. And strangest off all, he looked down at the pair of reigns that had seemingly materialized in his hand in place of the map, she'd left her horse.


	51. Chapter 13 Part 3 Reunion

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 13 - Part 3 - 'Reunion'

Asuna ran through the forests of Albion, every moment praying for refuge, for rescue. But the world was not accommodating. Ahead of her, she heard the sounds of foot soldiers approaching, the shouting of men and the barking of hounds. She could break through provided there weren't any strong mages . . . probably. And if not, one hand was clutched tight around her stolen half pike, a clumsy weapon compared to her rapier, but it had already saved her more than once through the night.

She leaned forward, picking up the pace from her measured run into a full tilted sprint as she neared the sounds of the soldiers. Her Faerie body could manage amazing feats of strength and endurance, but even then, there was still a limit to her stamina, and what was more, in this real world, dips and potholes in the terrain became dangerous hazards to someone who could run at speeds unattainable by anything in Halkegenia save flying mounts. More than not falling into traps, Asuna had to devote most of her attention to simply not falling.

With the ground flying by beneath her feet, Asuna caught sight of the first Rebel soldier and cursed wearily, a musketeer. The man had spotted her and was already levelling his weapon as she covered the distance. Weeks ago, she would have frozen in place at the sight of that weapon, but now Asuna pushed herself harder and felt the familiar rush of power transforming her wings into a part of herself, giving her that last little push. The musketeer fired and Asuna felt the musket ball skim past her. And then she had overtaken the musketeer and was vaulting a group of startled soldiers coming up behind him.

The sounds of shouting and musket fire filled the air behind her for a few brief seconds. Asuna felt something small and hot strike her back and gasped out in pain, but it didn't manage to penetrate the back of the breastplate she was wearing under her cloak. She didn't fall, and soon the sounds of the soldiers vanished behind her, another group that would never catch up.

A growling roar echoed through the forest as a dark shadow rolled across the canopy above her. But there were some things that even she couldn't outrun. Now that the sun had risen, there was no place for her to hide from them.

The Dragon Knights were playing it safe now. For every one dragon that swept in low to attack or keep watch on her, another stayed high to observe. They were on guard, there would be no repeats of her slaying outside of York. She winced as her wounded right leg burned once more, even if she was given the opportunity, she didn't know if she'd be able to take it. She didn't know how much longer she could even keep running. Her right leg was a shambles, barely holding together, the sharp pain and bleeding had stopped over the night, turning to a low intensity burning that would act up from time to time. But even her left was starting to ache and tire and her lungs burned from hours of sucking in the cold night air. In the end, it seemed that even Fae had limits.

How long had she been running? She wondered. How much longer could she run? She'd lost track of the first other than 'many hours' judging by the rising of the sun and had no idea of the latter. She suspected that she would know when she finally stopped, either her frayed nerves would fail to catch a stumble or maybe her heart would simply stop beating, refusing to take the abuse.

In her mind, she could still see the night before. She could still see Arguile's stern expression looking down at her like a disappointed father as his hand clamped down on her wrist. Shock had stopped her from tearing free right then and there, and by the time she had realized what was happening it had almost been too late.

"Asuna-sama. You mustn't resist." Arguile said with a clear note of disapproval as his free arm came around her shoulder.

"Let me go! Arguile-san stop this! Look at what you're doing!" Asuna pleaded. More than seeing him alive, for Arguile to help the Rebels, she didn't understand, she didn't want to understand. What had happened to him? What had happened to the loyal swordsman she had known?

Asuna had seen betrayal before within the ranks of her own Guild. Not just Heathcliff, but even before that, the murderer Kuradeel. But those times had been different. She had always distrusted Kuradeel, and Heathcliff had been a distant though respected authority figure.

Arguile had been almost the opposite of both. As the leader of the KoB's tank unit she had worked with him almost every day. He had been fearless and always had a reassuring word before battle. Every time they met, he greeted her sincerely and asked if she was well. Always respectful and polite. Arguile had been, if not a friend, a trusted comrade, somebody who she could rely on in the midst of battle. Their time in Albion had only deepened that bond.

The idea that the Arguile who had fought so valiantly against every boss that the KoB had faced, and who had even suicidally charged Heathcliff for his betrayal, would do what he was doing right now simply did not exist in Asuna's world. It was this refusal to believe for one heartbeat that had almost doomed her.

Arguile's arm began to constrict, tightening around her neck in a choke hold. Asuna responded almost instinctively, tucking her chin against her chest and prying at his thick forearm with her own hands. She was strong, but Arguile had been a strength build, and in this real world, size did count for something when it came to leverage. She was lifted off the ground by the larger Faerie, feet dangling.

"I'm only trying to help you, Asuna-sama." Arguile said, voice not changing as she pushed against him, wrestling to break free. "You are unclean Asuna-sama, we must purify you."

Purify? What was this? Had the Rebels used some sort of hypnosis?

"Arguile, they're controlling you. You have to fight it!" Asuna choked, but it was like the swordsman didn't even hear her. "Please!" She felt tears starting to burn in her eyes.

"It's okay, Asuna." Arguile said, voice gentle and full of sincerity. "It will only hurt for a moment longer."

To her front, Sir Dunwell was advancing calmly through the ring of encircling mages and soldiers, cane-wand held at his side like a baton. They stared at each other, Dunwell breathless, Asuna struggling to breathe. In the dim light, she thought she could see traces of regret in the man's eyes. She glared at him.

Dunwell's lips parted as if he was about to say something, and then the world shook. A low resonating -boom that was felt more than heard rolled across the castle and its surroundings, a cloud of smoke and debris belching up from behind the castle walls. All eyes save Arguile's were fixed on the sight. That must have been the powder mill. Asuna thought. Which meant the rest would be going up any second.

One of the dismounted Dragon Knights was the first to respond. "Water mages, with me! We have to see to the mill before any fires spread!" As the thunderous noise cleared, a faint series of cracks sounded, smaller explosions or perhaps musket fire.

"No." Dunwell barked. "This was an effort at sabotage, fall back until . . ."

The ground trembled beneath their feet, once, then again more violently. And that would be the storerooms. The trembles grew, just as one subsided, another struck. With a sound like an avalanche the castle and its walls began to crumble, ancient stone and masonry braking apart. The castle keep, peeking out from above the walls, began to sink, collapsing into the courtyard.

"Find cover!" Dunwell stormed. "Mages, erect barriers now!"

As bad as the others had been, the next explosion put the ones that had come before to shame. Asuna remembered the words of the eccentric Royal Engineer, Lydel, who had described what might happen when the gunpowder stores began to go off. The castle might simply collapse as its foundations were blown out from under it. Or, it might explode violently as the walls of the powder stores rooms broke open and set off the whole powder store at once.

It looked like Lydel was about to get his wish. The castle walls were collapsing inwards, and then, with one last earth shaking -boom- the whole courtyard went up in a pillar of debris and fire like the climax of a volcanic eruption. The walls that had been falling inwards, stopped and were pushed back in the opposite direction, shedding masonry as they went. For a moment it appeared, improbably, that the blast would right the walls back onto their foundations. Then slowly, with the sounds of splintering, grinding stone, the walls continued to fall outwards, gathering speed as they calved and fell, stones from the parapets breaking free and rolling down hill like cannon balls.

Anyone not thrown off their feet by the shaking beforehand was laid out flat by the wave of pressure and heat that radiated outward just ahead of the oncoming cloud of dust and smoke.

Unbalanced as he was with a struggling Asuna, Arguile fell backwards, still clinging tightly to her. Asuna saw her chance, twisting in mid fall so that all of her weight was driven through her shoulder against the swordsman's stomach, but other than a slight -huff- of escaping air, Arguile made no sign that the blow had even fazed him. There was no grunt of pain, his arms remained firmly around her, it was as if his body was still an SAO avatar.

"Asuna-sama, please stop resisting." Arguile said as his arm tightened even further. In the fall Asuna had lost her grip around his forearm, she could feel Arguile digging his arm beneath her chin, straining to choke the life from her.

'No!' She thought, left hand clawing blindly against Arguile's face as her right swept desperately for anything she could use to free herself.

Fingers brushed tantalizingly against the familiar hilt of her dropped rapier, closing around the grip of the ruined sword. What came next was done without thinking, driven by every instinct fighting for survival. Asuna swung the remains of the blade, now little more than a crude knife, in a blind overhead swing. Her effort was met by resistance and a sickening wet crunch. Arguile spasmed, the arm around her going lax. Asuna rolled free, struggling drunkenly to her feet, and then nearly vomited as she saw what she had done.

Before her, the body of her friend and comrade lay twitching faintly, the hand span of remaining rapier blade sunk into his skull through the eye socket. She stumbled back, horrified by what she had just done. She had been so driven to break free, to survive that . . . Blessedly, the world did not allow her to dwell on her action. The dust cloud struck a moment later, obscuring Arguile's body and carrying with it the first rain of gravel and stone from the castle courtyard.

Asuna looked around desperately, she had to take this chance to escape! All around her were shouts of confusion, most of the soldiers had obeyed Dunwell's previous order, the Mage Knights had erected earthen berms and wind barriers to shield themselves and the commoner soldiers, taking cover from the shower of wreckage. Above them the first pieces of heavier debris were starting to rain down, stones varying in size from cannonballs to entire pieces of wall plummeting as deadly missiles.

A fragment of some piece of the castle, possibly the keep, was tumbling down towards a group of cowering foot soldiers. A powerful blast of wind batted the crumbling masonry aside at the last instant. Asuna's head spun about, Sir Dunwell stood, cane-wand outstretched beneath the shelter offered by his dragon's partially outstretched wing. The Faerie Swordswoman gave him one last brief glare before she turned to flee, dodging falling debris and making her best speed away from the castle. It was difficult given the terrain and the panicking soldiers and mages that kept cutting into her path.

Between the dust and the darkness, Asuna's vision was cut down to almost nothing, she nearly ran into one man, shouldering him aside with her strength before a faint whistling alerted her to something to her front. A metallic surface glinted faintly in the weak light, she ducked, feeling the wind as spear passed at head height. A commoner soldier, more disciplined and alert than his comrades, blocked her way. The man's eyes were wide with terror, he was as frightened as her.

Reaching out, Asuna grabbed the shaft of the man's spear with both hands and pulled, wrenching it from his grip. The man fell back in fear as Asuna swung the spear, a half pike, like an expert, reversing the weapon and taking up a stance. She felt the same rush of familiarity that had occurred when she first held a rapier once more, perhaps a little stronger due to her lack of native familiarity with this weapon. It was not just her own experience from training in two handed spears, but like the system auto assist was still with her, moved inside of her own head.

The dust ahead of her began to part, she could see the open fields and forest beyond, and between her and freedom, a troop of fast approaching cavalry, not Dragons, but land cavalry, soldiers on horseback. There were dozens, more reinforcements from the fortress arriving at the scene. She had no time to fight them. Now on open ground, she broke into a full tilted sprint, the crack of muskets and pistols filling the air as the cavalry spotted her, her cloak and wings marking her out as an intruder.

One of the horsemen was straight ahead of her, riding high in the saddle, a wand in his hand. Their combined speed meant that there was only a moment before they passed one another and she was racing straight towards him with no time to evade. She could see his lips moving in ghastly slow motion, the wand extending as he took aim.

Asuna felt the tingle of her wings coming alive as she cleared the ground. Something whipped against her thigh and she heard a tearing noise, but in the rush of her pseudo flight, she didn't know what it was until after she landed and suddenly felt her leg explode in pain. Somehow, perhaps it was the adrenaline screaming in her veins, she kept her footing well enough not to fall or lose too much of her speed. Her free hand brushed against her leg, coming back covered in dark red. Her whole side was screaming in protest, but it didn't matter, she'd broken through and was nearing the edge of the forest and safety.

Or so she had thought. The remainder of the night had been one long, waking nightmare giving her no rest or relief. She had been pursued relentlessly. First, thinking she was far enough to be safe, she had stopped to see to her wound as the adrenaline began to burn off and the tolerable burning gave way to near agony. Whatever had grazed her had done a good job of tearing into her leg, shredding the skin from just above the knee to around mid-thigh. Above and below that, the flesh was red and welted as if it had been lashed.

Fortunately it didn't appear that the wound was too deep, but all that she had on hand was some of the fabric of her coat tied tight to keep dirt from getting in it. It was while she had been tying the makeshift bandage tight, thinking of her next move, that she had heard the nearing sound of dogs, and with them, soldiers. Despite her leg, she was able to quickly leave them far behind. They were the first, but certainly not the last. From what she had been able to piece together over the rest of the night, the Dragon Knights had scattered and alerted the nearby garrisons, casting a net outwards to try and capture the fleeing Royalists.

She had been caught up in just such a net, and as the night progressed Asuna had gradually been driven back and forth through the forest, sometimes evading contact, sometimes breaking through a formation of Rebel forces trying to block her escape. Between the darkness and her evasion she had grown hopelessly lost, only finding her bearings again as the sun rose to the east, a thankful constant across worlds. But with the sunlight came enough light for the Dragon Knights to see her and pursue her.

The paths were narrowing before her. The dragon Knights high above were directing the forces to surround her. Though she could lose them from time to time, as the ground forces tightened their net, it was getting harder to do so. Inevitably, she would be spotted by a mage or a soldier with a flare, and her whereabouts would be revealed again to the searching dragons. Eventually they would gather up enough mages to simply overwhelm her. And then, that would be the end.

No. She wasn't going to let that happen. Tears stung at the corners of her eyes. Even if this was where she was going to die. A place like this. She wouldn't stop fighting to live until the very end. She owed that to the people whose lives she had taken to survive, and to Kirito so that somehow, someway, they could meet again.

It was with this mantra in her heart that she faced the next squad of soldiers seeking to stop her.

A blast of wind erupted ahead of her, cracking into a tree and causing it to splinter and fall into her path just as a dense, hot fireball arced straight for her chest. She evaded to the side, the fireball searing past her to come apart in a blossom of heat and brilliant orange flame behind her. Using her good leg she kicked off of one tree trunk, redirecting her trajectory to run up the still falling tree before jumping off among the branches of the forest canopy, running and jumping from tree branch to tree branch or kicking off of tree trunks, carefully manoeuvring her stolen half pike to aid her balance.

It wasn't just a foot patrol this time. The soldiers that faced her were not dragon knights, but their uniforms were similar, akin to the one that Arguile had been wearing and the man who had clipped her leg. Cavalry maybe? Or Knights? Either way, they would be more than just mages. She could see them keeping pace below her using wind magic. From time to time one would come skidding to a halt to take a shot at her with his wand, fireballs, wind spells, and from time to time one of the mages trailing furthest behind would let loose with earth magic, uprooting the trees ahead of her to try and knock her from the canopy. Alternately one would pause to send up a geyser of air and water, a water spout to mark their position for the dragons above.

The roaring was growing closer. In her condition she might not be able to outrun them for much longer, and she couldn't let them follow her any longer. At the next tree branch, she landed, coiling her legs under her and allowing momentum to carry her forward until she had nearly tilted off. Then she pushed, aiming her trajectory to intercept the lead mage. The man wasn't expecting the attack, to keep pace he had to stay focused on his front lest he strike a tree or trip.

Asuna's spear struck between the shoulder blades, piercing easily. The man wasn't wearing a breast plate in order to lighten himself. Swinging her legs forward Asuna passed over the man like a pole-vaulter, she landed in a run barely keeping her feet under her as the mage went into an uncontrolled cartwheel. At this speed, if he wasn't dead from the pike wound, he was now.

Spinning about, Asuna dug her feet in, feeling herself skidding backwards across the forest floor. The mages behind her tried to slow down, but while their spell granted them speed, it didn't necessarily give them strength or resilience to manoeuver like a Fae. Asuna thrust the half pike forward in a two handed stance, the second mage skewering himself without any further effort on her part.

A flash of heat from the left, Asuna swung the dying man into the path of his friend's hastily shot fireball. She was thrown back as the fireball blossomed against her impromptu shield. She tumbled across the ground coming up to find that the remaining mages were almost on her.

"Hold her!" The fire user shouted to the last mage, the one who had been using earth magic.

The earth at Asuna's feet began to flow, chains shooting upwards, over and around her, she threw herself forward, narrowly missing the bindings. The fire mage had been expecting her to be trapped in the chains as his next spell sparked and combusted, charring the chains and searing at Asuna's back.

Looking at the half pike in her hands, it was too long for this sort of work, her knee came up, splitting the shaft near its end and leaving her with four feet of spear. Asuna rushed the fire mage, dodging another snap shot spell and another. Weaving from side to side, Asuna approached the man, the air around her filled with flames almost anywhere she wasn't. The forest around her was starting to smoulder from the narrowly missed shots.

At last she got within range and the air between her and the mage began to ripple, she jumped back as a hemisphere of white hot flame separated them and the earth before the mage's fire wall rippled and flowed, a trio of crude humanoid figures rising from the ground as if climbing from a pit,

The first golem swung clumsily and Asuna took the chance to jump up onto its arm and then from there to the shoulders, leaping from golem to golem, she passed over the heat of the mage's shield, kicking off a tree behind him. The mage spun around trying to counter from the unexpected angle. The flame shield dissipated a moment before Asuna drove her spear into his chest.

With the fire mage falling at her feet, only the earth mage was left now. The man was stumbling back, horrified by what had just happened. Asuna breathing heavily advances towards him. She was going to make it out of this. She was going to survive!

"S-stay back . . . You monster!"

The golems came to a stop, crumbling to dust as the man dispelled them. The earth beneath Asuna exploded, trying to swallow her whole. She jumped, wings spreading instinctively to aid her balance as if they had always been a part of her. The man let out one last pleading shriek as the head of the half pike went through his throat.

At last, Asuna was still for the first time in hours, and, as if her flight had been the only thing sustaining her, she felt her legs beginning to give out. She felt too tired, too empty to even be horrified by what she had just done. But she had to keep moving. She was struggling to her feet when she heard the pained cough at her back.

Turning slowly, Asuna was greeted by the sight of the fire mage lying on the ground, hand clutched to his stomach, a sick smile spreading across his face. The man's wand was levelled on Asuna, given her state at that instant, she wasn't sure if she could dodge. The mage didn't seem sure either. Slowly, the wand rose until it was pointing straight up. The man's lips moved softly, a thin jet of flame erupted upward, climbing until it reached above the tree tops where it burned like a beacon. The last of his willpower spent, the mage gave soft coughing laugh and expired.

Twin roars rose from the skies above, growing nearer, and Asuna trembled, clutching what was left of her spear as a dragon burst through the canopy follow by another. Their wings were already folded as they came crashing down among the trees, limbs scrabbling at tree trunks to keep paces as they landed heavily, roaring and hissing.

This wasn't like the time in York, these Knights were on high alert. They wouldn't allow her to land a killing blow easily. Turning to flee, one of the dragons opened its mouth wide. Asuna was thrown from her feet by the near miss, the fireball exploding less than a half dozen meters from her, spraying her with scalding and smouldering plant matter. She stumbled back to her feet. One of the dragons roared. Asuna roared back.

She had no plan or strategy. If she could just keep fighting, just keeping surviving . . .

The mages were on guard on the backs of their mounts, ready to protect themselves and their dragons. Masters and mounts moving as a single whole. Asuna rocketed forward, her last reserves of strength thrown into one desperate thrust at the lead dragon. She struck a wind shield, feeling the air growing dense in front of her. She felt the wings on her back stretching outward, energy burning through them, slamming her forward.

The Dragon Knight looked surprised when she didn't simply bounce back. He began reinforcing his shield, slowing but not stopping her progress. The tip of her spear sank a quarter of the way through, 'almost there', half way, 'almost there', three quarters, 'almost there!' Asuna didn't notice the second rider raising his wand, she didn't hear him beginning to chant or see the wind currents forming and taking the shape of a spear.

All that she heard, all that she sensed, was one word.

"SWITCH!"

Asuna had never heard the voice that called out to her before in her life, but the tone was so familiar that without a second thought she obeyed, kicking off from the barrier just in time to miss being skewered on a shaft of compressed wind. A heart beat later, Asuna's place was taken by a black blur that struck the barrier like a cannonball, bursting through the already disrupted shield and cleanly overtaking the mage rider.

There was a glint of steel, there was a splash of blood, and then the mage and black blur parted company, the mage slumping forward in his saddle and the blur skidding to a halt on the ground nearby. The remaining mage seemed as shocked as Asuna. She tried to make sense of what she was seeing. How could she describe it?

Standing opposite her, like some sort of mirage, was the interloper, her rescuer. A girl, slightly shorter than herself, long black hair spilling down to the middle of her back, pale skin almost glowing in the diffused light. She was dressed in mono colors, boots, pants, shirt, and jacket all of a mat black only broken by her breast plate and sword. In her right hand she held a long one handed blade possessing a faint silver aura.

Asuna felt like she was no longer in her body, like she was an observer looking in. Who was this person? Where had she come from? And how did she know that term?

The girl's face was a mask of complete focus, watching the remaining Knight and the now riderless dragon. The first drake was still confused, its rider's body seated in the saddle but offering no instruction. It hadn't gotten through the giant lizard's skull just yet that the man was dead and the dragon was obediently awaiting instruction that would never come. The second dragon with its still-living rider was by far the larger threat.

As one, dragon and knight turned to meet the new threat, rider swinging his Cane-Wand and letting fly with a shower of nearly invisible wind blades that shredded the ground where the dark haired girl had been standing. Whatever she was . . . she wasn't human. That much was certain. No human could be that fast. She was already moving, making a weaving approach for the dragon.

The fire drake roared, belching forth a fireball into her path, the blast throwing the girl through the air, she came to a halt in a controlled roll, kicking off with one leg and sliding beneath the dragon's forelimbs. The next roar was one of pain as her sword licked out and bit deeply into one scaly forearm.

'This style.' Asuna thought, watching the girl's motions, the exact way that she moved, the half improvised swordsmanship, that look of concentration . . .

The girl rolled out from beneath the dragon's body just in time to be struck by the drake's lashing tail. She was knocked back, rolling to a stop with a cough after the air had been driven from her lungs. She looked up with a glare, wiping at her cheek, and then she was a blur again.

The girl let out a shout, crashing into a wind barrier constructed by the dragon's rider. This one was different from the last, the rider had been given time to prepare, the barrier wasn't just a shell of compressed air but a spell of a more powerful type that actively burst to throw an attacker back. The girl was beaten back once, boots digging into the ground, only to come at the Knight again, and this time . . . Asuna's eyes went wide.

As the girl hit the wind barrier for a second time and the spell attempted to repel her, something grew from her back. They were long and jagged, a smoky translucence that was the exact opposite of Asuna's own white. Four slender, razor like wings. They stretched outward, unfolding in an X formation before shifting to stand on end behind her. A faint glow filled the jagged wings, a ripple of particle effects spreading across them as they came to life. A Faerie . . . An ALfheim Faerie?! The girl let out an incoherent shout that mingled with the Knight's own roar of anger.

The spell was coming apart, wind whipped at the girl's hair, lashing at her face and clothing. A piece of debris, a small stone, struck across her cheek, tracing a narrow cut beneath her right eye.

What was she doing? Asuna thought with alarm, if she kept this up she would tear through the shield in seconds, and then, then she would be left exposed. Then Asuna realized. It was because she was trusting her to follow up and keep the Dragon Knight off guard. Asuna knew this without any doubt or hesitation.

The wind barrier gave way, the girl stumbling forward onto the neck of the dragon as the mage switched to a wind needle, aiming for her exposed chest. Asuna was at her side in an instant, her spear caught the mage's thrust, directing the cane and its needle up and over the dark haired girl's head. The girl shifted her grip on her sword, taking the opening that Asuna had given her; she stepped in, slashing upward across the Knight's torso.

The man screamed once, and then gurgled into silence as the sword was driven ruthlessly into his chest.

The dragon bucked in confusion as its master's dead hand let loose of the reigns. The first drake was starting to approach, growling angrily. Its rider had finally fallen from his saddle, and after sniffing the corpse, it seemed the trained mount didn't quite know what to do.

Asuna sank down, balancing herself beside the dark haired girl as the second dragon attempted to knock them free. Their eyes met and both nodded, knowing exactly what the other would do. Black wings stretching, the girl kicked off, narrowly missing the teeth of the first dragon as it snapped at her. Fortunately, Wales had explained to Asuna, a trained mount would almost never breathe fire without its master's direction.

The girl slipped along the first dragon's side, grazing it with her sword and eliciting another roar of pain as she slashed at a rear leg. The second dragon bucked again, nearly throwing Asuna off before she drove the half pike into its scaly neck. She must have hit between two of the scales because the dragon let out its own cry of pain bucking one more tie violently and throwing Asuna from her perch sans spear.

"Asuna!" She landed heavily and looked up as the dark haired girl delivered another slash across the rear legs of the first dragon before turning towards her.

The dragons had finally had enough, though vicious, and trained as war mounts, their masters were gone and the creatures harassing them were simply too much trouble. With a final roar, the two drakes turned aside, wrestling against one another as they used their forelimbs to grab hold of the closely spaced trees, climbing up through the canopy to where they could spread their wings. With a last groaning of wood and cracking of timber the dragons lifted off back into the sky, their cries growing distant until all that was left was the slowly returning noises of the forest.

Asuna felt her labored breathing slow, the pounding of her pulse settling down. Finally, she turned to her mysterious companion and was left speechless. In a single fluid motion, the girl calmly flourished her sword and returned it to a scabbard on her back. It was a signature that Asuna knew well. Suddenly, the pieces that hadn't quite fit in the midst of battle began to slowly click together.

The shout of "Switch" and "Asuna", the sword style, the way that the girl had known exactly what Asuna was going to do. "Kirito . . ." She whispered, voice hoarse and trembling.

The girl turned slowly towards Asuna, the look of grim focus fading to be replaced by a hesitant look, a small, painful smile. A soft nod of the head was the only confirmation Asuna needed.

"A-are you real?" Asuna wondered aloud. It would be too much if this was some last vivid hallucination. To meet Kirito again like this . . . Maybe she had never escaped Arguile, maybe this, all of this, was just the last moments of a brain deprived of oxygen. But she knew that wasn't true.

Kirito asked shakily. "Are you?"

Asuna nodded back, feeling her eyes begin to burn as Kirito slowly came closer. At that moment, Kirito's appearance didn't matter to her. She would have recognized him no matter what mask he wore. Slowly, carefully, as if she was afraid that she would shatter the illusion before her, Asuna's hand rose to Kirito's cheek, Kirito mirroring the motion. Fingertips probed warm skin, feeling the faint trembling as Kirito clenched his jaw, struggling to smile.

"I . . ." Asuna began and then there was nothing more to say she was swept up in a tight embrace. The tears began to come freely then, a lesser catharsis that had been building for almost a month. All of her hopes, all of her prayers, had been answered. Kirito was here with her, in this world with her.

"Asuna . . ." Kirito choked out, squeezing her so tightly but so carefully.

She felt a heat spread across her shoulder where Kirito had buried his face. Carefully, Asuna pulled away so that she could look into Kirito's eyes. Dark brown, flecked with gold, looked up at her, tears brimming up. "It's alright." Asuna smiled as best she could, wiping carefully at her own eyes. "It's alright Kirito-kun, I'm here . . . I'm really here. And you are too."

Kirito's eyes widened and then he smiled warmly, coming to rest his forehead against Asuna's own. He had come for her. Across the universe he had come for her. At that moment, Asuna knew that despite all of the grief, and pain, and dying, that somehow things would be alright.

"Your cheek." Asuna whispered, brushing at where the blood had begun to slowly ooze from the small cut.

Kirito took her hand gently and pulled it back. "Don't be worried about that. Your leg is . . ." Kirito began looking down at the red stained bandage.

Asuna shook her head. In fact it hurt now more than ever. The past half day couldn't have done anything good for it. But that was okay. The water mages at Newcastle could do amazing things if they could just manage to get back. "It's nothing. It won't slow me down. And I know people who can fix it. I . . ." Asuna felt her legs giving out beneath her, leaning against Kirito for support.

"Well." She said softly. "It might slow me down a little." Her eyes couldn't help but survey the destruction around them. Laying only a few meters away was the body of the fire mage who had signalled the dragons. Seeing the remains drove home everything that had happened. Everything that she had done. She pushed away from Kirito again, misery filling her. "Kirito . . . I've done so many . . . so many terrible things . . . hurt so many people just to survive . . . killed them . . ."

Kirito's eyes widened, not with surprise, but with concern. A hand reached up and gently silenced her, tenderly leaning Asuna's head against his own shoulder and murmuring gently as she shook. Comforting her in turn.

At last, they parted again. Soft brown met black. Asuna closed her eyes as she leaned closer. A faint warmth spread outward. Asuna felt guilt, and relief, and peace, tears burning in her eyes as she held on, breathing softly through her nose. It was absurd, they were still in the middle of a battle, and the pursuing Rebel forces could close in at any time. But at that moment, Asuna just wanted to stay like this for a little while longer. To pretend it was all a horrible nightmare and that she had finally woken up.

A faint rustling came from the near distance and Asuna's eyes went wide, her instincts as a fighter, as a clearer, taking hold as she broke the kiss and turned to face the unknown threat. Kirito had already released her, drawing his sword and taking up a protective guard between her and any danger.

Light Brown and Black starred out into the forest. Blue, green, and dark brown starred back. Asuna blinked as three more illusions appeared before her. Standing a distance away, breathing heavily as if they had, like Asuna, been running through the night. Wales, Caramella, and Kino had just stumbled from the brush.

Asuna placed a hand to Kirito's arm, gently lowering the sword. "It's okay, they're friends." She assured him.

"Lady Asuna?" Wales questioned, expression remaining politely neutral.

Beside the prince, Kino stood, averting his eyes and Caramella had gone as red as a tomato and was mumbling something under her breath. What was the matter with them? She realized a moment later as she leaned against Kirito. Though to Asuna, Kirito remained Kirito no matter what his outer form, at that moment, that outer form was very definitely female.

A flush started to spread across Kirito's cheeks as he realized it as well. "I-it's a disguise. Illusion magic. I just needed to be able to pass the checkpoints at the docks that's all! It's not like a chose this form intentionally or anything." He stuttered, turning his head to the side.

Caramella looked like she was about to pass out. Thankfully, Wales pre-empted either. "A disguise? Then can I presume that you are the Black Swordsman?"

Kirito's embarrassment faded, lowering his crossed arms. He glanced to Asuna who nodded that it was alright. "And you?" Kirito asked.

"Prince Wales Tudor." Wales bowed slight, a faint smile tracing across his lips. "I must say that these are interesting circumstances under which to meet Lady Asuna's true love. I imagine that there is quite a story to this."

Asuna reached out and squeezed Kirito's hand. "I'm sure there is. But first. Wales? How are you here?" Asuna asked, still not quite believing this was all happening.

"We followed the dragons." Kino grinned.

"And the smoke." Wales gestured to the still smouldering foliage. They would need to get moving before it drew more dragons.

"And the yuri . . ." Caramella stumbled and then shook her head. "I mean the yelling! We followed the yelling!" The older swordswoman crossed her arms with a look of annoyance. "We've been chasing after you all night. Got stuck in it with patrols a couple of times but it looks like everyone was already busy chasing you. They either never noticed us, or didn't care."

Asuna starred at the three. They'd been following her all night? She shook her head, smiling sadly. She couldn't have known. Either way, she was grateful.

"Thank you, all of you. Wales, do you know how far we are from Newcastle?" Asuna asked. "It's the Royalists' stronghold, Kirito, there are other SAO survivors there, we were . . ." Asuna began to explain for Kirito's benefit only to be silenced gently.

"I know." He said softly. "We can finish when we're safe. Right?"

"Un." Asuna nodded, looking back to Prince Wales.

"I don't believe that we're too far. Perhaps only a few leagues from the siege line." Wales said. "We crossed a road not far back that was part of the King's highway network, and I believe there should be a shallow lake to the East that feeds into the Tyne. Beyond that will be the siege line and Newcastle Fortress."

Asuna breathed in softly. They were really so close? This whole time she must have been running in circles as she evaded the forces trying to pen her in. When she suggested this to Wales, the Prince had given a soft snort. "Well, you did manage to drift almost fifteen leagues south." The Prince's expression grew more serious. "Unfortunately, we won't have an easy time breaking through . . ." The Prince eyed Asuna's injured leg. "May I take a look at that?"

Asuna gave a small nod, squeezing Kirito's slim hand as she allowed Wales to undo the bandage and look at the skin beneath. She winced when she saw it for herself. She had been right, the nigh spent on the run hadn't done it much good. Wales grimaced to himself. "No deep trauma." Wales murmured. "Though this looks like it might be the start of an infection. It needs to be properly cleaned and healed by a water mage."

"I brought some medical supplies." Kirito offered, carefully pawing at a small satchel at his side. He gave Asuna a smile at her uncertain look. "Don't worry, these have all been field tested since we got to Halkegenia, and I trust Argo to not lead me wrong."

"Argo?" Asuna's eyes widened. "Argo's here too?" The sly smile of Aincrad's premier information broker flashed before her eyes.

"Back in Tristain. Along with a lot of other people. I'll tell you everything once we're out of here." Kirito confirmed as he dug through the satchel and finally found what he was looking for, a small, pale green ceramic bottle and a wrap of gauze bandages. A thick salve of the same color as its bottle oozed out onto the fabric, Kirito gingerly wiping it across Asuna's bloodied thigh. A soothing coolness spread almost immediately though Asuna's leg, the pain turning faintly numb as Kirito replaced the bandages. "There. From what the mob extermination teams learned, we know this has some antibacterial affects, but like Wales-san said, we should get you to a healer."

Asuna stood, testing her leg. It wasn't perfect but she was confident that she could keep moving on it for a while longer at least.

"What else you got in there?" Caramella asked with a small nod to Kirito's satchel.

Kirito smiled. "Potions and revival items mostly. Though they're a lot less powerful now than they were in-game. You can take a look once we're out of here. Wales-san, you said we need to head south?"

"Yes." Wales said as they set out at a trot. Between the fight and their reunion it was a wonder the rest of the pursuit forces hadn't caught up yet. Maybe between the mages and the dragons they had eliminated those in close pursuit. "But in broad daylight it might be difficult to breach the siege line. There will be hundreds of soldiers between us and the fortress walls. Unfortunately, this is also likely to be the shortest approach." Wales said apologetically. "Supposing we manage to get past the siege troops there's good odds the men on the wall will be able to recognize myself or Lady Asuna from a distance, so at least we won't be shot at by our own allies."

"Oh, well that's good." Caramella snorted.

"How strong are the siege troops likely to be?" Kirito asked, keeping pace easily at Asuna's side.

"A mix." Wales said, looking thoughtful. "I imagine most of the troops are second and third line forces. Their job is simply to patrol and keep us bottled up within Newcastle. The response forces however will be of the highest caliber, Dragon Knights, and Mage Ground Cavalry."

"So, we'll have to break through with shock and speed." Kirito said, long hair swaying softly as he jogged.

Wales quirked a brow. "I don't know how shocking only five fighters can be on foot. And as for speed, Lady Asuna is injured and the rest of us would still be pressed to keep up with her."

A dragon's roar filled the air overhead, a shadow swooping over the thick canopy. It was followed by another more sickening noise.

"Kyuii!"

Without a word, the group collectively picked up their pace. "Please, please tell me that there's someone else who has a dragon that does that!" Caramella groaned.

"Does what?" Kirito asked.

"Just keep running!" Caramella cursed.

The canopy grew dark as five kite-like shapes flew overhead in a tight line formation before breaking off and beginning to circle. Far behind them, a flare was launched into the sky. Someone had spotted them.

"Anyone have a plan?" Kino asked as they the forest began to lighten ahead of them.

Kirito skidded to a halt, an intense look of concentration on his face. "Kirito-kun, what is it?" Asuna asked, worry building inside of her. She knew that look, it was the one Kirito had worn in SAO whenever he was about to try something dangerous that he hadn't done before.

According to Wales, the siege line started not far from here and there only way through was over open ground. The Reconquista soldiers were getting closer, and the dragons were circling over head. They were keeping their distance for now, but they were probably just waiting for reinforcements. With forces closing in from all sides, breaking through and reaching the Fortress was their only chance.

Asuna looked up as Kirito offered her his sword and satchel. "Kirito-kun?" She stumbled, was Kirito going to fight without a sword? She wondered, growing alarmed. Kirito's unarmed skill was high, but he was still, at his heart, a swordsman.

"It will be alright." Kirito's beautiful mask gave her a reassuring smile as he leaned forward to rest his forehead against her own once more. "I just got you back." He whispered, eyes closed. "And Yui is still waiting for us." The two slowly separated, Asuna giving Kirito's slim hand one last squeeze before letting go.

"Wales." Kirito glanced over to the Prince. "Make sure Asuna stays safe." There was the barest hint of a threat in that voice.

"I understand." Wales nodded gravely. "But what about you?"

"I'm going to provide the shock and speed." Kirito said.

"Without your sword?" Caramella looked dubious.

"Trust me . . . I don't need it." Kirito said before setting off at a run towards the sounds of the dragons, Asuna following close behind.

"Lady Asuna?" Wales chased after her.

She looked over her shoulder. "Come on, we can't let Kirito-kun do this alone!" Kirito was right, they had just gotten each other back, and she wasn't about to lose him again, no matter what he might think.

Kirito was putting distance between them as the Trees began to thin and part. The sunlight grew dazzling as the forest canopy broke apart above them. The forest had deposited them on the edge of a cliff overlooking a small lake, the one that Wales had described. Fed from the mountain streams, the clear water sparkled in the afternoon sunlight. A quartet of massive shadows swooped overhead, briefly shading Asuna's view. Dragon Knights.

Two of the dragons crashed down into the shallows of the lake while the remaining two banked back around, preparing to strafe. They had spotted Kirito and weren't going to give him the chance to close in. Why didn't he fly? Asuna wondered, she had seen Kirito use his wings, so why didn't he fly?

Her answer came a heartbeat later, as the first dragon rained fire down across the cliff, Kirito jumped out over the lake, describing a shallow arc across the water, a shower of strange script began to surround him. Asuna's eyes widened, Kirito knew magic?

And then he struck the water, but it wasn't the small splash Asuna would have expected of Kirito's dainty female form. It looked almost like the geyser caused by Dunwell's spell the night before, and then it grew bigger, white spray rising so high that the pursuing dragons had to break off their attack. Asuna stumbled to a halt, breathing heavily as she looked out over the edge of the cliff.

The grounded dragons were approaching, heads held low, hissing suspiciously as their riders prepared themselves to fight. The two airborne dragons climbed higher to watch.

Asuna squinted into the mists, feeling worry building within her, and then fear. A low, terrible sound rose from within the mist spray. Slowly, a massive shadowed form began to reveal itself, so tall that the water barely came past its knees, long arms brushing the lakes surface as it moved, chest level with the cliff that Asuna stood atop.

The dragons began to stumble back despite their riders' protests, hissing and growling fearfully as the last of the water cleared to reveal a sight that chilled Asuna to her heart and drew back terrifying memories of a desperate battle. At her side, Wales, Kino, and Caramella, came to a halt, seemingly unable to believe what they were seeing.

"Kirito-kun?" Asuna whispered.

The demonic form that stood before her was that of a gigantic monster. If she had confronted such a thing in SAO she would have certainly thought that it was a floor boss. Short, bristled fur covered a gangly frame wrapped tight in sinewy muscle, its hands ending in long knife like claws. A goat-like head rested on broad shoulders, lips pulled back to reveal ranks of thick yellowed teeth.

The monster's eyes glowed with an inner light as it glanced once to Asuna before turning back to the dragons before it. The closest dragon knight was frozen in terror, but his comrade was already spurring his mount into the sky. The demon growled viciously as it leaned into a run; that could not be allowed.

The mage tried to caste, but he didn't have more than a moment before the demon overtook him, one long clawed hand swiping him from his saddle as the other drove into his dragon's chest. The dragon wailed in agony as the clawed hand sank down to the wrist, tearing viciously at its insides before ripping its way back out, the remnants of some organ dragged along on claw tips. The stricken dragon crashed into the water, kicking feebly as the demon turned back to the other dragon which was just now beginning to react.

The second rider was struggling to get his dragon under control and into the air, but before he could do more than begin to rise, the demon had its hands around the dragon, dragging the mount back down before tearing into its throat with powerful jaws. The mage desperately cast a wind spell that tore at the soft tissue around the demon's snout, the spell which would have shredded a human was not nearly enough for a monster like this. The attacks greatest effect was drawing the demon's attention. Jaws came free from the now lifeless dragon, falling onto the mage rider. The man's screams were cut off as the jaws closed before the remains were thrown brutally aside with a flick of the demon's head.

"By the Founder, what is that monster?" Wales breathed softly. Neither Caramella nor Kino seemed to have anything to add.

"That monstrosity." Asuna said, pride mixing with fear, "Is the black swordsman, the Beater of Aincrad, my husband."

The two remaining fire dragons had begun to circle high for an attack. For a moment Asuna was worried, whatever magic had transformed Kirito into this monster hadn't seen fit to give him any sort of ranged weapon. While devastating on the ground, he would be defenseless against an attack that came from the sky, wouldn't he?

"Kirito-kun." Asuna prayed softly.

One dragon led, raining fireballs down on the surface of the lake, its mage rider joining in with his own fire spells. Steam hissed and exploded across the surface of the formerly clear water and a roar of angered pain came from the demon as it was scalded by a jet of steam before vanishing in the growing cloud of vapor. Seeing the apparent success of his wing man, the second dragon dove lower, aiming to attack while the demon was stunned. A mistake.

Trailing the steam like streamers around its body, the demon leaped upwards with surprising grace, grabbing hold of the trailing dragon and dragging it back into the cloud below. First came a draconic scream, then came the scream of the Dragon Knight, then nothing. The remaining dragon had pulled back now, forsaking any chance of getting close in order to remain safely out of reach, its rider and the dragon itself lobbing down fire spells in hopes of landing a lucky strike. The demon largely ignored them as it turned back towards the cliffs.

Wales, Caramella, and Kino all looked ready to run, but Asuna simply stepped forward, coming to stand at the edge of the cliff as the demon extended one long arm, palm outstretched.

"Lady Asuna? What are you doing?" Wales asked.

"What does it look like?" Asuna asked. "Kirito-kun said he would provide the shock and speed. This is how we're going to get past the siege line."

Wales looked up at the demon dubiously, the goat like visage looked back calmly. "Lady Asuna, my forces may not fire if they see you or me, but they may not give us the chance to show ourselves if your husband decides to approach the siege like this."

Asuna smiled as she unfastened her cloak and stretched her long gossamer wings. She was usually ashamed of these, but if they could be good for something, then she would gladly use them now. "I should be pretty obvious if I ride up on his head."

Wales gave her a look of disbelief, the noises of the foot soldiers were growing nearer and the remaining fire dragon's aim was getting better with each shot, Wales' moment of indecision passed, climbing into the palm of Kirito's hand, followed by Kino. Caramella hesitated for a moment and then shrugged, climbing into the demon's spare hand.

Taking her seat atop the demon's head, from here Asuna could just make out the low walls of Newcastle fortress over the ruined buildings of the port city. They seemed so close. She smiled as she recalled a happier place and a happier time. "Okay Kirito-kun. Set course North-East!" She pointed and then felt herself falling backward as Kirito's demonic form smoothly accelerated into a sprint.

They cleared the shallows of the lake and began to pick up speed as they hit the beach and then open ground. The cavalry and foot patrols they met broke away in terror. For them, it probably seemed like some monster out of the Brimiric Legends had decided to appear in their midst.

"This is . . . " Wales began as he clutched one of the demon's horns for dear life.

"Exhilarating?" Asuna asked. And after a night fleeing for her life it truly seemed that way.

"Not the word that I would use." Wales offered back, looking pale. Asuna supposed it was rather different than riding a dragon.

"We're almost to the siege line!" Kino shouted from his place on the demon's shoulder, clinging to the short fur for dear life. A makeshift wall of crude, wood and earthen berms, stretched before them in the distance backed by an orderly shanty town of canvas tents and earthen fortifications.

A series of rapid fire cracks like children's fireworks filled the air as a musketeer platoon with more courage than sense tried to turn the oncoming demon aside. Wales managed to pry his casing arm free long enough to erect a wind barrier around the upper shoulders and head to protect Kirito's passengers. Kirito himself needed no such protection against what amounted to mosquito stings. The musket platoon had only a brief moment to see that their attacks had done nothing before they were forced to scatter lest they be trampled by the oncoming monster.

They were crashing through the camp now, the demon kicking up tents and knocking aside wagons like toys. The siege line was equipped with numerous mages and cannons able to be readied at a moment's notice. But the mages were caught unprepared, either in their tents, on patrol, or socializing with their fellow officers, and the cannons were all pointed towards Newcastle, and in any case, a moment's notice would be far too slow.

They were closing on the berm, once they were over that they would be in to the no man's land between Newcastle and the siege line.

"Miss Asuna! You should spread your wings as wide as you can, I'm going to cast a water spout to draw attention from the wall!

Ahead of the demon the earth erupted as a fireball tore into the roadway that Kirito had been following. A sleek blue shape streaking past, wings folded in a shallow dive that gave no time to strike out.

"Kyuii!"

"Not you again!" Caramella groaned as the blue streak unfolded its wings, banking around far and fast in an effort get ahead of the demon.

Asuna had to agree. Was this man going to interfere at every opportunity? He had already done enough! He had already taken enough! Asuna thought angrily. They had to finish this now, and Asuna thought she knew how.

"Kirito-kun! Are you still any good with thrown weapons?" Of course, Kirito couldn't answer verbally in this form, but he understood, and he understood not to argue with her at a time like this. A clawed hand rose up, plucking Asuna gently from her place on the demon's head. The demon looked down at her, even through those glowing eyes she thought the ghastly visage looked worried. Asuna just smiled. "Just be sure to catch me!" Asuna shouted.

The wind dragon was starting its approach, staying high but coming from head on. Asuna suspected that Dunwell and his mount would have much better aim than the fire dragon that was still following to their rear.

Asuna settled down in the palm of the demon's hand, waiting for the right moment. The dragon's mouth opened wide, a ball of flame belching forth. The demon dug its heels in skidding to a stop before bringing its arm up in an overhead throw. Asuna pushing off with all the strength she could manage.

The White Flash was met with the closest thing she had ever experienced to flight, arcing through the air as a living missile, and here in the air, for just one moment her wings trembled, coming alive as they had before, but more than that. She had learned to channel those brief bursts of power, but this time it was something new, welling upward and outwards from within her.

'Kirito is with me.' Asuna thought, as the long delicate wings began to change, she couldn't see for herself, but she could feel it. 'And Yui is waiting for me.' The tips split, and then split again, her gossamer Faerie wings separating and unfolding into their flight form for the first time. 'And Kirito said there were others. I want to go to them. I want to be with them again.' Feeling her wings, like six new limbs stretching from her back, two smaller pair set above and below the larger primaries. She wasn't quite sure how to control them, but in this form they still obeyed her well enough for what she needed now.

"I won't let you stop me!" Asuna shouted to the sky and to the Dragon that she was racing to meet.

The sword in her hand glinted in the sunlight as she drew it from its sheath. It felt heavy, the sort of sword that Kirito favored. With this sword, Asuna wasn't fighting alone. Her wings flared to life giving her one last push as she collided with a wind barrier, driving forward with Kirito's sword and all of her strength. She felt her wings folding back, pushing against the air. Beyond that wall of condensed wind she could see Sir Dunwell, the man's gray eyes meeting her as they had the night before.

The barrier unravelled, giving way, she was through!

"Kyuii!" For an instant the scales around the beak and crest of Sir Dunwell's dragon glowed faintly.

Asuna felt herself slamming into something hard and unforgiving. A second wind barrier? That wasn't possible, she thought desperately. A mage could only cast one spell at a time! Sir Dunwell rose in his saddle, taking aim for her heart.

"Kyuii!" Dunwell's dragon cried again, this time in surprise as something else drove into the wind barrier full force.

"Dunwell!" Sword tip driving against the barrier, Caramella was at Asuna's side, a set of four angular white symmetrical wings stretching from her back. "You killed my partner!" The swordswoman roared. "Your ass is mine!"

Asuna took the opportunity, thrusting forward with her sword at the same point as Caramella. The second barrier came apart almost instantly under the tandem attack, the Faerie swordswomen bursting through the Mage Knight's last line of defense. Dunwell swung his cane around, but there was no time for him to form his abrasive attack. He blocked Caramella's swing and twisted away desperately as Asuna's own thrust pierced his side in a flash of silver and bright red blood.

"Kyuii!"

Dunwell's dragon cried out in pain as Caramella slashed the stem of its right wing before chasing after Asuna, leaping clear and plummeting, both women stretching their wings instinctively to slow their fall. Kirito was racing to meet them, and with a little help from Wales and his wind magic to slow their descent further, the two landed safely, snatched up in the demon's hands as it broke across the no man's land.

Asuna twisted around to look over her back. Dunwell and his dragon had fallen into a flat roll; she neither knew nor cared if they would recover.

"Look!" Wales pointed. Ahead of them, the cannons atop the walls of Newcastle began to thunder. For a moment, Asuna feared that Wales' prediction was coming true. But then she realized that it was the cannons farthest along the wall that were firing, and that they were being aimed past them. To their rear, a troop of cavalry had attempted to pursue from the siege line but were swiftly driven back by Newcastle's defenders.

Ahead of them, Asuna heard the shouts of the defenders as they at last neared the walls, the demon slowed and came to stop before one angled wall. The defenders looking up in a mix of shock, terror and awe as their Prince peered down at them from the head of a giant.

Asuna felt the ground growing blessedly still beneath her as she was deposited on the wall of Newcastle fortress among a slowly gathering crowd of Royalists and a handful of her fellow Faeries. Kino and Wales made their way down from their perches followed by Caramella who sank slowly to the ground at Asuna's side.

"Caramella?" Asuna leaned down to hug the shivering woman. "When did you learn to use your wings?"

The brilliant translucent wings had already vanished from Caramella's back, dispelled or return to whatever place held them. Likewise, Asuna's own wings had returned to their default state.

"I didn't." The swordswoman said weakly. "I popped'm last night when I was running from Wallsend, and then back there, I just sort of followed you cause I figured you'd need help against that bastard."

"Then how . . ."

"How did I know I'd be able to control them?" Caramella chuckled softly. "I didn't." Asuna starred at Caramella as she gave her a wan smile. "I think I might have wet myself." She said in a small voice.

The shouts and cries around them turned to silence as the demon at their back began to smoke and dissolve, its form darkening and growing indistinct as titanic muscle and bone unravelled into smoke and dust.

Asuna turned about to face Kirito as he stepped down onto the parapet. And then stared. Kirito's eyes opened and he looked solemnly at her. And then frowned. "What is it?" Kirito asked softly.

A soft clattering noise issued from beside Asuna as Caramella's tortured mind finally had enough for one day.

"Caramella!" Kino shouted as he reached down to shake his partner. The swordswoman for her part simply giggled giddily.

"Well . . . Kirito-kun . . ." Asuna struggled to explain but she wasn't sure how she could say it without breaking out in laughter. It felt wrong to do so after what she had just been through. But after seeing so much horror over the last day, to laugh seemed like an irresistible temptation. The first notes spilled from her throat freely and then she just couldn't stop.

Kirito's expression shifted to one of worry as he looked at the crowd whose expressions were either of disbelief, confusion, polite aversion, or open admiration. "What is it?" Kirito asked, and then shivered faintly as a breeze blew across the parapet." His expression grew dark. Closing his eyes he sucked air in through his teeth.

"Wales . . . How bad is it?" Kirito asked.

The Prince Valiant, eyes politely averted simply shrugged off his coat and offered it Kirito. "You may want to put this on . . . For dignities' sake."

It appeared that Kirito's spell, though powerful, had some drawbacks. Standing before the small crowd of onlookers, naked from the soles of her feet to top of her head, a very female Kirito was beginning to turn red across her entire upper body. Kirito snatched the coat from Wales' outstretched hand, swiftly covering himself, to the mixed disappointment and relief of the crowd, before shrinking down in the coat as far as was humanly or Faely possible.

Eventually, around the time that Asuna finally stopped laughing and Kirito finally stopped mumbling to himself about leaving Newcastle immediately atop the first available donkey, people began to arrive from deeper within the Fortress.

"Asuna-sama." A calm voice came from the side of the parapet as a pair of golden eyes rose above the rim of the walkway. "It's good to see you're still alive."

"Kimura-kun." Asuna said and then frowned as she noted all the new implements that had been stuffed into his hat. "What are you doing up here?"

The slug's stalks bobbed in the equivalent of a shrug. "I'm an artilleryman now. Cannons are cool."

"Asuna." Kirito tugged softly at her sleeve side, eyeing Kimura suspiciously. "Why is that slug type mob talking to you? And why is it wearing a hat?"

Asuna smiled sheepishly. "Well, that's . . . complicated." She said. "We'll have lots to talk about." Kirito nodded in agreement.

"Make way. Make way!" A stern voice called from below them as the sound of heavy footfalls made their way up the nearest staircase. Storming towards them, a procession of elderly mages at his back, was a man that Asuna had so far only had the displeasure of having to deal with once.

King James of Albion was a man too old to be called middle aged, and too young to be called elderly. Distinguished was was the term that was generally reserved for people like him. His hair and thick beard were peppered about equally with blonde and gray and the scar running beneath his eye spoke of a youth spent, or perhaps misspent, on the battlefield.

Asuna didn't know what Wales had inherited from his father, save perhaps his hair and eye color. Where Wales was involved in every level of the defense of Newcastle, the King hid himself away each day deep within the defenses awaiting the end with his few remaining retainers as they gamed out how they might defeat the Rebels if only they had some such division or some such city had not fallen. This attitude, combined with his open distrust of Asuna and every other Faerie, had earned him nothing but Asuna's scorn.

It had been an uncomfortable subject for Wales who had begged Asuna's pardon on more than one occasion for his father's conduct. The King had not been himself since Wales' elder brothers had died.

"Wales!" King James stormed forward clamping his hands down on his son's shoulders. "You're still among the living!" He turned to the gathered mages. "The Prince Valiant still lives!" This proclamation was met by murmurs of approval from the mages.

"Father." Wales said warmly, smiling up at eyes that glinted out from beneath thick eyebrows. As much as Asuna detested the man, she supposed she could let him have his moment with his son. "And we've brought Lady Asuna back alive as well."

"Along with another." King James noted Kirito curiously. The black swordsman pulled Wales' borrowed coat more tightly around himself. "I don't believe you were part of the force sent out last night . . . Not a girl such as yourself."

"This is K-" Wales began to introduce only to be interrupted by Kirito giving a small bow.

"It is an honor to meet you King James Tudor of Albion, I am Midori, agent to the Crown of Tristain." Kirito said in a soft tone of voice that seemed designed to accentuate his current feminine form. Asuna frowned inwardly but then remembered what Kirito had said about travelling in disguise. Or maybe he simply wanted to isolate this whole embarrassing fiasco so it wouldn't follow him once he dropped his disguise.

"The Crown?" King James eyed the 'girl' suspiciously. "Forgive me if I find such a claim hard to believe. And what was this that I heard of a monster approaching the walls?"

'Midori' smiled and gave a small wave of a hand. "There are always tricks that we keep up our sleeve. Aren't there? As for my credentials. Asuna." Kirito nodded to the satchel that he had given her earlier and which she had secured to her belt. "There's a letter in there sealed by the Crown Princess of Tristain. That should be enough to claim I am who I say I am."

King James accepted the offered letter and read it over quickly. "This is indeed a letter signed with the Royal Seal of the Crown of Tristain. I'll have to have it confirmed but it appears legitimate. Sent to deal with the Fae, are you?"

Kirito nodded slowly. "Is that a problem?"

"Father?" Wales asked.

"Your Cousin appears to be offering the Fae refuge in Tristain. The Faeries that have appeared there are in negotiations with the Crown even as we speak. One of their conditions is the safe retrieval of the ones that have appeared here in Albion." The King explained shaking his head slowly.

"But that is wonderful news!" Wales proclaimed. "Lady Asuna, you now know that there is a place waiting for you and your people beyond the White Isle. As promised for your help, the Eagle will deliver you to Tristain at once." Asuna's heart traced a ballistic trajectory as she heard Wales' words and then the reply from King James.

"It is not so simple my son." The King said as he gestured for Wales and the others to follow him.

"What is it father?" Wales asked as they made their way down from the wall and through the inner walls towards the Fortress' far courtyard which looked out upon the port facilities. "We destroyed the Rebel's gunpowder supplies and the mill. The sulfur arrived, did it not?"

"It did." The King agreed. "And as the King of Albion I am loath to go back on any bargain made by the Royal family." The King gave Asuna a glance that made it clear he barely considered it possible to 'bargain' with creatures like her. The feeling was mutual. "It has been taken to the mills to be ground. Our stocks of saltpeter are in much better order. With this we can make the fall of Newcastle a bloody affair if the Rebels decide to storm the Fortress."

"Then I don't understand." Wales said, shaking his head. "The Faeries have honored their bargain with us admirably. With their help we have destroyed the Rebellion's powder supplies and secured our own. That is more than enough to pay passage to Tristain.

"It is not that I am unwilling. It is that we are unable." King James said, rubbing slowly at his temples. "Last night, we spotted ships moving in the mists below the port. We confirmed that they're taking soundings." Wales stopped in his tracks, facing growing pale. "The Rebels have finally started to show some intelligence in the skies. I wonder what admiral they brought out of retirement to command their stolen fleet. The blockade has finally closed off our last escape route. The siege of Newcastle is now complete."

* * *

Standing on the balcony of her borrowed suite. Yuuki Asuna . . . Asuna the Flash . . . Commander of the Knights of Blood, gazed out on the Fortress of Newcastle as the sun finally finished setting over the far cloud banks and the slivers of the two moons began to rise. Beneath the faint light of torches and the the stars, the Fortress seemed so peaceful, even beautiful in its own sullen way. Far below she could make out the sounds of people talking, shouting, even laughing. It made their desperate circumstances seem so unreal.

The Royalists viewed the gunpowder raid as a great success. Something to be celebrated. Even now they were cheering their fortunes, congratulating one another and the Fae who had taken part. But Asuna didn't see it that way. Not so long as they were still here in Newcastle. She had declined to join in their festivities, retiring early for the night. Besides, she had her own things to celebrate in her own way.

Asuna heard the door to her room open with a soft creak and looked up to see Kirito, his disguise dispelled, stepping from the adjoining room dressed in a nightgown borrowed from the wardrobe of one of Wales' officers. Free of his Faction Disguise he was several centimeters taller, but even in his 'true' form as a Faerie, as a Spriggan, the clothes only loosely fit him.

Asuna smiled softly as Kirito approached. The pointed ears, the black hair that stood on end, the slightly more angular lines of the face that made him appear a little older than when last they'd met. This appearance . . . didn't suit Kirito at all. Or perhaps it did and she'd just forgotten. There was a lot of Kirito's old SAO avatar and thus his real self in that face, but not so much that even someone who knew him might not be able to tell. But that really didn't matter, she loved Kirito, no matter what his form was. Though, she thought with a small hint of amusement, 'Midori' would no doubt look adorable in his current attire. No, she wouldn't tease him about that!

Despite the embarrassment he had suffered earlier, Kirito was still intent on going forward with his disguise until they were out of Albion. It seemed he had made a promise to the Crown of Tristain to try and downplay the involvement of the Faeries. Asuna suspected he just didn't want his embarrassment today to follow him. Thankfully, Wales had been sympathetic and had quietly assigned 'Midori' to a room adjacent Asuna's own guest suite.

"What is it now?" Kirito asked as he noticed her mischievous smile, face going a little pale as he worried she would bring up the incident earlier.

"I finally got you to wear something other than black." Asuna teased softly, receiving a small look of relief. "Ah, I'm sorry Kirito-kun." She smiled gently as he came to stand by her side at her bedroom balcony. The suites were located on the highest floors of Newcastle's Citadel, the balcony closed in on all sides by thick stones walls. They could see out, but nobody would be able to see in.

Asuna leaned against Kirito, still unable to shake the nagging fear that it was all a dream. This moment, so like, and so different than any in Aincrad. Her hand found his and she squeezed gently, savoring the contact, the roughness of his hand, the warmth, and the faint trembling of pulse. The little things, the tiny details that she had been denied for two long years. The things that told her that Kirito was real, and that he was standing beside her. The relief of simple contact was almost overwhelming.

"I'm sorry." Kirito whispered.

Kirito's hand squeezed hers tightly and she suddenly felt him shaking. "Kirito-kun?" Asuna asked. There were tears in his eyes as he turned to face her.

"Asuna, I'm sorry . . . I broke my promise again." He said, voice trembling and tight. "I promised I'd take you back to the real world, and that I would meet you again in that world. If I'd just been a little faster, then you would have been logged out . . . and . . ."

Asuna took Kirito's face in her hands. "Look at me, Kirito-kun." She shook her head, her smile never leaving her face. "You could never have known. The important thing is that you came." She leaned forward, pulling him into a hug. "You came for me. I always knew you would. You'll always come find me."

That was why she always felt so safe with him. Kirito was not necessarily strong all of the time, in fact, there were lots of ways and lots of times that he was very weak. There were lots of things he couldn't do, but he would do anything he could for the people he loved. And if he couldn't, if there was something he really couldn't do, that was okay too, because he would still try.

They held that embrace for a long time before separating. Kirito gave her a worried look, his hand coming to her cheek. She felt him wiping away her tears. Everything that had happened, and everything that had yet to happen was finally catching up with her.

Despite the realization that they were presently trapped within Newcastle, the news that a safe haven existed for them in this world had lifted the Spirits of all of the SAO survivors. They had faith that between Asuna and Prince Wales, a plan could be devised to get them to Tristain and safety. Asuna didn't know if she could have believed it if it were not for one other fact. They weren't in this alone. The Faeries had allies beyond the blockade.

Kirito had explained his mission to her and Wales in privacy. Before departing from Tristain, Kirito had made arrangements to be contacted using a Faerie spell. With this spell, it would be possible to communicate over long distances with a delegation of Tristanians and Faeries that would be waiting beyond Albion's airspace. With an idea of what was happening inside Newcastle, they would be able to make arrangements to extract the survivors.

The Tristanian Crown didn't know what assistance it might offer. It sounded like the small kingdom was reluctant to confront Albion directly. But if a ship could be arranged, maybe they could learn to use their wings well enough to make a short hop past the blockade. Or if worst came to worst, they could try parachuting the survivors from the side of the Isle under the cover of darkness just before dawn and have a ship waiting near the water to retrieve them. There were many possibilities, and as Asuna had bounced ideas off Kirito and Wales, she had grown confident that they would find a way. All that was left to do now was wait until they were contacted and learned what was possible. The first attempt was set for tomorrow at midnight.

"What's wrong?" Kirito asked, expression filled with concern as he watched Asuna shake her head tiredly.

"I'm okay." Asuna assured him gently.

She had been right. There had been lots to talk about, and there was still lots more that they hadn't had a chance to say just yet. But she thought they had covered the important parts. Yui was here in this world too, alive, and what was more, transformed into an existence that was as real as Asuna and Kirito. The thought of seeing the girl who had become like a daughter to her filled her with anticipation. And Yui wasn't the only one. Liz and Klein, Silica and Agil, so many familiar faces had followed them to this world. She didn't know how to feel about that. Overjoyed that she could see Yui again, guilty that her friends were now in danger once more.

It had been Kirito's turn to chide her for feeling bad. He told her about the last words he had exchanged with all of them, how they were waiting for him to return with her so that they could celebrate.

Asuna was broken from her thoughts as she felt Kirito's hand brush against one of her wings and she shivered faintly, reminded of her shame.

"They really upset you." Kirito stated sadly, hand falling away.

"They're . . . that man's mark on me." Asuna finally said aloud what she had refused to say with anyone else around. "I feel like I can't get free from him no matter what I do." A new wave of disgust welled up inside of her as she thought of Sugou and what he had done to her. It was a cruel irony that the very event that had freed her from her cage had also trapped her mind and soul within this doll like shell of Yuuki Asuna. Darkly she thought, she would gladly accept this body if she could only have the chance to use it to beat that man to within an inch of his miserable life.

Before her, Kirito began to tremble, as much as she hated Sugou, at that moment, it paled before Kirito's own rage. Asuna had told him about her imprisonment, careful to downplay the worst of the ordeal. He didn't need to know some of the things Sugou had threatened, some of the things he had promised. But even with what she had told him . . . Sugou should be thankful that they were worlds apart.

She leaned in, embracing Kirito until he stopped shaking and his breathing grew steady once more. He whispered something so softly that even Asuna couldn't quite make it out. She looked up into his eyes. "You're wrong." He said softly.

"Kirito-kun?" Asuna asked.

Kirito closed his eyes and breathed in as if gathering his courage. "You're wrong. You can definitely free yourself from him." Asuna looked on as Kirito continued. "All you need to do, is take those wings away from him, and make them your own."

Asuna's eyes widened as Kirito tried to smile for her sake. He was even more upset than her, but at the same time, she knew Kirito would support her, no matter what her decision was. 'Make them my own', Asuna thought, feeling the muscles in her back flex sympathetically. She had already been doing that, she realized. Without these wings she would have died many times over by now. Without them, she would never have survived to see Kirito again. Even if they were something forced on her by Sugou, she was grateful for them. That would be her revenge, she thought with a fierce inner determination, Sugou had given her these wings only on a whim. She would prove that she could fly with them.

"Kirito . . . " Asuna began and then stopped. A decision was made. "This world is real, even if it isn't the one either of us thought we would meet in." She looked out at the two moon's in the sky. "That's okay though, because you did keep the most important part of your promise, you were here to meet me. I finally got meet you." She smiled as she looked into Kirito's eyes. It wasn't perfect, but that was okay. "I'm Yuuki Asuna, I'm so happy to finally meet you face to face . . . Kirigaya Kazuto."

No matter what masks they wore, both of them knew how the other felt at that moment. Without delay, and without any interruptions, the two drew themselves close to one another, eyes closed.

There was nothing more to say.


	52. Chapter 13 Part 4

AUTHORS NOTE: Hey everyone, I hope you've all been enjoying and will continue to enjoy this story. This will be the last post of Chapter 11 and will be followed shortly by a considerable amount of bonus content including the following.

1 x New Halkegenia Offline

1 x Airships of Halkegenia: Don't worry, it's Argo's Airitime Companion!

2 x Short Chapters comprising the first Fan Written Side Story: Old Heart, 'Young Eyes'

Unfortunately now that Asuna and Kirito have had their reunion the focus is going to have to shift away from them for a while (The next couple of weeks of updates are going to see them more as side or background characters until the Finale.) Sorry but that's sort of the Price of having me as an author and the source of my terrible pacing. I'm not so much writing a story for mass consumption as writing conversations and character interactions that I find cool. I know it leads to an interesting overall story but that it's pretty rubbish for pacing :-(.

On the Bright Side the following chapters should be an interesting break from the Kirito-Asuna front and for the people who like world building, war gaming, and OCs that don't completely steel the spotlight. (Except for one, you'll know her when you see her, and by god did she get pumped up to near memetic chuck Norris Levels by my betas!)

Now then, on with the Chapter: Talihoe!

Halkegenia Online- Chapter 13 - Part 4

Kirigaya Kazuto, Kirito, woke to the chirping of birds, the scent of the cool morning mist, and the sensation of something warm and heavy lying across his chest. Without opening his eyes, he smiled faintly. This had been the first time he had really slept easily in almost four months and there was a hint of fear, a hint of apprehension. What if he opened his eyes and it was just a vivid dream? But the warmth at his side felt all too real for that.

Slowly, Kirito opened his eyes and was greeted by the sight he had prayed for. Asuna, alive and free of her Nerve Gear, long hair spilling down at her back, head rested against his shoulder, face tranquil in sleep. Her breathing was slow and easy, barely stirring as Kirito shifted to make himself more comfortable. She must have been exhausted.

Guilt gnawed at Kirito's insides. The last few months had been difficult for him, they had been a literal hell for Asuna. He tried to think of something he could have done differently. How he could have saved her from all of this suffering. But no matter how or what he apologized for, Asuna kept forgiving him. Eventually he had been forced to conclude that she was right, he'd done his best and that there was nothing to be ashamed of.

Carefully, so as not to disturb her, Kirito lifted his free hand hesitantly to Asuna's cheek. She was asleep now, real sleep, not the enforced pseudo-coma of a full dive. All he had to do was shake her gently and she would wake up, and he would be able to talk to her, and be with her. But he didn't wake her just yet. He had waited all this time, he could wait for her to wake up when she was ready. Instead, he closed his eyes again and listened to the morning bird songs.

They were able to stay like that for only a short while before there came a knock at the door. Kirito grimaced as the rapping came again, and then again less patiently. "Asuna-chan. It's Caramella. Come on sleepyhead, it's already past ten. I brought some clean clothes for you and your guest."

Asuna's face scrunched up and her eyes began to crack open. The feather mattress sank as she sat up. She blinked a few times, rubbing sleepily at her eyes. "Just a minute!" She called to the impatient woman on the other side of the door and then smiled warmly as she squeezed Kirito's hand.

"Good morning." Kirito greeted.

"Un." Asuna whispered. "Good morning, Kirito-kun . . . Or should it be Kazuto-kun?" She asked, suddenly thoughtful.

Kirto sat up slowly. "Honestly, I'm not too sure either," he admitted. On the one hand, his given name held a lot of meaning to him as something known only to his close friends and family in this world. On the other hand, the swordsman Kirito was as much a part of him in this suddenly real world as he had ever been in Aincrad. "I think we'll just have to figure it out."

Deciding they'd left Caramella waiting long enough, Asuna rose from bed and went to open the door. Kirito sighed inwardly, it seemed their peaceful time was over, at least for now. The older swordswoman stumbled in, arms filled with clothing, kicking the door shut behind her.

"Normally I wouldn't barge in here and kick you two lovebirds out of bed." Caramella said with a sly look to the two of them. "But Wales said he wanted to see you both. Kirito, those guys you mentioned last night are here."

"So they made it?" Kirito asked. He guessed he shouldn't be so surprised. Wardes was a veteran soldier after all.

"Yeah, they got in just before dawn." Caramella's face broke into a toothy smile. "One of them even seemed pretty worried about 'Miss Midori'."

Kirito's expression soured at the thought of Guiche asking about 'him'. At least he'd been able to set the idiot straight without revealing his identity.

"Anyways, they're down in the dining hall right now talking with Blondie, it seems this Wardes guy has some intel on Reconquista's blockade layout. That's how they managed to slip through last night. Wales has been picking his brain all morning. Here." Caramella set down the bundle of clothes in her arms and handed the first half of the pile to Asuna. "Sorry, but Maki say's your coat is a write off. How's your leg doing?"

Asuna probed gingerly at her thigh through the fabric of her nightgown. "It feels a lot better this morning. That salve really helped. But the Water Mages said they want to check it again this afternoon."

Kirito frowned as he looked through his own clothes. They were obviously too small for him in his Spriggan form, but that wasn't the problem. If he was going to continue wearing and fighting in the mask of 'Midori' until he'd finished this mission, he couldn't go around in ill fitting clothing. Caramella had scavenged a blouse and pair of black pants that were close enough to 'his' size along with a heavy jacket that would work well enough as a replacement for the one he had lost in his transformation. Overall he couldn't complain about the clothing choices other than in one regard.

"Caramella-san . . . How exactly did you know the size for this?" Kirito gingerly picked up the lacy looking piece of underwear. One thing spending several days as a girl had taught him was to drop any lingering aversion to female undergarments.

The woman grinned evilly. "Educated guess, after all, you did give everyone an eyeful yesterday."

Behind her, Asuna had to cover her mouth to hide a sympathetic smile. Kirito felt his face heating up as he took the clothes, kissed Asuna quickly on the cheek and stalked into the adjacent room to change, emerging once more in his guise as the Swordswoman Midori.

By now he found he was finally getting accustomed to wearing this mask, and given Asuna's acceptance, he'd decided he could live with it well enough for the time being. Besides, given what he'd seen of the King the night before, he didn't know how helpful he might remain if he learned that Tristain had sent a Faerie rather than a human agent. He just wished it didn't make him so much shorter.

After waiting for Asuna to finish getting dressed, they departed out into the narrow hallway that connected the suites to the inner courtyard of the Citadel. Newcastle's inner bastion was built to take a tremendous amount of punishment, and looked it, with thick stone and brick walls supported by heavy timber construction. Kirito didn't know very much about fortifications, but he was willing to bet that cannonballs wouldn't be enough to break this place, it would have to be stormed by soldiers.

When they reached the dining hall, a vaulted space easily able to hold two hundred people at a time, now nearly empty in the time between serving the breakfast and lunch rations, they found Prince Wales and Kino seated at the far table along with two familiar faces, Captain Wardes, and Guiche de Gramont. Wardes quirked his brow and Guiche looked on with an annoyingly relieved expression when they caught sight of 'Midori' in the company of the two Faeries.

"Lady Asuna, Dame Caramella, Miss Midori, I'm glad you could all join us. We've been having a bit of strategy session over breakfast." Wales offered as the three approached. "Miss Midori, these gentlemen are your companions so perhaps you wish to do the introductions?"

"Right." Kirito nodded softly. "Captain Wardes, Mister Gramont, this is Asuna, Commander of the Knights of Blood and her subordinate, Caramella." Kirito gestured to Asuna who gave a small bow to the Griffin Knight. "Lady Asuna, Caramella, allow me to introduce Captain Jean Jacques Wardes of Her Majesty's Griffin Knights and Guiche de Gramont, sent on behalf of Tristain to see to matters concerning the Crown here in Newcastle." Kirito's eyes narrowed as he noticed the way that Guiche was staring at Asuna. "Lady Asuna is also married." He had quietly, causing Guiche to go stiff and look away quickly. Good, the idiot could learn.

"It's an honor to meet you, Lady Asuna." Wardes offered and then turned back to Kirito. "It's good to see you're still among the living." He said as Kirito took a seat opposite the Griffin Knight. "Though I must ask how you managed to get here before us."

"I walked." Kirito replied smoothly. It wasn't even a lie. Caramella snorted softly and rolled her eyes, a gesture that Wardes certainly didn't miss.

"That's not exactly how I've heard it." Wardes said with a note of curiosity. "A demon storming over the Fortress walls?

Kirito smiled as he remembered the last time they'd had this sort of exchange on the journey to La Rochelle. "Seeing as we've both made it to Newcastle. I'm afraid that's need to know information."

Rather than protest, Wardes shrugged, seemingly willing to accept the answer for now. Thought it did make Kirito wonder just what the Captain was starting to think of 'Midori'. "Then may I ask is it safe to assume that your mission has to do with the Faeries?"

There was no point in hiding it. Lying would just be an insult at this point. "Their retrieval has been made a high Priority by the Crown as a measure to appease the Faerie Lords." Kirito admitted. "My mission was to contact them and make arrangements to lead them safely to Tristain. And what about your mission?"

Wardes waved a hand. "As you've said . . ."

Kirito sighed, "Need to know." Wardes nodded once. From the corner of his eye, Kirito noticed the way that Wales' expression turned melancholic at the mention of the Viscount's mission.

"Well then." The Prince spoke quickly, gesturing to a basket of bread and fruit on the table. "I know it isn't much but please eat your fill, we've much to discuss and not much time."

Kirito accepted a roll from Caramella as Wales began to bring them up to speed on what had been discussed so far. "From what the Good Captain has been able to tell me, our worst fears have come to fruition. The Rebels have finally completed their blockade and deployed both sounding ships in the mists below the Isle and additional frigates to catch any ship that attempts to run the blockade. The Eagle is trapped in port."

"Yeah, tell us something we don't know." Caramella mumbled past a mouth full of bread.

"The Dragon Knight patrols have been reinforced." Wardes added. "They nearly caught us on our way in. With my Griffin so laden," he glanced to Guiche, "We were nearly caught before we made it to the safety of the Fortress. I'm thankful the Prince's men gave us time to explain ourselves."

"Only because you were being chased." Wales said with a small look of amusement. "It's against all of my principles to shoot at someone who has earned the ire of the Rebels."

Asuna frowned, brow furrowing in thought. "Dragon Knights, like Sir Dunwell and his men? More elites?"

Wales nodded, hands clasped on the table before him. "Though from the Captain's description they're Southern Troops, probably the 7th Squadron under Viscount Ashby. Less experienced but that also means they're fresh and at full strength. To be honest, our run-ins with Sir Dunwell have probably bled his squadron white. At least seven dragons and Six Mage Knights in just a little under two weeks, make it eight and seven if Sir Dunwell himself was killed yesterday."

"We're not that lucky." Caramella muttered. Asuna nodded in agreement. From what Kirito had been able to gather, the Dragon Knight that had tried to face them down the day before was a very skilled opponent. If Asuna was doubtful he'd been finished, then Kirito had no choice but to trust her judgment.

Wales acknowledged the comment reluctantly. "Be that as it may, even if Sir Dunwell and his dragon survived, they will both need time to recover and his squadron has still been reduced by a third. I believe the 4th Dragon Knights will be forced to withdraw from the field for now. That leaves us with the bulk of 7th, squadron to deal with. Twenty some dragons in total. A force of this size will easily be able to keep up constant patrols. And what's more, this morning our spotters caught sight of a second rate ship of the line joining the blockade. Judging by her rigging, she's the _Thunderchild_, a formidable ship." Wales' eyes narrowed. "She's flying the colors of Viscount Robert Blake, former Admiral of the Royal Navy."

"What can you tell us about him?" Asuna asked.

The Prince frowned, a look of concentration crossing his face. "He was Supreme Commander of the Royal Navy until the Civil War started in earnest and command was handed off to my eldest brother, Edward. Blake switched sides quite unexpectedly prior to the fall of Londinium, but there have been no reports of his colors flying at any battle since. It was thought the Rebels were keeping him in reserve, or else didn't trust him. Well, it would seem that the former was the case. Or perhaps Cromwell simply grows tired of noblemen who have appointed themselves Admirals without a wit of qualification. In any case, he's a skilled officer and gifted strategist."

"So what does this tell us other than how screwed we are?" Caramella asked. "Come on Blondie, I know you have to have something rattling around inside your head, you just want Asuna to help you make it work."

Wales didn't say anything for a time. Finally his hands began to move, plucking up pieces of fruit and bread and laying them out in a semi circle around the basket. "The blockade consists of twenty four ships, including the _Thunderchild _and the third rater _Unconquerable_, with the remainder being various rates of frigates. In addition, we estimate that there are four sounding ships down in the mists judging by the echoes our wind mages have been able to pick up. This represents a considerable strengthening of the blockade."

"The size of the blockade force doesn't really change anything. Not on its own." Asuna said, drawing Kirito and Caramella's attention. She looked up as if surprised that she'd spoken aloud.

A hint of a smile crossed the face of the Prince. "Please go on, I think we both have the same idea." Kirito gave her an encouraging look, he thought he knew where this was going.

"Well," Asuna said, looking over the impromptu map, "The Royalists have never had the firepower to fight the blockade force directly without being annihilated. That doesn't change just because the Rebels added more ships. The only thing that's different now are the dragon patrols and the sounding ships. Those are our real opponents."

"So we agree." Wales said. "These sounding ships are the real threat. As long as they are in position, the Eagle cannot slip away, even under the cover of the mists. If they can be neutralized, the blockade will be blinded once more and a path may be opened to the skies." Wales leaned over the table. "Admiral Blake is an experienced officer, he won't risk proper warships on sounding duty so close to the winds beneath the isle, they'll be sloops and patrol boats, but they'll call in the Dragon Knights and warships if they are allowed to sound an alarm."

"They'll have to be taken out all at once then, won't they?" Kirito observed. If the soundings let them see through the mists, they'd definitely notice if one of the other ships started to sink.

"Actually, we don't have to sink them." Asuna said with a serious look on her face. "Just neutralize their ability to fight and sound the alarm."

"Neutralize?" Kino spoke up quietly for the first time. "You mean . . . Kill the crews?"

"Just disable them." Wales assured gently. "We'll need them to cooperate with us to keep the ships on station and avoid alerting the Fleet. Each ship will only have a handful of men manning it, mostly commoners and one or two navigators. No Mage Officer would want to take such duty." Wales snorted derisively. "We can use their own soundings to find them in the mists, and then fly in using wind magic. Few Navigators are skilled enough to distinguish something as small as a human before it's right on top of them. A half dozen Mage Knights should be able to overwhelm the crew of each ship. We'll take them prisoner and threaten to cut loose their ballast if they don't obey."

"Wales? Can any of your Navigators take soundings?" Asuna asked. The Prince nodded carefully and waited for Asuna to explain. "You'll need them to go with you and leave one on each ship to keep the soundings going. Otherwise the other ships might get suspicious."

"Agreed." Wales said. "That only leaves one problem."

"The Dragon Knights." Kirito said, brushing aside a long lock of hair. "Mages can't use flight and cast other spells at the same time, and they aren't very fast or nimble. You'll be defenseless if you run into a mounted patrol. You want help from the Fae." He concluded.

Wales gave Asuna and Kirito an apologetic look. "I feel like I'm asking you to risk yourselves again, Lady Asuna, but at least one of your people can make full use of his wings and is a skilled combatant, correct?"

Asuna gave a hesitant nod. "He is." She said carefully. "I'm sure he'll volunteer to escort the mages and protect them from any Dragon Knights." If it was the only way to break through the blockade, then they had no choice. "But I do have a condition in return for our help."

"Oh?" Wales said, looking curious.

Asuna fixed the Prince with her eyes. "Dragon Knights patrol in pairs, correct? That means you'll need at least two Faeries."

Asuna stood up from the table and turned to present her back. All eyes were focused on her. Taking a small breath, her long slender wings began to tremble and split, and then split again, separating into three pair that hung down, twitching sympathetically with the muscles in her back.

"Right now, I'm almost able to use these at will." Asuna said, a note of determination entering her voice. "Give me twenty four hours to learn to fly. And he and I will fight by your side."

* * *

_The battle was going badly. Sir Terrance Dunwell, Captain of His Majesties' 4th Dragon Knight Squadron, thought to himself as he took the stairs from his cabin on the lower decks up to the top deck of the Royalist Flagship, the Royal Sovereign, as she lay in port above Londinium._

_It didn't look that way on the surface. To the untrained eye, the Royalist position seemed strong. Twelve ships of the line, including the Royal Sovereign, stood ready to defend Londinium along with the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 8th Dragon Knights, and a ground force of twenty thousand professional troops dispatched by allies of the Royal Family._

_Opposing them was an army of thirty five thousand poorly trained and poorly equipped commoners pressed into military service as a stopgap until mercenaries from the continent could arrive. They were supported by two squadrons of Dragon Knights and a hodgepodge fleet of defector warships, up gunned merchantmen, and privateers._

_The force disparity greatly favored the Royalists who were fielding a smaller but much better equipped and trained ground force, and significantly more powerful aerial arm. In addition, Londinium would be an attack against a defended position where the attacking force would expected to need at least three men to match every one defender. By all sense, the Rebel Army would be crushed at the gates of Londinium and its leaders brought swiftly before the King for trial and execution. By all sense. That had also what had been said prior to Lexington when that accursed Priest had only rallied a force of ten thousand and a handful of Nobles to his cause._

_First the fifth Dragon Knights had defected along with ten ships of the line, soundly winning the Battle of Lexington for the Rebels. Next Fleet Admiral Blake, former Fleet Admiral as he was now wanted on charges of high treason, had ordered all ships to stand down in port and deny combat with any Rebel or Royalist flagged ship, denying the King access to almost half of Albion's advanced navy. At first, Dunwell had been as outraged by this treachery as his superiors, with the help of the Fleet the Rebels could be defeated in a matter of days._

_But then the first reports had started to come in of Rebel strongholds sprouting up across Albion. Whole cities defected as they were besieged by the forces of Nobles rallying to the banner of 'Reconquista'. In many cases, these small armies were nothing but jokes, a few hundred men trained and lead, poorly, by the sons of the low ranked Nobility. But they appeared everywhere at once. To fight them would be like attempting to beat back the sea with swords._

_As the Army had begun to lose control and fall back to the Ports and strongholds along the White Cliffs, voices of dissent had begun to speak out against the King and the worst excesses of Royal Privilege. Sensing the change in fortunes, and the opportunity for themselves, the nobility were beginning to change sides in growing numbers, undermining the strength of the Royalist position further. Even former allies of the Royal Family had begun to pull away, withdrawing their support from King James, perhaps even planning to fully join the Rebels._

_It had all gone so smoothly, events cascading one after the other, almost as if they had been orchestrated by some outside force. The thought chilled the Captain to his soul. Dunwell had begun to understand then that the Nobles in open rebellion were simply the tip of a much bigger threat that lay deeper within the mists. Someone was funding them, supplying them, tipping the battles in their favor from behind the scenes. But who? Dunwell stroked the small diary nestled in his jacket pocket._

_It could not be anyone in Albion. The Royal Family had been careful to gather power to itself over the centuries, ensuring that 'Noble Authority Flowed From Brimir and the Crown' a policy that had guaranteed supremacy and security of the Tudor line for generations. A foreign power was interfering in Albion's affairs, and in such a way that the White Isles traditional defenses of unassailable geography meant nothing._

_Blake's actions began to make sense, seeming almost prophetic as the Rebellion grew. The Fleet could little afford to take sides in the civil war and tear itself apart, opening the country to invasion from one of the powerful Halkegenian kingdoms. The Navy would remain neutral for now, and side with the victor when the time came._

_It had thus been with a heavy heart that Sir Dunwell finally ascended onto the top deck of the flagship and was met by a gust of cold autumn wind. The Knight pulled his jacket shut as he made his way along the starboard side heading fore towards the rigging and helm where his superior would be waiting. The Royal Sovereign was the largest ship in Albion's fleet, fully one hundred and fifty mails in length, larger even than a first rate ship of the line._

_Her construction was similar to that of any other ship of the line of battle, a heavily framed wooden ovoid covered in gun ports. The Royal Sovereign in particular had been constructed of heavy oak timbers that had earned her a reputation in battle that she Dread Not mage, nor dragon, nor cannon fire._

_Like all Albionian warships, the Royal Sovereigns main masts were located far forward, attached to six heavy brass pivots affixed directly to the ship's brass keel cap. This design maximized the space along the side of the hull for mountain gun batteries and allowed broadsides to be fired without risk of the ship hitting her own sails. The configuration had long been used by the ship builders of Albion and had over time been adopted by many on the continent with mixed success._

_At last Dunwell came to stand before the helm and the man he had come to give his report to. "My Prince." Dunwell bowed reverently._

_Crown Prince Edward Tudor of Albion was of the age where he was beginning to resemble his father greatly, not at all like his brothers who took after their mother both in her softer features and softer temperament. Though impeccably groomed, the Prince's eyes were deeply ringed from lack of sleep. He looked displeased as he noticed Dunwell, waving for the other officers to depart._

_"You bring me bad tidings." Prince Edward predicted._

_Dunwell sighed inwardly before beginning his report, or rather, presented his report. He handed a piece of folded paper the Prince who carefully opened it and frowned as he read the contents. His frown turned to agitation and then trembling rage before he began tearing the paper into pieces, throwing them to the deck._

_"Where was this found?!" Edward hissed._

_"It's one of over thousands we've retrieved so far. This one, I believe, was found nailed to the door of the Globe Theater." Dunwell explained and waited once more for his Prince's temper to run its course._

_"The Theater . . . My brother's theater?!" The Prince was between anger and tears as he recalled his brother, the middle Prince, Lionel, a quiet and generous man. He had been found in his theater box with an assassin's dagger in his back, the opening casualty of the Civil War. The King had suspected his son's young wife, Mary Adeline of the crime, and ordered her beheaded over the protests of her family. The Baron of Adeline had been among the first to rally behind Cromwell's cause._

_Dunwell calmly collected the scraps of paper as he waited for his Prince to compose himself. Pieced together once more, the scraps of paper were a broadsheet calling for the Good People of Albion to shirk off the chains of excess placed on them by the Royal family and join with the holy cause of Reconquista. 'Equality! Fraternity! Victory!' Was printed daringly in red ink across one of the largest remaining scraps of paper. Copies of the broadsheet had been found throughout Londinium and by now the city watch wasn't even bothering to tear them down. It was either treason, or simple apathy on the part of the residents._

_At last, Edward spoke. "Look at them all down there." His voice was a mix of boredom and disgust as he looked down on the streets of Londinium a hundred mails beneath them. To Dunwell who had seen this same sight many times, the city looked more or less normal, no different than any other night. Of course, there were signs at street level, but from up here, you could forget that there was a war going on. "I wonder what goes through their heads. Do they care not one iota for their King and Princes' who protect and lead them? Tell me, Sir Dunwell, what do you know of duty?"_

_"Sir?" Dunwell asked carefully._

_"I asked you what you could say of duty, you are a Knight after all. I would think duty would be a matter of great importance to you." The Prince pressed. "So tell me what you know of duty?"_

_Dunwell thought carefully before answering, there had been . . . Rumors . . . Of the growing instability of the Prince and his Father. It was said that their grief over the death of Lionel so soon after the Queen's death to sickness the year before drove them to rashness. How to answer properly? "Duty is Reciprocity my Prince, what is owed is repaid in turn."_

_"So you see it as an exchange. Yes, it is an exchange isn't it?" Edward said meditatively. "So you would agree that the Crown is owed allegiance in return for protecting the lives of the people?"_

_"Yes, my Prince." Dunwell replied patiently. He sensed that this conversation was being directed to a conclusion that he didn't dare second guess._

_Prince Edward placed his hands on the railing and gripped until the leather of his gloves began to groan softly. "So then, if the people take back their obedience, the crown may take back its protection. We are no longer responsible for their lives?"_

_Dunwell felt his heart stop for a moment. The Prince couldn't be suggesting . . . "We cannot protect people who do not obey our authority." He admitted._

_"Very good. Then we agree." The Prince decided. "I apologize for my . . . outburst, Sir Dunwell, you have done your duty admirably in these trying times. A Loyal Knight of Albion. I see why father entrusted you with tutoring my youngest brother in magecraft. I have already looked over the reports from your fellow officers. Father agrees with our conclusions, we cannot hold a city that is half filled with traitors and opportunists who will turn on us at the first chance. It has been decided that we will fight a holding action for Londinium and then withdraw in good order once we have bled the Rebel army against the defenses here. They can have Londinium if they want it so badly."_

_Dunwell nodded again, a sensible plan, it would buy time at least, and give the Royal Spymasters time to try and track down the ones responsible for this awful mess._

_"Have you followed through with my request?" Prince Edward asked._

_"Yes, my Prince. Preparations are being made as we speak to demolish the Royal Arsenal. The ship yards and docks will not fall into Rebel hands." Dunwell said. At the same time, all military stores that could not be loaded onto ships or issued to Royalist forces, would be destroyed in place to prevent their recovery by the Rebels. Such a waste, but necessary given the circumstances. Every musket, every spear, and every cannon that was not retrieved was another in the arsenal of Reconquista._

_"Good." Prince Edward seemed relieved. "Then there's something else I would like you and your men to see to when the battle commences."_

_"Anything, my Prince." Dunwell said._

_"There are a number of essential facilities and resources within Londinium that will need to be destroyed swiftly during the battle to deny them to the Rebels. I am entrusting these tasks to the most Loyal of the Dragon Knights and Ground Cavalry. Before we withdraw, I would like you and your men to burn the Portstreet district to the ground."_

_"Sir . . ." Dunwell felt himself growing cold. "With all due respect . . . The Portstreet District . . . Those are the granaries and food storehouses." The people of Londinium relied on that food to get them through winter, without it, the city would starve. Over a million people, more in the countryside beyond. War brought with it great privation, no doubt hundreds of thousands would die as the Rebels and Royalist forces stripped the countryside to feed themselves. But this . . . This was more than that._

_"Exactly, Sir Dunwell. Those granaries store grain grown on land owned by the Royal Family and stewarded by its subjects. That grain was transported to Londinium aboard the King's ships and over the King's highway. It belongs to the King and is given to the people to safeguard them against starvation so long as they are loyal. I see no need for us to feed the people attempting to kill us, do you? Members of the 3rd Squadron have been assigned to destroy the Port Facilities and a troop of Earth Mages will poison the remaining wine, beer, and water stores. The Rebels will find nothing here to sustain them. And when winter rears its head, well, that problem will be dealt with, wouldn't you agree?"_

_"With all due respect my Prince." Dunwell wanted to protest on behalf of the people, not every man woman and child in Londinium was a Rebel sympathizer, in fact not even half, perhaps less than a tenth! Nut to do so would be the end of his own life. Instead he appealed to military reason. "The Rebel forces are receiving supply from the continent, and even if we stop them here, what of the other towns and cities that they have captured?" Half of the Isle was under Rebel siege, millions of men, women, and children, commoners and nobles._

_"Isn't that obvious? We'll do the same thing, again and again in every city that fails to hold. We'll burn a firebreak all the way to our holdouts in the North and allow winter to do what our traitorous armies could not. Until Cromwell himself is not but skin on bones! We will send the message that Albion belongs to its Royal Family, and those who seek to seize it will find not but ashes!"_

_"You wish to burn half of Albion to the ground?" Dunwell fought to hide the disbelief in his voice. He must have done so better than he thought for the Prince seemed unconcerned by the question. Or perhaps Edward was simply too far gone to care._

_"Father agrees with me. We will burn all of Albion to the ground if need be. This Kingdom belongs to the Tudors and will be denied to all others. From Brimir and the Crown flows Nobility, Sir Dunwell."_

_"There are soldiers who will refuse these orders." Dunwell cautioned, soldiers such as himself. "The 1st Dragon Knight Squadron, Sir Downing won't . . ."_

_"Sir Downing has been dealt with, as have the rest of his treacherous lot." Prince Edward smiled. "Only our most Loyal Forces have been entrusted with this task. As for the others, war is filled with misfortune, Civil War most of all. The Rebels are a rabble filled lot out to pillage and burn. No one will doubt that blame lies with them. You have proven yourselves many times Sir Dunwell, I ask humbly that you show us your loyalty once more."_

_Dunwell felt the color draining from his face, like a man that realized only now that he was being lead to the gallows. At that moment his mind recoiled at what he was being asked to do. His mind was in shock, but his body still knew how to react to survive. He bowed deeply and murmured that he would relay the order to his men, accepting a sealed envelope with the specifics of their mission. As he turned to depart, he heard Prince Edward mutter something darkly._

_"Remember, Dunwell. You are a Knight, you were raised up from nothing to serve. Duty . . . Sir Dunwell."_

_"Duty in all things, My Prince." Dunwell replied weakly before returning to his cabin. That night, he read his orders many times in the company of a bottle of brandy._

_"What do you intend to do?" Scirocco asked from where she sat cross-legged on his cot, dressed in little more than a plain cotton shirt. One day he was going to discover how she managed to slip in no matter where he might be lodged. It had raised questions over the years, but given his reputation, most were inclined to overlook what they saw as small . . . indiscretions._

_"The same thing I have always done." Dunwell said as he poured himself a second shot. "Does that bother you?"_

_Scirocco shrugged. "Not in the least. I'd be disappointed if you decided to abandon your ideals now." Unfolding herself, she took two quick steps and snatched the shot glass from his hand and downing the contents quickly before frowning. "Romalian."_

_"You know what this will mean. Correct?" Dunwell asked._

_Scirocco blinked, green eyes regarding him in a way that wasn't quite human. He could forget that sometimes, especially when she was acting petulant, but at the moment she was quite serious. "Do you? I may not be human, but I know enough to say that your men will follow you. Deep down, most of them share your ideals, that's why you chose them, isn't it? You wield a great deal of power at this moment, which way will you fall." She placed the shot glass back on the table. "Don't worry, I'll follow you one way or the other."_

_Staring at his right hand, Dunwell's eyes traced across an old scar. Not a battle scar, but something from his childhood, when he'd nearly crushed his hand working the presses in his father's shop. Slowly he fished out his diary and removed a thin letter hidden between two pages. There was no postage marking or address. It had been handed to him a week ago by a passing officer who he did not know and did not see again._

_Slowly, he opened it and began to reread the contents._

* * *

Sir Terrance Dunwell opened his eyes and was greeted by the sight of the ceiling of a canvas tent.

"Back among the living at last I see." A voice, familiar, but not heard for many years came from off to the side. He attempted to crane his neck, and was greeted by something else - pain. The last moments of his mad attempt to cut off the Winged Girl and the Prince from their return to Newcastle flashed before his eyes.

"Scirocco?" He asked automatically.

"That Wind Drake is still with you? If she was the one you were riding, she's hurt but alive. She's been snapping at the healers all day. I'm frankly amazed you still put up with such a temperamental mount."

"Old habits." Dunwell replied, licking dry lips as he tried to sit up.

"Easy now, Lad. Your years are finally catching up to you it seems." The voice said, a grizzled hand coming around his shoulder and helping him to sit up slowly. The pain returned, but distant now as he was propped into a sitting position. "Broken arm, deep lacerations, a stab wound that somehow missed anything important, and a cracked collarbone. That crash landing did you no favors." At last, he was able to confirm the identity of his visitor, though he had already known.

The man had once been black haired, but that had been long ago, when he had still been a mere ship's Captain and Dunwell had been a new Recruit to the Dragon Knights still trying to rein in a temperamental Rhyme Dragon. Now he was a white haired man of advanced years, an officer and gentleman whose ambitions had been fulfilled and whose line of succession was secured through two sons and a daughter with their own children.

"Viscount Blake." Dunwell nodded.

"Terrance." The Viscount replied. "I must say, seeing the Dragon Knights beaten and shamed before me has long been a deeply held dream. But I didn't think I'd see it fulfilled like this."

"What brings you to speak with a humble man such as myself?" Dunwell asked

"The same thing that sent you spiralling nearly to your death I suspect." The Admiral said, the jovial look leaving his person. "Tell me, do you remember what happened?"

Dunwell nodded stiffly, feeling the pain in his neck pulse, once, twice. "The Winged girl . . . The Faerie . . . And a Demon. The Demon came from nowhere, killed three of my men and their dragons and rampaged through the camp. I managed to head them off, but the Faerie girl and another, a Faerie swordswoman, managed to attack me head on in flight. I believe they were thrown into my path by the giant." The words sounded ridiculous even as he spoke them but to his surprise, the Viscount simply nodded as if that explained everything. "Yes, I've gathered that much from Sir Wells' report. He managed to see most of it from the air, I believe he was the first to arrive after you were torn from the sky."

"Then I don't know what else I can say." Dunwell replied as he managed to sit fully upright, placing his feet on the ground. He was shirtless, but almost the entirely of his torso was covered in bandages, including a heavy gauze patch that covered his entire side and reeked of medical reagents. His left arm was slung in a splint and his right shoulder had been completely bound in place.

"Anything about the Faeries would be appreciated. I don't need to know what they did. I need to know what they will do, what they're capable of." Blake explained, placing his hands on his knees.

"Sir?"

The old admiral chuckled fondly. "It seems I've finally been found worthy of Lord Cromwell's attention. I've been asked to take command of the siege here at Newcastle. I want to know everything you can tell me about these new enemies you've faced."

Dunwell nodded slowly. "Very well, then if I may be so bold, may we perhaps speak while we walk. I would like to see to my familiar." The Knight said as he rose to his feet, accepting the Admiral's shoulder for support.

"Easy now, you were out for almost a full day while the healers saw to the internal injuries. They left the surface wounds to heal properly so as not to overtax your body." The Viscount said, though this did not stop him from helping Dunwell to make his way from the tent.

The Knight Captain squinted as he looked out at the noon day sun and the rows of orderly white canvas tents that made up the officer's quarter of the siege line. This portion of the encampment was positioned on a hill opposite Newcastle, giving a view of the siege positions that spread out in both direction right up to the cliffs.

It also gave an unobstructed view of the destruction caused by the rampaging monster the day before. A line had been cut straight through the camp running parallel with one of the roadways. Kicked over wagons and wood barricades, reduced to kindling, had yet to be fully removed, nor had a replacement gate been mounted where the road crossed into the no man's land separating the two lines of defense.

"Quite a mess, eh?" The admiral commented as the two men made their way down towards the stables where the dragons were kept.

"It didn't look this bad from the air yesterday." Though admittedly he had only seen it for but a moment prior to his strafing run.

"Some of the damage was from the panic afterwards no doubt." The Admiral observed. "The troops are rather discouraged by what they saw, morale has taken a sharp dive. All the old stories of Albion are being spread around. Do you believe some are even saying that the Winged Girl is truly a Fae Princess and that beast was her Spriggan bodyguard?"

Dunwell snorted, he remembered the old stories. It was said that the malformed lesser Fae were often kept as loyal guardians to the Daughters of the Faerie Queen, hiding away in sleeves and pockets until their services were needed, where they would then swell into giants. Only, Dunwell knew enough of the Faerie's origins to know that such a tale was ridiculous.

"In any case. I've ordered light field guns to be brought in and set up in case that monster shows itself again. Musket fire may not have done much, but if it's anything like a dragon, a few pounds of iron might be another story. Now speak up man! I've had my fill of fairy tales and rumors. What are the facts?!"

As they walked, Dunwell explained what he knew of the Faeries and their origins, their combat ability, and their enigmatic leader. It appeared the Admiral had not been fully informed of what had been learned from questioning the undead Fae in Reconquista's possession and was quite dubious to hear the full story.

"I find it as unbelievable as you." Dunwell admitted. "But I find it doubtful that these . . . Creatures resurrected by Lord Cromwell could lie in their present state." In truth, he knew not one wit about necromancy so he couldn't truly say, nor did he want to know much of the subject. "All that can truly be said is that they are melee combatants of the highest order and have other powers as well given the monster the other day." Strange that Arguile had mentioned no such power. Perhaps magic from the Faeries on the continent? Had one of them arrived to aid their kin? "There's been no sign of it?"

"None." The Admiral confirmed. "Though some of the men claim they saw it dissolving into shadows before the Walls of Newcastle. Perhaps it was some sort of summoning, or a Golem of some sort."

"No." Dunwell shook his head, recalling the glowing, hate filled eyes of that beast. "That was no Golem. If it comes again, the Dragon units should stay well clear and attempt to bombard it. They should take no chances in approaching it under any circumstances."

The Admiral nodded sincerely. "I'll advise the Knights of your concerns."

"One other thing." Dunwell said. "The winged girl and at least one other. It's said the Faeries on the Continent can use some form of flight magic. The ones I've faced have been unable to do so up until now. I believe that might be changing. When next we face them, we may not have the advantage of the skies."

Admiral Blake slowed his, and thus Dunwell's, pace as he considered this problem. "That is troubling." He confessed. "I'll have to be sure the ships are prepared for any attempted assaults."

The dragon stables were situated a short distance from the officer's quarters, a concession for the Dragon Knights who might need to take to the skies at a moment's notice. Stable wasn't really the right word, it was less an enclosure than a simple open area providing the dragons with open space to rest, land, and take off. As they approached, several fire drakes were laid out flat on their stomachs, sunning themselves as their riders saw to their harnesses. The normally temperamental creatures, well disciplined in their years of military service, sniffed curiously at the air as Dunwell and Viscount Blake passed by. They found Scirocco curled up beneath a shade that had been erected at the far end of the stables.

The dragon, like her rider, had certainly seen better days. One wing had been bound up to hold it in place and support it while it healed, and the entire left side of her beak had been scraped raw, probably by their rough landing. Other wounds had been seen to as well, cuts and lacerations received during the rough landing, but none amounted to more than scratches to a creature the size of a dragon. Knowing his familiar she would already be using nature magic to accelerate the healing process. She'd likely be ready to fly again before him. But for now, she was grounded and miserable.

The Admiral withdrew slightly, allowing Dunwell to limp forward on his own to his familiar's side. The Rhyme Dragon in her guise as a Wind Drake gave him a sullen look before burying her head in her forelimbs. "Scirocco." He murmured softly, placing his good hand to the warm scales of her crest. She didn't need to be able to speak for him to know the problem. They'd been beaten, beaten worse than they had been in a very long time. She was indeed a prideful creature. In time she'd stop sulking and be back to her normal self. Until then, however, he couldn't expect her to be too happy.

"Sir Dunwell, you're awake." Sir Wells approached at a trot, looking harried and almost out of breath. The man's hair was wild and wind whipped, a sure sign that he had just gotten back from a flight. The Knight came to attention as the Admiral approached. "Admiral. I've returned from Wallsend with the . . . Reinforcements." He said with a note of discomfort.

"Dunwell-sama!" A disturbingly cheerful voice called as a face Dunwell had quietly hoped would remain buried, quite literally, drew near. "I hope Asuna-sama and Caramella-chan didn't hurt you too badly."

The Faerie girl Aki approached, still in the apparent prime of her perpetually bubbly unlife, moving with a spring in her step usually reserved for young village girls. After having a castle collapsed on her, she looked none the worse for the wear save for her uniform which hung from her like blood stained rags, barely preserving her modesty. Perhaps that and a lingering sense of guilt over his role in her death explained why she presently wore Sir Wells' coat to preserve some sense of decency.

"Dunwell-sama." A second voice added in. Arguile, likewise, appeared to have been restored to a near pristine state since last they'd met his eyes both open and undamaged. "Our apologies for not arriving sooner. However it took quite some time to find all of Aki in the rubble."

"Good." Dunwell said flatly. "We may have use of you here at the siege line." As much as he loathed these unfortunate creatures, after taking three more casualties, three more of his direct subordinates. He was not so principled a man that he wouldn't use these Faeries to his advantage.

The two Faeries received nervous glances from passersby, but given the strangeness of the past few days, their military uniforms, and the lack of response from the surrounding Knights, most had the wisdom to simply move on. Dunwell wondered just how much more quickly those people would move if they knew the whole story.

"So these are the Fae that Lord Cromwell has . . . Resurrected . . ." Admiral Blake said with a hint of distaste as he examined Arguile and then Aki. "They look quite . . . authentic." Which was to say they looked quite lifelike, and still with no hint of decomposition.

"Of course we're authentic! We're soldiers reborn in the Founder's radiant light!" Aki announced all too happily.

"Admiral Blake. If you have any more questions about the Faeries, you might be best off asking them directly." Dunwell said with a small nod to the two Fae. "They probably have a better grasp of the thought processes of the Asuna girl than I could ever hope to have."

"The female mind is intractable." Aki agreed with a small giggle. "That's why you're so lucky to have me!"

"We are at your service, Admiral." Arguile said softly.

Dunwell paused in thought and then added. "As a matter of fact, there was another Faerie I wanted to know about. She fights with a two handed sword, short hair, and foul mouth for a member of the fairer sex. She seemed to hold a personal grudge against me for . . . killing you."

Arguile's brows rose. "That would be Caramella, a former Army Player and a member of their front line unit. She's neither as strong nor as skilled as either Asuna-sama or myself. Why do you ask about her?"

A small shifting noise came from behind him as Scirocco looked up and listened. No doubt she wanted to hear more about the woman who had clipped her wing. "Simple curiosity. She and the Winged Girl are the cause of my injury. If not for her I would have slain Asuna yesterday. It appears that both have begun to use their wings."

"That is unfortunate." Arguile said.

"Oh, oh!" Aki bounced up and down on the balls of her feet before tossing Wells' coat aside. "Dunwell-sama, please allow me use these to assist you if you face Asuna-sama or Caramella-chan again!"

Use what? Dunwell wondered and then paused as he saw the four, sleek, knife like translucent wings that had emerged from Aki's back. "See! Aren't they pretty? I'm like an angel!" Both Sir Wells and Admiral Blake looked on with surprise.

"I thought you said none of you could use your wings?" Dunwell observed as he glanced over to Arguile.

"None of us knew how." Arguile agreed. "However, Aki seems to have discovered the trick. She says it's because she doesn't possess any of her old fears or doubts. As of yet there's been no need for me to try it." Behind him Aki was flexing her wings experimentally, a faint glow spread through them as she took a few careful hops, watched the whole time by a curious Admiral Blake.

"Make it a priority to teach yourself." Dunwell instructed the undead Faerie before glancing back to Admiral Blake. "Admiral?"

"I do believe I would like to borrow these two once they've learned to use their wings properly. I'd like to know what these Faeries can do in case they are used to attack the fleet." The Admiral said, continuing to watch as Aki made careful attempts with her wings.

"As you wish." Dunwell said. "In the meantime, you mentioned taking command of the siege. Is there any way I or my men can be of assistance?"

Blake looked away from Aki to give him a brief nod. "As a matter of fact. An agent was inserted last night into Newcastle in order to perform a high priority mission. Due to the confusion he was nearly shot down by the 7th Dragon Knights. The hazards of assigning an inexperienced unit to night patrols. I would like for some of your own men to take up the patrol along Newcastle's southern approach tonight so that he might withdraw safely."

"I understand." Dunwell said, giving Sir Wells a quick glance. His Lieutenant understood the gesture at once. "I'll arrange for a flight to be readied and slotted into tonight's rotation."

"Excellent." Admiral Blake said. "Expect him before midnight."

* * *

Prince Wales Tudor finished rereading the careworn letter for the last time before folding it once more and returning it to its envelope, resealing it with a dab of candle wax. He offered the envelope to the man who had been sent to collect it. Wales felt a tremendous weight settle on his shoulders as the letter parted company with him for the last time. The last happy thing in his life disappeared into the cloak of one Captain Jean Jacques de Wardes to be returned to the hands that had originally written it.

This was for the best. Wales told himself. This really was for the best. At one time, his wishes might have aligned with the interests of both Kingdoms. But now, even if he were to survive, even if he fled with the others aboard the Eagle, he would be a landless, beggar Prince. He would be nothing but a burden to her, a reminder of something that they both wanted but that could never be. It would be better if these last ties were severed here and now, so that Henrietta could move on and he could face his fate as a Prince of Albion without lingering regret.

"This is everything?" Wardes asked to be sure.

"As I've have said before. There is only the letter." Wales said softly. "I swear it on my life and honor."

Wardes nodded once, adjusting the brim of his hat. "Then that will be all, Prince Wales. I should be departing, it's nearly dark."

"Yes." Wales waved a hand. "Be on your way."

The Viscount paused at the doorway of Wales' quarters, located among the suites that had once housed Officers of the Royal Navy. "If you have a message you would like me to convey . . ."

Wales almost laughed at the offer. "It's far too late for that. Though, thank you."

"Then I shall be off." Wardes said, disappearing into the hallway, the echo of boots against tile vanishing into the distance. Wales took a deep breath as he looked at the small box that he had used to keep the letter. A portrait of Henrietta graced the inner lid. The painter had been quite skilled, it was almost as if she wasn't simply smiling, but smiling at him in particular. He closed the lid, he couldn't bear to look at it any longer. Perhaps he should have entrusted this too to the Captain, or maybe he should burn it . . . No!

Returning the keepsake to his desk drawer, Wales patted down his jacket, feeling a nervous energy burning through him. There had to be something, yes, something to do. Something to get his mind off of things. He hadn't inspected the Eagle today. The crew were restless being cooped up in dock, but it had given them a chance to conduct all the little repairs that were so frequently left unattended to on a hard worked ship. If she were to run the blockade, the HMS Eagle would need to be in top form. And also . . . It wouldn't do for his wedding present to his cousin to be in anything but fine condition. He cursed himself softly for even thinking that last part.

Somehow, while lost in his thoughts he had made his way into the hall and towards the stairway that led down to the Citadel Courtyard, and from there, down into the underground sections of Newcastle Fortress. His men saluted or bowed as he passed, but none approached. They'd seen this look on their Prince's face before and none knew what to do save leave him be.

The hidden docks were situated on the lowest level of the Fortress at the bottom of the hundred mail wide hole that sank straight through the rocky outcropping on which Newcastle had been built. An immense vaulted space, the largest enclosed space in all of Albion, shaped and enlarged over centuries from the surrounding rock.

There was room in the docks for up to a half dozen ships. A hidden squadron had once been kept here by Wales' grandfather, a strike force of 'Black Ships' that had been used to put down a minor insurrection headed by one of Wales' great uncles. He shook his head as he thought, not for the first time, the White Isle's history was certainly stained red.

Forever in the Isle's shadow, the dock was lit dimly by hundreds of oil lamps and mage lights. Only one ship occupied the docks as the moment, the HMS Eagle, her sails and masts folded like a predatory bird at rest. She'd been a fine ship to him these last six months. It was odd to think she might soon leave port without him one last time.

"Captain on the deck!" A voice barked as he stepped from the docks.

The handful of sailors on duty, mostly men seeing to the rigging and a few mages inspecting the fire wards, came to attention. Wales waved for them to return to their work as he saw his own way across the deck, stepping over ropes and fixtures. As always, his men had worked tirelessly to keep the Eagle ready at a moment's notice. The ship would never have passed inspection as it was now, but that was only because no battle ready warship ever would. Spare ropes, tools, and pulleys were lashed down all over the deck wherever they might be needed quickly. Swivel guns stood mounted to their pivots with baskets of ammunition secured beside them, all that was missing was the gunpowder.

He made his way fore to the Eagle's keel cap, the brass hub to which all of the major structural braces and the main sails were anchored. Directly behind the keel was the main helm, elevated to give the helmsman good visibility past the sails. Wales was surprised to find Kino of all people sitting cross legged on the deck nearby, seemingly intent on making a slip knot out of a few short pieces of rope.

"Like this?" Kino held up his work for inspection, only for it to fall apart at the slightest tug. The sailors standing around him all shared a laugh.

"Aye, I guess it may be a bit harder for a wee faerie lad on his first try." One of the Sailors, Evans, a happy man who was an even happier drunk, took the rope from Kino and, hands moving like some sort of heathen magic ritual, threaded the rope into an expert knot. "Aye, years of practice counts for a lot." He said, giving the rope a sharp tug.

"Hoping to make an airman out of a Faerie?" Wales asked, interrupting the impromptu lesson.

"Captain!" Evans stood up quickly. The men brought themselves into a line, making themselves presentable before their commanding officer. A difficult task. They had taken a bit too well over these past months to being 'pirates'.

Again Wales bade them at ease, nodding to Kino. "So, Airman Evans, I see you've found yourself some fresh meat."

"Aye, the boy was moping about down on the docks, an, minding your pardon Captain, he's been a help with running the lines." Wales nodded, he'd given permission for the Faeries to be allowed to help wherever they could. Kimura especially, had made himself useful on the Eagle's lower sails where the slug could safely attach himself upside down to the hull and perform the line work of two or three sailors at once.

Wales gave Kino an appraising look. "That's quite alright. So, does he have a wit of talent for it?"

Evans looked at Kino and then back to his captain. "Speaking honestly Captain, not a one, but the same could be said for half the lads when we get them, and we make'm into sailors all the same. His balance is top notch, I'll give'm that. And I suppose if he's like Dame Caramel or Lady Asuna, those wings'll be a blessing when they come in."

"Caramella." Wales and Kino corrected simultaneously.

Wales nodded. "Then as you were Mister Evans."

"Thank you Captain." The men began to disperse back to their tasks while Wales climbed up to the helm and peered out over the bow of the ship. Hands came to rest on the helm's wheel, gripping the handholds and feeling the roughness of the wood.

"Hey, Wales?" The Prince turned to notice Kino climbing up the short staircase. "Erm, I mean . . . Permission Captain?" The Faerie boy looked terribly embarrassed at his perceived transgression.

"Of course . . . Mister Kino." Wales said with a hint of amusement. The boy finished climbing the rest of the way up and came to stand at his side.

"You don't seem yourself right now." Kino said. "I'm sorry, it's none of my business, isn't it."

Wales shook his head, smiling tiredly. "Is it really so obvious? I thought I was better at hiding it. Yes, I'm not myself right now. That's why I came here I suppose. To remind myself." He was a prince of Albion, everything else was a distant second, his own wishes most of all.

"You really love sailing, don't you?" Kino asked, leaning over the railing and starring out at the mists that swirled below like the contents of a cauldron.

Did he? Wales wondered, he supposed he did. As a captain, Wales had broad discretion in how he conducted himself and his duties. It was the closest thing to control over his own destiny that he had ever known. He was falling, falling to his death, but at very least he could have some say in where he landed. Perhaps that was why he had answered his cousin's request and chased a Faerie through the streets of York.

"It's a very liberating experience to helm your own ship. I think my favorite time is at night while departing Albion. The sky above you, the mists beneath. The world becomes infinite, stretching out in all directions and one might think you could pick a star in the sky and sail there." Wales closed his eyes and remembered better times in the company of his Mother and Brothers.

"It sounds nice." Kino said, the boy was sincere, but Wales doubted he really understood. Few did without experiencing it for themselves. "Wales . . ."

"What is it, Kino?" Wales asked, finding he had grown lost in his thoughts.

"The plan that you and Asuna came up with. It's only going to work once, isn't it?" Kino asked.

Wales was slow in answering. "Traitor or not, Admiral Blake is an able commander of ships and men." He admitted. "We may fool him once, but after this, he will station frigates to take the soundings. We will have only one opportunity to open a gap in the blockade and get as many people out as possible. The Eagle will be rather more heavily laden than usual, but you should all be able bear it for the time it takes to reach Tristain."

Indeed, between the three hundred Faeries and Newcastle's own evacuees, the Eagle would be loaded well past capacity. He had been careful to avoid the topic with Lady Asuna. Many of his wounded soldiers had surrendered their places to ensure there would be room for all of the Faeries as well as Newcastle's own women and children. Though, there was still the possibility that Tristain would be able to offer assistance.

Tonight, Kirito expected to be contacted by his allies in Tristain. If the Crown of Tristain could be convinced to send even one or two ships, it might be possible to send out navigators to guide them through the mists and lead them to dock. In that case, almost all of Newcastle's sick and wounded could also be evacuated, leaving only the able bodied fighters and volunteers to man the batteries.

But for that to happen, the sounding ships would still have to be captured without raising an alarm or drawing suspicion. Wales doubted that Tristain's forces would be able to help with that. Even if they were willing to risk an act of war. Dragon Knights or ships would be detected by the sounding craft before they could get near and an alarm would be raised. Only the Royalists and their Fae allies were in a position to neutralize them swiftly and silently.

"When we leave . . . The Eagle won't be able to get back through the blockade." Kino observed. "And you won't be coming with us."

"That is correct." Wales agreed softly. He felt his heart tremble at the thought. Though he had been careful not to dwell on the matter, when the Eagle left port, the last means of escape would be lost to the remaining Royalists. He wondered how many might feel their doubts begin to surface only then. They were, to a man, only human after all.

"Why?" Kino asked quietly, his voice beginning to shake. "Why can't you run away?"

Wales shook his head sadly. "Like I said Kino, I'm not just their Prince, I'm a symbol for what the Royal Family is supposed to stand for. If I won't die for Albion, then who will?"

"But that's stupid!" Kino shouted so loudly that his voice echoes off of the high walls and ceiling of the dock. The crew scattered across the deck stopped their work briefly to stare, only resuming when Wales made no response to the outburst. "It's so stupid." Kino whispered. "Wouldn't it be better if you were alive? Even if you lose Newcastle, you could keep fighting the Rebels, couldn't you?"

"With no home base? No supplies? Not more than a handful of men against their thousands?" Wales almost chuckled. It was a romantic notion, like something out of one of Emily's novels. "It is not so easy Kino, were that I wish it was."

"You could become a pirate and keep raiding them, couldn't you?" Kino pressed. "Or maybe find allies on the Continent?"

"For what purpose? The first will never lead to the retaking of Albion. Worse, once Newcastle falls and the last legitimacy of the Royalists, it will merely stain my House's honor. The last Prince of Albion reduced to a brigand? As for the latter, what good would it do? No Kingdom has ever succeeded in an invasion of the White Isle, and even if they did, I would merely be a puppet and my Kingdom their client." Wales blinked, there were tears running down Kino's eyes.

"Why?" Kino asked. "This . . . Isn't your fault. So why do you have to stay and fight? You're just the Prince. You didn't run the country, you didn't do anything wrong, did you? So why do you have to die for other peoples mistakes? Why did people have to die at the powder mill because of our mistake? Why did Arguile have to die because of me and Caramella's mistake?" Then at last Kino looked up, eyes shining beneath his straw hair and knit cap. "Why did my brother have to die because of my mistake?!" The boy's balled hands sprung open and he took a shaking breath.

"Kino . . ." Wales trailed off. "He died in that other world, didn't he."

"Almost two years ago. There wasn't any reason." Kino mumbled rubbing at his eyes. "I was slow and stupid. I'm the one who aggroed those mobs. I was the one who was going to die. He didn't have to save me! Why? Why did I make such a stupid mistake? Why did he save someone like me? He was strong, way stronger than me, he could have been a clearer. He could have saved lots more people!"

Wales placed a hand on the shaking boys shoulder and waited patiently for his grief to leave him. Did Asuna and the others know about this? He didn't think so. Caramella would have said something, would have warned Wales to protect Kino, even if it was a private matter. Why tell him though?

"Kino, I understand how painful it must be to lose someone. And though I never met him, I know that the reason your brother fought and died and the reason I must fight and die are the same. And it is not because of anyone's mistake." Wales smiled bravely for the boy before him. "It's because there are people and ideals that we must protect no matter what. Dry your eyes Kino, nobody is burdening me with this, nobody demands it of me but myself. I do this because I believe it is the right thing. Just as your brother did."

Kino looked at him through tear filled eyes. "You might think it's the right thing, but I'm tired of seeing my friends die."

Wales felt surprise race through him, his expression turned kind. "Your friend? Truly?"

Kino wiped at his nose. "What else do you think we'd be after all of this? We've only nearly got killed together three times now." He looked almost ready to laugh at how ridiculous that sounded.

Wales bowed slightly. "Then, allow me to say, I am honored that you consider me your friend, Kino." A thought occurred to him. Reaching his hand into his pocket, Wales found something that he had almost forgotten about. Of course, he had not worn this jacket since they had fled from Skiesedge. "Kino. We will have to say our goodbyes soon and it is likely we will not meet again." Wales drew the small trinket from his pocket. "The Eagle will next depart without me, I have no further need of this, but I do believe that it would be right for you to have it."

"What is it?" Kino asked as Wales placed the small sphere in his hands, all brass, and glass, and delicate, clockwork like mechanism. A tiny dial sat suspended within, held level within a gimballed brass housing.

"That is the compass of a Royal Navigator." Wales explained. "They are used by ships and dragons to navigate when they cannot climb above the clouds or are shrouded in the mists. No matter how one flies, it shall always point true. Don't ever doubt your direction Kino. When first we met, you were placing the lives of others before your own without hesitation. I could ask for no more noble a friend."

The boy held the compass reverently, examining how the dial spun freely on its gimbals before carefully placing it in his jacket pocket. "Promise you won't just die. You'll fight as long as you can, right?" Kino said.

"Before the Founder I pledge, to the very last breath." Wales swore quietly.

Kino nodded slowly, not satisfied, but accepting. "It's almost dinner time." He said suddenly. "Asuna said she wanted Caramella and I to eat with her and Kirito. She invited you too, right?"

"She did." Wales said. "Thought, I'm afraid I haven't much appetite right now."

Kino tugged at his sleeve, pulling him along with little resistance. "That's no excuse, is it?" Kino insisted. "At least you shouldn't be down here by yourself." Again Wales almost laughed, even when he was with others, he was alone. But he didn't fight it.

The climb back up the stairs to the fortress above was a tedious affair. There was a reason he went to the Eagle's nest only when he was truly inconsolable. However, as they climbed, he was rewarded with the most tantalizing smell coming from ahead of them.

"What is that?" Wales asked curiously, the smell was familiar but different, much too subtle for the stew and boiled vegetables that were usually served as rations among the men.

"Ah well. I think I know that. You know how you said we could help out?" Kino offered as they walked. "Asuna said she wouldn't mind helping cook tonight. The chef here said she could use whatever she liked so said she was going to experiment a little. I just hope it tastes as good as it smells."

Wales nodded in agreement. In fact, having smelled that, despite his earlier misgiving, he thought he might actually be feeling a little bit peckish. As they passed the kitchen door, Wales peered in. The long room, filled with roughly built tables and hanging pots and pans was as busy as ever preparing to feed the people of Newcastle, but one small corner had been set aside for use by the Fae.

For the first time, Wales had the opportunity to see Asuna as something other than a warrior. Focused on her task, she ladled some of the contents of the pot she was stirring and sipped at it experimentally. At her side, the head chef did the same. There was a brief, heated, exchange between the two before they came to an agreement on what spice and what quantity to add. From a vantage leaning against the wall, Kirito in his disguise as the lovely young swordswoman Midori watched on with open anticipation. Wales decided not to disturb them, and instead continued down the hall towards the adjacent dining hall.

"Prince Wales." The Dragon Knight Lucane greeted as he arrived from the opposite direction.

"Lucane." Wales acknowledged. "Should you already be up? The healers haven't cleared you for duty yet, have they?" Lucane's injuries had turned out to be rather more extensive than had first been thought. In fact, the others had been forced to carry him half of the way back to Newcastle. To see him up and about so soon was somewhat surprising.

"I'm fit for light duty at least." Lucane reported. "Enough to be sent on errands anyways, this fellow was asking if I knew your whereabouts."

Wales felt confusion once more as the man, mostly hidden by Lucane stepped fully back into. "Viscount Wardes? I would have thought you already departed." Wales said.

"Forgive me for overstaying my welcome, Prince Wales. Matters begged a last minute change of plans." The Griffin Knight said. "In fact, it is a matter of great urgency that I must speak to you about in private." Wales frowned at these mysterious words, of course, this man was a trusted servant of his Cousin, he could only trust his judgment.

"Is it really so secret a matter? We were just about to sit down to dinner." Kino brightened and Wales gave him a small nod. What sort of host would he be if he could not dine with his friends at least once before they departed?

"It should not wait. Please, just a moment of your time."

"Captain Wardes! Sir!" A voice echoed down the hall followed by the hammering of boots. A look of open irritation spread across the Captain's face. Wales leaned out to see the young man who had arrived with the Viscount, the youngest son of General Gramont of Tristain, hurrying down the hall dressed in his travelling jacket. The young man was nearly out of breath but still managed to shout. "Captain Wardes! Terrible news. Your Griffin! I went to feed him just now and check on his restraints, and he was gone. Someone has taken your mount!"

Wales was immediately on alert. A saboteur within the Fortress? Impossible! His soldiers were loyal to a man, and besides, a trained Griffin would never fly for any but its master. No, this was wrong, what wasn't he seeing? It could have been a trick of the light, but for a blink of an eye, the Captain's face grew blurred around the edges.

Every instinct, honed by years of training in magecraft and battle screamed at Wales to move. He was already raising his cane-wand as Wardes spun back around, his own sword glinting as it came free of its scabbard. Lucane and Kino were just beginning to react to the threat, Lucane reaching for his own wand and Kino drawing his knife.

Wales thrust forward with his wand and Wardes didn't even attempt to dodge. The Prince's wind needle entered cleanly beneath the ribs. The treacherous Knight made no indication that he was fatally wounded, he simply smiled as Wales felt his insides turning cold. The Prince looked down. The Griffin Knight's sword had been plunged through his chest. A cold sense of detachment took hold. It seemed he had miscalculated, Wardes' features rippled once more, of course his assassin would have no regard for his own well being, he was already long gone.

A faint buzzing filled the air as the wind duplicate began to come apart, the damage from Wales' needle strike had been too much for it. Static crackled across the false Wardes. Lucane, realizing what was about to happen, grabbed hold of the construct and tried to break its death grip on his Prince. It was no use, it would use the last of its strength to hold on and ensure that Wales died as intended. A glint of dull gray severed one of the constructs hands, Kino shouted out as he tackled the wind duplicate, driving it away from Wales just as it exploded in a discharge of lightning that threw the Prince from his feet and left stars swimming before his eyes.

When his vision cleared again, he found himself laid out flat on the cold stone floor. His hearing distorted as if listening to voice underwater. He tried to take a breath but it felt terribly thin and ragged.

"It pierced his lung!" A voice shouted at his side, Wales had to struggle to hear it. Crouching over him, Lucane, the right side of his face covered in burns, was chanting fervently, his wand held to Wales' chest. Wales blinked, his vision going in and out of focus. He felt his lips move as if under the control of someone else. He was trying to say something, but even he wasn't sure what.

"Wales!" Another distant cry, high pitched and feminine. He blinked again and suddenly two women were standing over him, both beautiful. One was chestnut haired with hazel brown eyes, she squeezed his left hand tightly, shaking her head from side to side as tears spilled down her cheeks. The other, dark haired and pale skinned stood over her protectively, her expression a mask of caution and worry. No, it wasn't two women, just one, Asuna and her husband Kirito. Wales looked at his hand cupped in Asuna's own, it was covered in blood, his blood. That was right, Wardes was an assassin . . . Wardes had killed him.

Other's arrived, the fortress healers, setting down their bags and going swiftly to work. It was strange, he thought it would hurt more to be run through. "He's going into cardiac arrest!" One of the healers shouted.

"I'm going to force the blood to keep flowing, can you seal the wound?"

"On it!"

Past the healers he saw Kino, standing with his right hand clutch to his left arm. His entire left side was covered in faint burns as if he had been scalded. Even his heavy jacket had been blackened by its run in with the dying wind construct. Kino stared right into his eyes, expression like he was in a waking nightmare. Caramella was at Kino's side a moment later, grabbing him and forcing him to look away.

Things grew distant and cold, Wales wasn't sure if he was seeing, or simply seeing things. The healers shouted desperately to one another. "I've got the wound sealed, but his heart won't start. Compress on three!"

"Prince Wales! Can you hear me?" One of the healers asked, the man grabbed hold of his head and looked into his eyes. "He's blacking out! Do something!"

"He's lost a lot of blood and he only has the one lung."

Kirito was shaking one of the healers now, offering the man a small vial. Wales wasn't sure if had been carrying it this whole time or had left at some point to retrieve it. The healers looked unsure, but seemed ready to accept when Wales' father arrived. The King took one look at his son, face contorting in horror, then grief, and at last rage. He spun around, brandishing his staff at Asuna and Kirito.

No, this wasn't their fault. Lucane stepped between the King and the Faeries trying to explain what happened no doubt. His father would have none of it, was already pushing the Knight aside and . . . Did Caramella just punch his father? Yes, he must be hallucinating, maybe he was already dead.

If this was dying. If this was death. Then he had to wonder why people feared it. When he was a child he'd thought it would be something frightening, but really, he was just afraid of the pain. The world going dark around you wasn't so bad. Your senses growing distant wasn't so bad. It was okay. Yes, it was okay. This would be for the best.

The healers had backed away now, giving Kirito room to lean over him, long hair haloing his face. Kirito, the Black Swordsman, Lady Asuna's husband, Asuna's true love. 'Please . . . both of you . . . please live . . . do what I can't do . . . please live and be with one another . . . '

The world was almost black as Kirito pulled open the vial with his teeth and held it to Wales' lips. A single drop swelled at the neck of the vial, turning to pure crystal as it fell past his lips. And then Wales was reborn into a world of pain and light.


	53. Arrun Parallel Stories: OH,YE Pt 1

Authord Note: So here it is. I'm actually rather honored to post these two snips as they were written by a friend of mine for inclusion in Halkegenia Online and are to be considered side stories and fully linked to the main Halk Online Story. Apparently Halkegenia really needs a Saito. Fortunately, this time they got the Saito they _need_ rather than the one a Harem Comedy _deserves_.

(Special Space Cookies if you know this Saito within SAO canon!)

Arrun Parallel Stories: Old Heart Young Eyes Pt 1

**Old Heart, Young Eyes**

By LGear

"Saitou, where should I place these?"

The young-looking Sylph whose name was called looked up from the sack he was loading to the one who had gotten his attention, another young, male Sylph waving a stack of notes.

"Those go to the counter by your left, past herbal medicine. Give them to Levi-san if she's there." Saitou replied, each word clearly pronounced to make up for his boyish voice's lack of volume.

"Dan, it's Shoichi-sensei!" Another voice, deeper this time, chided the now running younger Sylph from earlier.

"It's alright Far... Faru..."

"Fairlion." The older-looking male Undine corrected flatly. "I told you that 'Ryo' would be fine if you can't say it right."

Shoichi Saitou let out a small laugh, his characteristic wan smile spreading while he continued to carefully load his pack with clothing. "I wish you'd tell me your real name, 'Ryo' doesn't suit your image."

"I'd like to keep using this name as long as I can. Not everyone uses their real name in this world like you Shoichi-sensei."

An eyebrow was subtly raised at the term Fairlion used. Let the man have his hope, Saitou thought. "And I keep telling you it's alright to drop the 'sensei'."

Saitou took the two ends of rope wrapped at the mouth of the sack, and slowly pulled them to close the opening. He stood with the sack in hand, and turned to face his companion, who was holding a journal in hand. Fairlion scowled.

"Even if just for a short time, we need to set an example to the staff on who's in charge, and that's you." Though stern, the concern in Fairlion's voice was apparent. "The others who have heard of your deeds, including myself, know you deserve to be called with respect. But there will be those who look down on you simply because you look like a young rookie player. They need to be reminded of the hierarchy here."

Saitou gazed up with a neutral expression at the elder-looking Undine, before his wan smile returned, an amused scoff escaping from his lips.

"I did not come to this world to earn respect. I'm just doing what I can to help. Besides," Saitou gently patted Fairlion's shoulder, even though the latter's shoulder was a head higher than the former's. "You'll be in charge of this 'hierarchy' while I'm gone. I'd rather they give their utmost respect for the person who'll take care of them in the meantime."

Fairlion sighed wearily. "To be honest, I'd rather much join you in Arrun on the World Tree Raid than be stuck here."

Saitou simply gave the Undine's shoulder a gentle squeeze. "I'd love to have you come too. But you'll be doing more good here than there."

*Bong*, the dull, distant dirge of a bell echoed all throughout the room, the signal to usher in the day's noontime.

"I must be going then Ryo-kun. I'll leave the clinic in your hands."

"Take care Shoichi-sensei, and don't take any chances."

Saitou nodded in reply with his usual smile, before he hoisted the sack over his shoulders with his left hand, then finally stepping out the clinic's wooden door and into the open district in the heart of Sylvain, the Sylph Capital of Alfheim.

The earlier discussion with 'Ryo-kun' occupied Saitou's mind as he walked briskly along Sylvain's streets. Logically, it was no real concern of his whatever people called him, and he often let them give him whatever name they were comfortable with. Old traditions and the stigma behind them die hard however, and all the people calling him by a respectable honorific - 'sensei ', doctor - reminded Saitou of what he truly was.

He passed by a glass facade, and took the time to gaze at himself. The reflection on the glass was that of a young Sylph, resembling an average 14 to 15-year old teenager. Unkempt olive-green hair topped a randomly-generated face with the standard pointed elf ears that could be considered "passable" as far as Alfheim Online's standard of beauty went. Dressed in a light green jacket with long pants, his appearance was unremarkable compared to the other players in Sylvain. Yet as he took in the sight shown by the glass, Saitou's sense of astonishment returned to him, as it had done unfailingly many times before.

Until the Sword Art Online, or SAO, incident took hold of the news like wildfire two years before, Shoichi Saitou had never had an interest in video games, let alone known about Virtual Reality and Full Dive technology. Computers were not a foreign concept to him having used them for work, but the idea of playing games with them had never appealed to him, finding the concept quaint. When news about SAO hit, Saitou had asked his daughter and caretaker Kio to clarify the news for him, as he could not understand what the news meant by people dying in what was a mere video game.

As Kio explained the nature of SAO, NerveGears and the Full Dive System, the "Death Game" where getting killed in the game meant death in the real world, a morbid curiosity sprung from within Saitou. A technology where you not only played a character, but became the character in body and soul, inhabiting a form so different from your own? Where the limitations of your physical body were discarded, and the only limits were your mind? Even as the horror of the 10,000 SAO victims dawned upon him, a part of him grew ever more interested by that world of possibility that Full Dive promised. He immediately knew the source of his fascination: The man known as Shoichi Saitou was in the twilight of his life.

The doctors, many his former students, said he had two years at most, three if he was lucky. There was no cure for a condition such as this, that which afflicts all of mankind no matter their fame or stature, the human ailment known as aging. There was no regret in him, nor lingering promises unfulfilled, for Saitou had done everything he ever wanted in life with pride, serving as a medical doctor for most of his career. He had lived these past 80 years with purpose and meaning, and so all that was left was to await his end blissfully. It was this waiting in limbo that was most agonizing, that empty period between life and death where nothing he did seemed to matter anymore in the face of his impending doom. With each passing day, that urge to simply do something gnawed at him continuously, yet his frail body would not allow him to do more than the simplest of tasks, coughing heavily at even the smallest acts. Those were his days spent in frustration as the universe would not even give him the benefit of ending his own life on his own terms.

A pinging chime brought Saitou back to his senses, now standing in front of one of two elevators located by the lobby inside Sylvain's center spire. How long he had walked with his thoughts he didn't know, but he had gotten here safely at least. He softly slapped his cheeks with his hands, reminding himself that he should reminisce at a safer place, lest his absent-mindedness get the better of him again. He stepped inside the elevator cab, before its doors closed and he felt the slight tug of force that signaled his ascent.

He had shocked his daughter on New Year's over a month ago when he had asked her to buy him a NerveGear, prompting a panicked correction telling him that the potentially deadly NerveGear had been surpassed by the much safer AmuSphere. After they bought the necessary hardware, he consulted his favorite granddaughter Nanami on what software he should get, and her suggestion came fast: the VRMMO game known as Alfheim Online, or ALO, set in a world of fantasy and magic, and currently the most popular game on the market. Then he read what was written on the game case, and his eyes instantly fell on the words that cemented his decision to play.

'You can fly!'

He may be in the waning years of his life, but Saitou would be damned if he didn't try something new, something exciting before departing this world, his last defiant hurrah against this limbo he was stuck in. The ability to fly with your own wings? He'd be a fool not to try it at least once.

"Link Start."

His very first sensation of a full dive was a disorienting affair, and for a while he felt nauseous, queasy, unsettled as a mass of rainbow colors and geometric shapes washed over his vision. He then found himself in a vacant room with rings of glowing light, and a disembodied female voice welcomed him to the game.

[Please choose a name and password]

His granddaughter had warned him to never use his real name, but at this point he thought to himself, did it matter? His real name appeared on the floating screen in front of him, and he entered a password before he pressed the ethereal button to commit.

[Please choose one of the nine races.]

Nine people appeared out of mid air, standing stoically still as mannequins with their empty expressions. These must be the races of Alfheim I was told, Saitou deduced, looking at each one's differing features, with their short, written descriptions appearing on a floating panel by their feet. But his mind was made up the moment the avatars appeared, and he cycled the avatars until his selection was in front of him, an avatar with elven ears and green wings.

[You selected the Sylphs, is this correct?]

He confirmed with no hesitation. He'd always liked the color green, and Nanami had told him that the Sylphs were masters of the air.

After answering no to a couple of further questions regarding his character appearance and method of payment, Saitou found himself surrounded by a bright glowing light, and the electronic female voice greeted him for the last time.

[You will now be transported to the Sylph home territory. Good Luck!]

Then he fell. Directly beneath him, stood five massive green spires with an entire large town at their bases.

For the first time in a long while, he felt exhilaration, and a slight tinge of fear, as he descended upon the wide open observation platform atop Sylvain's central spire. His feet now on firm ground, he opened his eyes, and gasped.

Clear blue skies expanded in all directions above him, with only the occasional cloud in sight, and the blazing sun bringing out the vibrant green of the vast open fields beneath him. Snow-capped mountains rose majestically in the distance. And bridging the Heavens and the Earth, the gigantic centerpiece of this world known as ALfheim, the World Tree, whose canopy reached above the highest clouds. To think that a virtual panorama could be this majestic...

There were views like this in real life he admitted, like when his family had brought him on a trip to the Tokyo Sky Tree. He had been on a wheelchair at the time though, barely able to enjoy the view due to the unceasing aches and pains that plagued his body. But here at the highest point in Sylvain, in this realm called Alfheim, he stood on his own two feet, free of the pain that his real body possessed.

He felt free.

It was this exact feeling that came upon him once again in the present as he stepped out of the elevator once more unto the observation platform. He did not have long to admire the view however.

"SAITOU, OVER HERE!"

He warmly smiled at the sweet female voice that called to him, belonging to a young female Sylph. The sound of ringing chimes following with her every step. They embraced briefly, before Saitou took the young girl by her shoulders.

"I'm sorry I'm late Et-chan."

A pout formed on the girl's face, eliciting a soft chuckle from Saitou. "I told you it's Eterne!"

"Honestly you people should just pick names that are easier to say."

"That's not my fault now is it Saitou?"

Saitou laughed off her reply. "Forgive my age."

He looked over the young girl standing in front of him, a Sylph that looked to be in her teens. She had blue hair tied into a braid neatly wrapped behind her head, held together by decorative pins topped by white flowers. Her pearly white kimono coupled with a light green hakama resembled those worn by shrine priestesses, but outlined with dark green vine and leaf-like shapes. On her back was a golden ringed staff, a Buddhist shakujo, its six loose rings sweetly tinkled against each other when she moved. She looked more regal than when they first met in Sylvain, but underneath that royal appearance was the same cute 16-year old Nanami that he loved. Or rather, Lumis Eterne, as she preferred to be called here.

Furuya Nanami, daughter of Kio, had been waiting for him when he first logged-on in ALO weeks ago, having promised to show him the ropes, teach him the rules of the game. After receiving a stern scolding from his granddaughter on why he had used his real name, he was surprised when she started calling him "Saitou" instead of "Ojii-san" as was customary, whereas she explained that calling people by their real world names and titles was bad etiquette in the game world. Since Saitou had been foolish enough to use his real name, Nanami, or "Lumis Eterne", would just have to call him by his real life name instead.

"It'd be easier for both of us to play if no one knows you're my grandfather." Eterne had explained that first time, her indignant embarrassment apparent. Considering that Saitou had picked up this game to escape from his age, he agreed to the arrangement easily, and soon being called "Saitou" by his granddaughter felt as natural as though she'd been doing so her entire life.

Returning again to the present, small detail nagged at Saitou, and his eyes slowly scanned the observation platform, which was devoid of people asides from himself and Eterne.

"I was told there would be three of us travelling to Arrun today." Saitou asked.

"We're waiting for him right now." Her sandals tapped the ground in a steady rhythm, a sure sign of her impatience. "He's late!"

"Someone you know?" Saitou asked, as Eterne only acted as such towards people she was familiar with.

"For a while." Eterne sighed. "We've been assigned to the same hunting group for the past three days. I'm supposed to stick with him till we get to Arrun."

Saitou frowned at the mention of 'hunting'. It was a word he'd rather not have heard from her. "I still don't approve what you're doing, Nanami." He emphasized her real name, making the young girl stiffen. "Putting yourself in harm's way to kill monsters. This isn't a game anymore."

Eterne looked somber, her childish exuberance gone. "I understand that. I know." Her voice never wavered. "You already know my answer, -Saitou-."

The indignant way that his granddaughter used his name made him flinch, but then she was right; they had already argued over this point before, and there was nothing to gain rehashing the same points, not with how stubborn the both of them could be. Saitou sighed in resignation.

"It's an old man's right to be worried about his granddaughter." He sloppily sat down by the raised steps leading to the elevator. "Especially one he hasn't seen in three days."

Truth be told he hadn't intended for that to sound like a guilt trip, but his intention worked anyway as Eterne gingerly sat beside him laughing nervously.

"Sorry for that," Eterne apologized sheepishly. "It did get kind of busy there with the mobs."

Saitou still felt conflicted over this matter with Eterne, even if he had chosen to be silent about it. Even if his granddaughter had been an experienced ALO player, the fact remained that she was young and inexperienced in matters of life and death. Despite Eterne's assurances that she hardly saw direct combat herself, just knowing that she had volunteered to face the now all too real dangers of this world, where she would expose herself to the sight of real, bloody death, was something he still could not approve. On the other hand, if he was in her shoes... he would have done the same.

"Have they been giving you trouble?" Saitou asked almost hesitantly, not wanting to sound like he was truly interested in hearing about the dangers Eterne had faced, which only made him more anxious.

Eterne made a small nod. "Some of the nastier hordes did, especially down south with the Caustic Drakes yesterday."

Saitou shivered at the mention of those mobs; their bodies exploded into a toxic cloud upon death, made worse by their attack habits consisting of grabbing someone at high speed and chomping on them. Fighting them in close combat was suicidal, yet they had the speed to give even ranged mages trouble. They had been bad enough ingame, but now...

"And you've been fighting such dangerous creatures..." His horror was clearly audible.

"Not me! You know I stay at the back." Eterne frantically assured with a nervous laugh. "Though when our hunting group ran into them we lacked swordsmen, and none of us mages wanted to be bait! Good thing my partner volunteered, saying he had experience with MPK."

"MPK?"

"Ah, Monster Player Killing. You, uhm..." Eterne paused, mulling over her words. It was a consideration she made when explaining how the game worked to him, one he was thankful for. Too many times other players would speak to him in jargon he couldn't understand, sometimes explaining said terms with other unfamiliar gaming terms. "... ah, get a monster's attention, then you lure them to players you don't like and hope they kill each other."

A realization flashed across Saitou's face at this, and his face grew dim. "So your partner did this, this MPK here-"

"Of course not!" Eterne sharply denied. "He did it back before the transition! He wouldn't dare do that here!" Her outburst was followed by her eyes shifting though. "At least I think so, he really doesn't look the type."

He could give his granddaughter the benefit of a doubt at the least. "Pardon me for jumping to conclusions."

"It's not like I don't understand where you're coming from Saitou." Eterne added. "But the hunter team wouldn't accept bad guys, and my partner really doesn't look like one." She gave out a weak scoff. "Not when he can't even fly without a controller. Honestly."

The distinctive ping of the elevator caught Saitou's and Eterne's attention. The doors opened to reveal a young male Sylph lugging a small knapsack on his back, and clearly out of breath. The amusement on Eterne's face told Saitou everything he needed to know as they both stood up.

"Speaking of the devil." Eterne laughed, then turned to greet the newcomer. "You haven't forgotten anything else I hope?"

"I got everything I needed! All good!" The young boy managed between breaths, raising a thumbs-up. The boy then turned to look at Saitou with a curious eye.

"So, is this him?"

"It's not 'him' to you," Eterne scolded, making the young boy jump a step back in panicked fear. "It's Saitou-san!"

"It's alright, no need for that." Saitou gently squeezed his granddaughter's shoulder, making her sigh in resignation lest she scare the poor boy some more. "If you could introduce us please."

Eterne cleared her throat, then gestured to Saitou. "This is Saitou, who we'll be accompanying to Arrun. He's a long-time friend, so be nice to him okay?"

Saitou gave the nervous boy a polite bow. "I'm Saitou, pleased to make your acquaintance."

Eterne turned to the boy. "And this is Recon, my temporary partner."

The boy straightened up and reciprocated his bow, with a hand offered to him. "It's nice to meet you!"

Saitou took the hand extended to him, giving it a firm shake. The lime-haired boy with droopy ears seemed quite jumpy, and a bit unsettled. Whether he was nervous due to the trip or from something else he didn't know, but at least he didn't give off the impression of someone dubious. Not with the way his granddaughter treated him anyhow. Saitou respectfully kept his head lowered.

"Thank you for taking care of Et-chan for the past week."

"Ah, don't mind." Recon bashfully replied, but then his expression turned curious. "Et-chan?"

This earned Recon a frown from the woman concerned. "You're not allowed to call me that, understood?"

"R-right!"

Saitou smiled as he let go and straightened himself out, stretching his arms to the sky. "We'd better depart now, and reach Arrun before it gets dark."

He closed his eyes, and then breathed deeply before he let his mind concentrate on an imaginary point at his back, between his collarbones. That familiar sensation of his wings deploying was still a wonder to him even after all this time. Like his body reaching out to attain his desire to fly. He looked over his shoulder to see his translucent green wings, and made them flap a bit, testing out their feel.

Eterne and Recon had also materialized their emerald wings, making similar experimental flapping motions. Curiously the young boy took out something from his pocket, a palm-sized object whose rough, beige coloration Saitou quickly identified as a tooth, probably from some mob. Recon gripped the object with his left hand and made some small movements with it, the boy's mind seemingly focused on it even as the three of them made their way to the runway at the edge of the tower.

He must have been observing the boy too intently, because the next moment Recon had looked at him with a mild look of surprise. "Sorry you had to see that. I still can't fly without a controller you see." Recon replied timidly, as though what he was doing was a shameful thing.

"I thought flight controllers can't be used anymore?" Saitou questioned. The transition had made lots of things inaccessible to players, including the flight controllers that allowed players to control their ability to fly. Saitou had been fortunate enough to have learned to use his wings without the controller, an act known in the game as "voluntary flight", mainly due to Nanami's drill-instructor like persistence in training him along with his own drive to do so. He had heard that some players had become afraid to fly following the transition, unable to use their controllers; many more had scrambled to teach themselves voluntary flight, and others who had mastered it had taken it upon themselves to teach them how.

"That's a dummy." Eterne cut in to explain. "Some players found they can learn voluntary flight faster if they had an object that resembled the flight controller to hold on to, some psychological stuff I can't remember." She shrugged. They finally stopped at the edge of the wide runway jutting out of the central viewing platform.

Soft tinkling sounds chimed out from Eterne, who now held her staff straight up with her right hand.

"I'll be casting the spell now, shouldn't take long." Eterne informed, receiving nods from Saitou and Recon. She held the staff in front of her with both hands, and drove it straight to the ground, its rings chimed loudly as it struck. Green light shone from around her feet bathing her in an olive hue, words made of yellow light floating around her, as she closed her eyes and begun the recitation.

"Boreas, Notus, Austru..."

Each word's diction was loud and clear despite the haste with which she spoke, never once missing a beat. Her voice seemed to echo into the air around them, making the atmosphere vibrate with a chilling energy that sent shivers down Saitou's spine. He had been amazed at how magic was portrayed in ALO the first time he saw the floating runes, but seeing it live in reality, with this visceral assault on his senses. It was exhilarating, mesmerizing, watching his granddaughter invoke such feats of wonder. He watched with amazement while Eterne continued her chant, until she had dictated 20 words.

"...Savaris, Letra!"

At the last word she struck the ground with her staff once more, one of its six chiming rings now glowed with a bright green aura.

"Boreas, Notus, Austru, Undal..."

She repeated the mantra, and then once again struck the ground when she finished, before repeating the process one last time.

"... Milito, Savaris, Letra!"

She held the staff horizontally, raised it high to the air with its three glowing rings, and cried out with an empowered voice:

"Promitto!"

A flurry of a thousand lights resembling miniature doves emerged from the staff and engulfed the three, before vanishing into glowing green particles.

Saitou peered over his shoulder at the result of the spectacle: his wings were larger, glowing with a rainbow-colored aura that pulsed across them.

"It's the first time I've seen this spell!" Recon exclaimed with much awe, his wings displaying the same effects. "This is the highest-level Sylph speed buff, right?"

"Uhn, Accelerant Gale." Eterne cheerfully declared the spell's name with much pride, her rainbow wings flapping excitedly. A spell that forcefully makes a Faerie fly faster than normal, one of the powerful support spells at Eterne's disposal. A spell that Saitou was glad to have experienced before, he'd certainly been as excited as the young boy Recon the first time she had it cast on him.

"I just wish your attack spells were on the same level Eterne-san, I always do all the fighting!"

"Don't whine now."Eterne sighed with a hint of annoyance. "You do fine with all the buffs I give you!" She then faced Recon, her expression serious. "The spell lasts 10 minutes or until you release your wings. But if you start feeling unwell you tell me alright?"

"It's only a straight flight, I should be fine-"

"Recon!"

"Y-yes, I'll do that!"

Saitou somehow felt as though his granddaughter was somehow mothering the young boy, and the thought brought a smile to his face.

"We should get flying now both of you, lest we waste this spell."

Not even waiting for their reply, Saitou stepped off of the ledge, stretched out his wings, and let the skies claim him.


	54. Arrun Parallel Stories: OH,YE Pt 2

Author Note: Yeah, it's me again, just reminding people to carefully include their feedback for these chapters under their appropriate chapter review tab so that I can give feedback to my friend.

Sincerely, the Author.

Arrun Parallel Stories: Old Heart Young Eyes Pt 2

**Young Heart, Fiery Eyes**

By LGear

"Recon, we do this as always. Be careful now!"

"Y-yes! L-leave it to me!" With fear evident in his voice, Recon flapped his wings and jetted straight for the enemy in front of them; a large sickly-pale flying reptile the size of a bus, its hide covered in massive boils, warts, and other repugnant abscesses. It was a Caustic Dragon, the largest version of the damnable reptilian mobs that explode into poisonous clouds on death, making them one of her most hated mobs to face. Eterne turned to the young man beside her.

"Saitou, Recon is good as bait, but I'd rather not count on him alone. Can you help him to distract it?" the young maiden requested seriously. The man nodded.

"Understood." Saitou replied as though he was just asked to fetch something from the market. Eterne watched wordlessly as Saitou flew off to meet the roaring beast alongside Recon.

Even after all this time it felt strange to the young girl Furuya Nanami - known in this world as Lumis Eterne - to be ordering Saitou around. Despite the young man's boyish looks, the real Shoichi Saitou was five times her age and yet she was ordering him around so casually. On the other hand, Saitou had been begging to feel useful even back then, no matter how menial or demanding. He had asked her to not hold back in asking him for anything, regardless of how dangerous it was. She still hesitated at times, but this particular task was one they had done lots of times together now, and thus was one she was comfortable giving instructions for.

_'Since when does one become comfortable giving orders to distract a deadly dragon with their lives on the line?!'_ Eterne thought, then shook it off. This was no time for idle thought.

"Let's go, Paramita." Eterne whispered, grabbing the golden staff whose name she had invoked with both her hands. She shook the staff, the twinkle of its six rings resounding in the air, and the characteristic green glow of her magical energies shone.

"Su Shal Leristo-"

She recited the string of words quickly as she'd done countless times before, to the point where her lips seemed to move on their own without thinking, without mistake. With each word the electrifying torrent of energy welled up within her, until she reached the last words.

"...Torus Horshal!"

That power within surged out of her into her staff, through its shaft, and gathered on one of its six rings, making it glow a bright blue. Eterne watched the unfolding battle far away, the pale Dragon bellowing columns of toxic smoke at her two companions while they nimbly danced around it. To her horror a stray cloud nearly consumed Saitou, but he deftly dodged it before it could hit. She bit her lip; she had a job to finish, and the faster she could finish, the quicker they could end this. Eterne shook the staff again, then repeated the recital.

"Su Shal Leristo-"

A loud roar pierced the air, sending shivers down her spine. She tuned it out with all her concentration.

_'Focus on your chant, focus on your chant-'_

Another roar shook her, but this time seemed much too close for comfort. Every inch of her body screamed at her being.

_'It can't be-'_

Her eyes opened to the view of a wide-open maw with rows of sharp teeth bearing down upon her.

"MOVE!"

A force suddenly yanked her leftward like a rag doll, her trailing feet barely missed by the Dragon's snapping jaws, before she was thrown further away. The entire world spun around her as she tumbled, up becoming down and down becoming side; green forests and orange and blue sky rapidly interchanging in a dizzying spiral. Months of practice kicked in, and with the flailing of arms and a hard tug of her wings she jolted to a stop, righting herself into position. Her brain still felt like it was revolving in place, but her unsteady eyes found their mark in the distance: the boy in yellow garb who now stared down at the dragon, as the latter reared its head and then blew forth a massive stream of green gas.

"BURST!"

Recon cried out, and the glowing green orb in his right hand – a pre-cast spell – detonated with a loud shrill into a violent hurricane that clashed with the approaching green gas, dispersing it in all directions including back at the dragon, who choked in its own fumes.

"Eterne-san!" The young boy approached quickly, his voice concerned. Eterne didn't need to hear to know his question.

"Your save was a bit hard, but I'm alright." She waved him off, her eyes still on their target. Far behind the dragon, Saitou glowed with the light of floating yellow runes, before a barrage of bright yellow stakes struck the dragon, making it roar in pain. It's attention thus taken, the Dragon blew away the green fumes with a mighty flap of its wings, and sped towards the other Sylph.

"Go help Saitou now, I'll finish this fast!" She commanded, and once more Recon flew off to rejoin the fight. Only when he was out of sight did she allow herself to shiver and exhale.

'Damnit Nanami, you should've paid more attention!' She berated to herself, clutching her staff with her two shivering hands. Her chest felt like it could burst open any moment with how fast it was beating, and her breath was harried and shallow. As adept as Recon was at distraction, errant behaviors like the Dragon attacking her was still a possibility, yet it had slipped her mind for a second in her haste. Her eyes wandered to watch the battle once again, the dragon exchanging toxic gases against Recon's dispersing Gust spell and Saitou's Wind Blades attack. Both of them flitted and zoomed past and around the now enraged creature at speed, keeping their distance from it's snapping jaws.

Observing them in action, a stray thought occurred to Eterne that moment.

"He's quite agile isn't he?" She raggedly voiced to no one in particular, before following Recon once more. For someone who flew using a dummy controller, Recon keeping up with Saitou in their nimble maneuvers was a feat in and of itself. For some reason, that thought alone did much in placating her previously unnerved spirit.

_'C'mon Nanami, we have a job to do!'_

She took a deep breath, filling her lungs as much as she dared, then exhaled greatly. She glanced at the rings on her staff, one of them still glowing. Her staff jingled once more, her chants much faster now.

"Su Shal Leristo-"

The battle was pushed out of her mind with each chant, with each repetition of recital and ringing her staff, with each ring that glowed. Five times more did this ritual transpire.

"...Sleipa Torus Horshal!"

At last, six rings glowed with a bluish hue. She kept the now glowing staff still in her left hand, the magical aura around her remaining. She stretched forth her right hand, and began to chant another spell.

"Talus, Mita, Sol!"

With a swipe of her hand a loud whistle pinged all around her, the signal to her companions who continued to distract the creature. At once, both flew at speed towards her with the dragon fast trailing behind them, eagerly trying to catch up, biting with its maw lined with razor-sharp teeth.

'Don't think about those!' Eterne screamed to herself, and pointed the glowing staff's length straight towards the approaching dragon. She glared at the speeding creature, keeping it in focus. The last time it had approached her she was unprepared. Not anymore.

"Visualize the formation, visualize, visualize..." she repeatedly whispered like a mantra. Gradually, the sky, the ground, the air around her, even Recon and Saitou, vanished from her cognition, until all that was left was the dragon and the glowing staff in front of her.

_'Not yet, visualize, not yet, visualize...'_

Each beat of her heart saw the dragon closing in ever nearer to her staff meter by meter, inch by inch.

Then it opened its mouth. Eterne cried out.

"PROMITTO!"

The deafening bang that followed sounded like a car crash, the sickening crunch of bone and flesh smashing into a solid object. Where it expected to devour a helpless girl, the Dragon instead found a flat barrier of shimmering blue light shaped as a hexagon. After a brief stupor, it roared and flailed against the ethereal wall that would not budge, and when it tried to back up, it found it could not, for five more walls pressed upon it from all sides of its body. It was trapped, and had nowhere to go.

Eterne didn't remember when she had winced, but she slowly opened her eyes to the sight of the trapped dragon before her. She exhaled heavily as though she breathed out a lifetime of air, and slowly floated far away from the dragon till she was a fair distance away, reveling in her handiwork. The Hexa Defensor spell was a powerful defensive magic that formed a hexagonal wall, near-impenetrable to everything. However, only a single shield could be formed per cast, so its use was normally limited to narrow corridors like dungeons to restrict mob and player movement.

The Caustic Dragon's entrapment was a result of Eterne's staff, the Enlightened Staff Paramita, which resembled a shakujo, like those used by Buddhist monks. As a Legendary item, it was imbued with the Extra Ability: Aether Memory, which allows it to store a single magic spell within one of its six rings for up to 6 minutes. Up to six spells could be stored as a result, which can be cast individually or simultaneously. It was this ability that Eterne used to cast six barriers at once to cage the now snarling dragon.

"That's a nice trap Et-chan." Saitou floated beside her, laying a reassuring hand on her head, which did much to relieve her tension.

"As expected of our Barrier Maiden!" Recon exclaimed with a hint of awe between breaths, to which Eterne weakly laughed at the mention of her other title. Kekkai Miko, or Barrier Maiden, a nickname born from the way she dressed up like a shrine maiden, and for her specialization in barrier and defense magic, so much so that she had maxed out every defensive magic available in Alfheim Online save for the Undine-specific high-level spells.

"Then again Eterne-san, you could save us having to bait if you just had bind magic to use," Recon suggested, and for once Eterne could only scowl sheepishly in reply. Perhaps a bit too specialized in defensive magic for her to use anything else, save a handful of support buffs and basic level offensive magic. Which was why...

"Recon, if you please," Eterne requested urgently, casting Recon a commanding gaze. Recon visibly gulped at the request, but only nodded silently as he began casting a spell. When he finished his 16-word string, a large flaming sword made up of dark, swirling energies manifested from the steel dagger in his right hand - the Dark Magic spell Malignant Edge, a sword that would dissipate on hit in exchange for massive damage. Eterne would have preferred the use of wide-area destruction magic to destroy the creature through her shields, but none of them present had anything like that, and Recon had the best offensive spells that could quickly deal a killing blow through the gaps of her shields.

Recon dashed up high above the dragon, retracting his blazing sword arm behind his back, then with a loud cry, charged towards the dragon's neck.

"TORYAAAAAAH-"

Erupting dark energies sundered scale, flesh and bone, and the Dragon's head parted from its body, seemingly following its fast-retreating killer down to earth. Seconds later, the boils throughout the Dragon's severed head and body ballooned into massive spheres of translucent flesh, before the entire being exploded, scattering thick mists of toxic vapor into the air that lingered for a few moments more.

"Good job Recon!" Eterne beamed, waving to the young man returning from his kill while he sheathed his dagger.

"Thanks-" Recon's reply was cut off by a cough.

"Recon-kun, you alright?" Saitou's concern mirrored what Eterne was just about to say.

"Ah, don't mind." Recon coughed out again. "It's just my vertigo acting... up...-"

Recon's wings vanished at that moment, and Eterne watched in wide-eyed horror as the boy fell.

"RECON!"

She had barely screamed before Saitou quickly grabbed the falling boy, and slowly carried him down to earth. Recon was soaked in sweat, more so than in any other occasion where they had fought, his face contorted in pain gasping for air. Saitou laid the boy down beside a tree, and immediately raised his arms to cast a spell.

"Curatio, mistel..."

Eterne had heard these familiar words before. She watched the familiar white glow that surrounded Recon, and its following disintegration into millions of balls of light that floated up into the air to vanish. Recon breathed slowly now, the pain on his face gone, much to Eterne's relief.

_'The Antivenin spell,'_ She mused, while she took out a handkerchief from a pocket and began to wipe the sweat from Recon, who had opened his eyes once again.

"You should be fine now Recon-kun," Saitou diagnosed slowly. "But the poison still took a toll on your body. I'd advise resting for now."

"Y-yes." Recon answered weakly, which made Eterne sigh in relief. Her prior concern however had been replaced by something less caring.

"Recon, mind explaining to me how you got poisoned?" She questioned with a piercing glare, her sweet voice carrying a dagger's edge to it. If Recon could sink into the tree behind him, he would.

"I... ran out of Poison Resist Potions," He laughed nervously. Eterne could feel her veins pop at the statement: part of Recon's success at luring away Caustic-type mobs was due to his having stocked a unusually large supply of Poison Resist Potions for whatever reason. He had always drank them before they engaged Caustic-types- now that she thought about it, she didn't remember him taking one before this fight.

"Recoooon-" Eterne drawled with as much annoyance as she could direct at the resting boy, causing him to flinch. "And why did you not stock on them before we left?!"

"I tried, but the alchemist said he was out of stock!" Recon explained. "I figured I could get some once we got to Arrun." He ended with yet more nervous laughter. Two hands squeezed hard on Recon's face and made him face Eterne's scowl.

"You're lucky Saitou had an Antivenin spell for that!" The young girl chided, her voice cutting an imposing tone that made her thought unmistakable. "I told you to let me know if you can take a risk! Had I known I wouldn't have sent you finish that Dragon!"

Recon tried to return her gaze. "But if I hadn't that Dragon would still be alive-"

"Shut up!" Eterne's cry cut him off. She tried to suppress her hands that were now trembling with... what, she wondered? Anger? Worry? Frustration? Fear? All of them? A moment of silence passed between them, her downcast eyes looking at the ground but not seeing anything.

"We could have run, left it in the dust. My shields aren't that weak…" Eterne asserted weakly, barely maintaining the steel in her voice. Her eyes briefly squeezed shut, trying to prevent the tears threatening to spill, before she once again stared at Recon with clear eyes. "I'd rather have that dragon alive than you dead, you understand?"

The last thing the exhausted Eterne expected was to see Recon visibly turn red at that moment and hurriedly avert his gaze while trying to find his words. "I-I-I understand, I'm sorry."

A moment passed in thought, Eterne wondering what had happened, as she looked at Recon, then her hands, then how close she was at him looking too pitifully ad-

She suddenly recoiled, pulling back and letting go of Recon's head like it was on fire. She couldn't see how her face was, but she felt a bit warm right then.

"Good. Grab those potions when we get to Arrun, you got that?" To her credit, her voice hadn't lost its edge, nor its ability to make Recon snap to attention. The sight of him on edge despite his ragged state tugged at Eterne's sense of reason. They were both tired, he more than she. Her face softened at this, and she remembered the words she ought to say to him at the moment, recalling the reason for why he was as exhausted as he was. It was common courtesy after all.

"And Recon, thanks for the save."

Recon relaxed at this. "My pleasure," He replied bashfully, averting his gaze away, a sight that tugged at Eterne's heartstrings for some reason. She shook it off immediately.

"We'll rest for a few minutes till you can recover Recon. Just tell us when you can move again."

"Yes, Eterne-san." Recon tried to salute weakly, before his eyelids finally fell.

A few moments passed with Eterne watching the boy sleep before two arms gently wrapped around her shoulders from behind. She was just about to ask what Saitou was doing, but then he spoke.

"Nanami-chan."

His voice was stern yet concerned, with a bit of anger mixed in. Combined with her real name being called, and she knew what he was thinking. Her face fell as though she was just scolded, and she grabbed one of Saitou's hands softly, her own hands shivering subtly.

"I'm sorry Ojii-san. I was careless back there."

"Careless?" She could tell Saitou was trying to hold back his anger. "You nearly died."

Sensations and memories flashed at Eterne's mind. The warm, pungent smell of the dragon's breath, its gaping maw lined with razor-sharp teeth, that chilling fear that hit her when she realized she couldn't escape it in time. That one moment in her entire life when she felt yet again her inescapable mortality, choking her every judgment, constricting her every move. Yet even now she still stood firm, and grasped Saitou's hand a bit harder.

"If you think this will persuade me, then I'm sorry to disappoint you." She laid down her ultimatum, her voice unwavering. At the very least, her tone should make her intentions to him clear; she didn't want to argue this here.

His soft sigh confirmed that her feelings had reached him. "I'm just glad you're alright Nanami-chan."

She smiled warmly, leaning her head against Saitou's, keeping her eye on the boy sleeping by the tree. "I have reliable people watching over me."

"That's true isn't it?" Saitou agreed. "He's a good kid, I can tell that much. You sure you want to disband when we get to Arrun?"

The question took Eterne aback for a moment. She sighed. "I think he's great at what he does if that's what you're asking. If he wants to stick around with someone like me is up to him."

Eterne wondered why Saitou let out a small laugh at that moment. "I don't think he has much of a choice for the next couple of days. He still needs proper antivenin treatment once we get to Arrun." Her eyes widened at his words.

"But your Antivenin spell-"

"Is imperfect. You know I haven't maxed it out yet."

She now watched Recon with much worry. "Are you sure he'll be alright?"

"Trust me, he'll be fine." Saitou didn't sound too concerned, and Eterne valued his expertise on matters like these. "He also has reliable people watching over him. Like you."

He let Eterne see his small smile, and suddenly she realized what the old man in a teenage body was trying to set up. Eterne sighed in resignation. Well, she wouldn't be joining the World Tree Raid now that's for sure…

Captain Girard de la Sauniere cast a short cantrip, and lit the magelight lantern hanging off a pole standing on the back of his steed, bathing them in a soft orange glow. The sky was violet now, the sun only just retreated behind the horizon, taking its brightness along with it and plunging the world into darkness. He'd have liked to have made it to his destination a few hours earlier in the light, but it wouldn't matter now: Arrun was only a few minutes away once they cleared this hill.

His destination was the largest city inhabited by the race of Firstborns known as the Faeries, the newest immigrants to the country of Tristain who had appeared less than a quinzane ago and had caused all sorts of confusion within the land. While the passing of days had done much to quell said confusion among the people of Tristain, much unease still held sway within the hearts of his fellow countrymen, both noble and commoner alike, at their new neighbors.

It was such unease that had led him to his current mission; leading a detachment of more than 300 commoner soldiers marching behind him and his retinue of twenty-four mages ranging from dot to triangle class from the Germanian border garrisons. The young Captain had been reassigned to establish a permanent presence just outside of Arrun's walls. Apparently the higher ups had gotten wind of suspicious Faerie activity for the past couple of days: hundreds of the enigmatic firstborns had been seen assembling in Arrun from all of the other Faerie cities, armed and combat ready. The Fae themselves had informed the Generals of their movements, explaining that they were assembling a massive raid force to strike at the "mobs" – the new wild beasts that the Fae had brought with them – that nested within the World Tree's massive trunk. Such raid forces had become commonplace the past week all throughout Tristain, as teams of Tristanian soldiers and Fae alike sought to exterminate the deadly mobs that threatened the safety of the country from within. Still, the size of this particular force was unprecedented, and the sudden concentration of thousands of heavily armed Fae in a single venue had alarmed the Generals immensely, a natural product of the paranoia these new Firstborn arrivals invoked.

This detachment was a show of force, a deterrent should the Fae do anything more than what they claimed. Girard shook his head; he wasn't yet familiar enough with the Fae to know if their claim was sincere, but he thought that his detachment was far too small for a force meant to discourage them. From what he had heard down the rumor mill, asides from their natural powers of flight all of the Fae down to the non-combatants were capable of at least dot-level magic, and their seasoned warriors held powers equivalent to line or triangle mages; thousands of such warriors were now converging into the city they were heading to. His paltry force of commoner soldiers, consisting mostly of pikemen and arquebusiers would be of little use in a battle of magic, and his own retinue of mages would be severely outnumbered. He had passionately requested for more troops to be spared for this detachment, but it was expectedly and understandably denied: Tristain still needed the border garrisons at strength afterall, and its standing armies weren't that large to begin with compared to their more… aggressive neighbors.

_'Some show of force. More like a farce,'_ Girard thought grimly, shaking away the thought of what might happen should the Fae decide they didn't like the rightful citizens of this country blessed by the Founder. Such thoughts were banished once the Captain's mount climbed over hill, and his eyes caught sight of what lay beyond. He managed to stifle his own gasp, but not his companion's loud ones.

Even at its brightest, whenever the Summer Festivals would herald a time of great celebration at the capital of Tristania, their largest city at night was still a view of dimly lit roads with scattered limelights spaced between dark expanses, and only the central avenue would glow with the light of a hundred magelights. It wouldn't look as dark once one walked among its roads and alleys, but darkness was only natural come nightfall. The view before Girard now in the dimming twilight was anything but that.

In the distance, the Fae city of Arrun was literally bathed in golden light, as though the entire city itself was glowing, keeping the darkness of the night away from its walls through its sheer radiance. From here, no dim spots could be found, only a myriad of sparkling pinpoints of light shining with the entire gamut of rainbow colors that graced its homes and buildings. Organic, swirling spires taller than even the Royal Palace stood proudly within the city beside the twirling white bark of the World Tree. For a moment, Girard forgot that it was night, entranced as he was by the city's splendor. Hearing about it was one matter, but seeing it with his own eyes was something else entirely.

"I hate to say it, but it's majestic isn't it sir?" The awed voice of Lieutenant Renault Rafale riding beside him stated what everyone else around him likely thought, except for one part.

"Then why say so at all?" Girard chided in jest. His aide puffed his chest.

"I'm a trailblazer sir, I wanted to be the first to say it," Renault joked. "But seriously sir," the younger aid continued, "it makes me wish Tristania spared more lights after dark."

"If you got more petty mages to do lighting duty maybe you will."

"Then that will be my first edict once I become king!"

"Please Lieutenant," Girard waved. "Surely you'd want a goal I can see you achieve within my lifetime."

"Why should I care about your lifetime sir? I'll be living forever."

"Not if I shank you out of your misery first."

Both men broke into small laughter. Small banter it was, but one a now wryly smiling Girard needed after a long trip such as this. There was a reason he had chosen the auburn-haired line mage as his aide after all despite the man's unremarkable record. If any other mage had heard they would be stabbed so callously they'd be offended. Then again, the only reason Renault didn't mind was because his commanding officer had said so.

"To have the fortune to be assigned next to the most beautiful sight in the world, we have such good luck don't we sir?" Renault beamed, unbecoming of someone who had spent the entire afternoon on horseback.

"Don't be so hasty in your judgment Renault," Girard replied, some of his own tiredness creeping into his voice despite his tone in jest. "I'm sure there are more beautiful sights in the world."

"The voice of experience?"

Girard smirked. "I'll let you figure that out, Lieutenant."

They were still at least half an hour's trot away from Arrun's walls, but the Captain already felt the urge to hurry, to get to their designated campsite as fast as humanly possible. Whether it was his newfound appreciation for the place, or his tiredness willing him to seek rest immediately – or perhaps both – Girard couldn't say, but the pace on his horse had subtly quickened, and his retinue followed suit.

It was there to the right of the dim lit road that he first heard the soft, jingling chimes like bells that caught his attention. A few paces later, he came to a stop as the orange glow of his lights shone upon the source of the sound, and that's when he first saw her.

She wore an immaculately white robe with large, oversized sleeves hanging off her arms demurely clasped over the green pleated skirt that reached to her ankles. A white orchid neatly tied her silvery-blue hair into a braid by the nape of her neck, revealing the fair complexion of a delicate teenage face. Her almond-shaped eyes gleamed with expectation, accented by the soft smile of her peach-colored lips. Finally, there were her long, leaf-shaped ears.

Not so long ago, any devout Tristanian would have cried Elf at the sight of such ears, but Girard knew better, given the lady's demure behavior as she turned to watch them, the golden rings on her strangely-shaped staff jingling once more through the silence of the night.

"So this is a Fae." An awestruck Renault spoke from beside him with a hushed tone, echoing the Captain's thoughts. From the expressions and murmurs of the rest of his men behind him, it appeared that the woman in front of him had become the night's hot topic. It was the first time any of them, including the Captain, had personally seen the much reputed creatures after all.

From the woman's approach, it seemed she had been expecting something of them. Just the fact that she didn't have her staff at hand – a mage? – firmly labeled her as a non-threat in Girard's mind, though he still kept his left hand beside his sword wand just in case. She preempted the Captain by bowing towards them, accompanied by more soft jingles.

"A good evening to you sirs." The woman's clear, bell-like voice was very pleasant to the ears, Girard decided. He returned the greeting by taking his feathered hat and placing it over his chest, revealing his rough chestnut brown hair.

"A pleasant evening madame." No reason to not be courteous, especially to such a fine looking lady. "I'm Captain Girard de la Sauniere, of the Tristanian Royal Army. To whom do we owe the pleasure of the Fae's company tonight?"

The Fae woman bowed her head. "Lumis Eterne of the Sylphs. I was wondering if we could trouble you for a ride?" she requested sweetly. "Seeing as we both seem to be headed the same way."

The request baffled the Captain as he returned his hat to his head once more, so he asked the question that troubled him.

"The Fae have wings to fly do they not? You could reach Arrun in less time than we."

The Fae woman sighed. "You are correct, and that would normally be the case. Unfortunately, one of my companions has fallen ill, and so we cannot continue by air."

"Your companions you say?" Girard called the words into question, which prompted the woman to signal behind her with a wave. Two more figures came out of the darkness, two green-haired Fae boys of similar age to the girl. One of them with unruly hair shouldered another boy, a bowl-haired Fae who looked rather pitifully unwell.

"Truly, he does not look well," Renault stated the obvious. "And what malady is your companion suffering from?"

The Fae woman's face fell with concern. "We had an encounter with a Caustic Dragon earlier this afternoon, and my friend was affected the most by its venom. We treated him as best we could, but he does not have the strength to travel far on his own until we can give him proper treatment."

A Caustic Dragon… The Captain had never heard of such a creature before, which could only mean that it was one of the new "mobs" that had arrived along with the Faeries to Tristania. Though the Fae were rumored to be formidable warriors, these "mobs" infesting the land were similarly so, and so presented a threat that couldn't be ignored. It was painfully obvious that the pallid boy they carried was not in the best of conditions to fly.

"Very well," Girard finally consented. "We do not have fine accommodations, but the supply caravan at the back should have some space for you and your friends, is that understood?"

The Fae woman beamed with the brightest smile he had seen in the longest time, before she once again bowed. "Thank you so much sir!" she said with such gratitude that the Captain had to fight the urge to smile himself.

"No need to thank me Ms. Eterne." Girard took a small oak wand from its holster, and uttered the short spell for Throw Voice, before looking beyond the lit line of armed, bewildered men behind him. "Quartermaster," he seemed to be speaking to the wind, "we'll be having three Fae hitching a ride with us, make room in the carriages once you see them!"

A moment later, the wind replied. "Understood Captain!"

Girard turned back to the Fae, who seemed mystified by the exchange. "Well then, we've dallied long enough here. Get on the first carriage that passes by you, the Quartermaster should know what to do."

The Fae woman nodded in understanding. "Once again, thank you very much sir."

Paying only a small nod to the woman's direction, Girard signaled for his distracted Lieutenant to come closer. "Lieutenant, you stay with these Fae and keep watch over them, keep them from trying anything insipid, that understood?" he whispered to the Lieutenant, who seemed much too eager this evening.

"Upon my life sir, I shall perform this duty!" Renault saluted with a shameless grin.

"Lieutenant Statham." Girard then turned to the other mage on horseback to his left, and spoke loudly. "Stay with Lieutenant Renault and watch over him in case HE tries anything untoward."

"You can count on me sir." The semi-bald, grizzled mage smirked, and Girard had to hide his own amusement at seeing Renault visibly deflate. Still, both Lieutenants saluted once again, and with a marshal cry the Captain resumed his, and the detachment's, pace onto Arrun once again.

Only a moment passed before he heard the quick gallop to his right, Renault pulling up beside him. The Captain spared him a glimpse.

"Anything else Lieutenant?"

"For the record Captain, you were very much correct."

"At what Lieutenant?"

Despite his question, he could already tell what the Lieutenant wanted to say by his love-struck expression.

"There truly are more beautiful sights in the world."

Author After Note: I have been informed that Lieutenant Statham is indeed Halkegenia's analogue to _that_ Statham for those who are curious.


	55. Halkegenia Offline Set 5

-Halkegenia Offline Set 4-

-My normal disclaimer, these Omake are independent of but inspired by the main story. They do not necessarily overlap and are not spoilers for future events unless later adopted into the story. Though I will say that some things from the Omake may work their way into the story much later on.

++Tongue Twisters++

"What happened to Tabitha?" Klein asked, hooking a thumb over his shoulder while giving the girl a concerned look. She looked pale, paler than usual.

"Blood loss apparently." KoKo replied.

"What?!" Klein looked back, the girl looked fine, their were no signs of wounds. "But . . ."

"More specifically, all of the blood rushed to her face, there wasn't enough for the rest of her." KoKo shook her head. "What happened Silica-chan?"

"We were just reading tongue teasers." Silica said, "And then Tabitha-san gave me a real tough one. See, here it is, I had her tell it to me, and then I wrote it out to memorize it."

KoKo took the offered piece of notepaper. "Lets see . . . Huh . . . This is a tough one, but I got it." The Hunter took a breath. "Can you imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie. Nyah! I got it!"

"Good job KoKo-san!" Silica cheered.

-Thunk-

"Klein-kun?" KoKo asked, worried, "Klein-Kun are you alright?"

Silica and KoKo starred down at the unconscious salamander.

Silica frowned, "Well . . . It sounded fine to me."

* * *

++Motivation++

"Why am I here again?" Kirito asked, blinking the sleep from his eyes as he stood in the predawn gloom of the camp training fields. It was too early in the morning for this. Too cold too.

Agnes quirked an eyebrow as she looked him over. "I heard you said you wanted to help any way that you could. Besides, Caramella is the one who devised this."

Kirito and Agnes turned to the Faerie Knight. Caramella looked all too amused as she tossed a bundle of clothes to Kirito.

Shaking them out and inspecting the garments, a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. Kirito's frown deepened. "PT clothes?"

"We want you to lead the morning PT exercises. Most of these jelly donuts are so squishy there's no point in hard physical training until we melt some of the fat off." Caramella sounded slightly disgusted. "I think Malicorn might keel over if we started him swinging a sword."

"I'm missing something here." Kirito observed. "Why do you need me? Doesn't Agnes-san usually lead the PT drills?" He could hear her clearly every morning. Her shouts and insults to the trainees had become his alarm clock while stationed here at the camp.

"Agnes does usually lead the drills. But . . . well . . . The mage recruits have been falling behind this last week, so we thought they could use some motivation. And you're pretty popular with Guiche and his clique . . ."

Kirito went red as it finally sank in. He groaned softly. "You want me to . . ."

"Uh-huh." Caramella said, her grin widening until it looked like her cheeks would split. "And don't look so embarrassed, you have a _fantastic_ ass."

Guiche wished that someone would hurry up and kill him. It would certainly be better than the slow death he was suffering in this mortally contrived hell.

Panting, cursing, lungs sucking greedily for air, he fought his way to the lead of the pack of mage cadets, pulling even with the rear of the musketeer recruits that were their rivals in every physical activity. Getting even this far required him to claw his way past his rivals and trample over his friends, only one things made the suffering worth while.

"Upon the command _prime and load_, the soldier should make a quarter turn to the right at the same time bringing the musket to the priming position. The pan should be open following the discharge of the previous shot, meaning that the frizzen should be tilted forward. If the musket is not being reloaded after a previous shot, the soldiers would be ordered to "Open Pan".

As the trainees ran out their lives, Dame Midori seemed to have barely broken a sweat. Indeed, she sounded almost bored as she read casually from the thin musketeer's training manual that she held in one hand.

"Upon the command _Handle cartridge_, the soldier will draw a cartridge from the cartridge box. The soldier tares off the twisted end of the cartridge with his or her teeth and continues to hold the now open cartridge in his or her right hand.

Dame Midori's gate was light and airy, as if she weighed nothing. Her hair was pulled back into a long black braid that bounced and swayed in time with her motions, and the very short shorts which were standard morning PT attire for all of the recruits did . . . interesting things as she kept the pace ahead of them.

And then there was the rumor that he had heard that morning Knowing what he did of Midori's disposition he very much doubted that it was true, but it was the possibility that motivated him, the possibility! 'Almost there, almost there!'

"Trainee Gramont!" Midori looked up, closing the manual.

"Y-yes Ma'am!" Guiche shouted.

It was so strange, the few times he had seen her since Newcastle, Dame Midori had seemed to have forgiven him for his prior indiscretions. Guiche had almost come think of her as a friend. He'd even been able to ignore that fact that she was a girl, much to the mortification of his brothers. She was just . . . so easy to get along with, like one of the guys.

Now however, she was as unforgiving as the other instructors and any familiarity between the to of them was just grounds for being even harsher.

"What is the next step of musket loading?" Midori shouted straight at him.

Guiche bit an inward curse as he thought quickly. Why did a mage need to know all this business about muskets?

Because they were training to lead musketeers. The answer came naturally. Officers need to know the drills as well as the commoner foot soldiers so that they could lead properly and conduct training drills. Father had been very insistent on this point. So Guiche thought, dredging the answer up through the exhaustion.

"U-upon the command _prime_, the soldier is to pull the hammer back to . . . full-cock and pour powder from the cartridge into the priming pan. He then closes the frizzen."

"Minus five points." Midori shouted so that the whole troop could hear. That brought their total to minus fifty since yesterday morning. They were going to be chopping vegetables for dinner tonight. "You're half right. The hammer is pulled back only to half-cock and you failed to specify that only a small amount of the powder is used for priming. Trainee Malicorn . .  
. Trainee Malicorn?"

The lack of response prompted Midori to glance over her shoulder. The heavyset wind mage would have had trouble keeping this pace at the best of times while using a featherweight charm, now he was panting along at the back of the pack, sweat dribbling down like rain.

At least it was progress over the first day where he'd collapsed after less than a quarter of a league. It would have been impressive how quickly he was shedding stones if not for the fact that he had so very many stones to shed.

"Trainee Malicorn, do you need to stop to rest?"

The rotund boy shook his head, and if anything, was spurred to run faster to keep up with Dame Midori. For the trainees, Dame Midori was their goddess of mercy, and they her loyal followers.

While almost as demanding as Dame Agnes, Midori was by far a softer hand, and far and away preferred to Dame Caramella or that Khaki clad terror that the salamanders had sent to drill the musketeer units.

Now if only he could just keep this pace until the finish . . .

+++

"Well, they're certainly more motivated." The Duchess de la Valliere commented as she observed the morning training exercises beside General Gramont. Both officers were presently seated in the shade cast by the camp headquarters, observing the morning exercises along with several of the human and Fae instructors . . .

Karin watched the two Faeries from the corner of her eye. Carmond, a Salamander seconded to the Tristanian army to help train the musketeers in the new rifle tactics. And Dame Caramella of the Knights of the order of Blood, a brash and loudly spoken Faerie woman sent to observe progress on behalf of the Fae Council.

The war with Albion presented new challenges and demanded new solutions. New weapons, new tactics, and new ways of thinking about their Fae allies. If someone had told Karin six months ago that she would be dining with Faeries while discussing prospects of a military campaign, she would have considered them mad. But that was just what she had done last night, and she would do again this evening.

"They still can't keep up with the musketeers." Caramella sighed.

Carmond crossed his arms. "Conditioning can take time, a couple more weeks and they'll start to show some real improvement."

"What I would like to know is why they are all so determined to overtake Dame Midori." General Gramont asked curiously. The General had produced a spyglass from his pocket and was presently observing the illusion shrouded Fae swordsman with mild interest.

"Ah that . . . yeah . . ." Caramella scratched at the back of her head sheepishly, a gesture that seemed to universally telegraph that a Fae had done something rather ill advised. "There may be a rumor floating around that Midori-chan isn't wearing a bra this morning.

"Well . . . Isn't she?" All eyes turned to the General. "Just as a matter of academic interest."

'Academic of what?'

Caramella snorted, leaning against the wall of the headquarters. "Does it matter? It's not like these puffballs will ever find out."

General Gramont gave a glum nod. "I suppose you are right. Though still, quite the lovely girl, and exceptional besides. She's even gotten Guiche to take his swordsmanship seriously."

Karin stared at the Elder Gramont with barely contained disbelief.

"What?"

"You do realize . . ." Karin began, and then shook her head. No, to go down this path lay madness. "Never mind"

* * *

++Guiche Mans Up++

Agnes grimaced. "We already kicked him out, he should be halfway back to the academy, what is that idiot Gramont son doing?" Before she could move forward, the swordswoman at her side put a hand on her shoulder.

"Just wait and see." A small smile graced the smaller woman's lips. "There's no one watching him, there's no friends to impress, he's doing this for himself. Let's see what happens."

Agnes squinted watching the failure Gramont as he inch wormed his way ever closer to the top of the flag post at the heart of the garrison and the arrow she had placed at the top on the very first day of training. It was the line in the sand she had drawn when the recruits had been forced to hand over their magical foci for the first stage of training. Without magic, they were nothing.

That idiot boy, she thought. His own father had given him no chance as soon as he arrived. The Duchess Valliere had washed her hands of him after the first day. Agnes had been willing to grit it out for a week. The only one who had held out hope seemed to be Midori. The swordswoman mysteriously insisted that strength could flourish in the unlikeliest people if they only found something to fight for.

The fop was, in a word, pathetic, all skin and bones, barely any muscle to speak of, and what he had was terribly unconditioned. Even two weeks of hard training had somehow failed to put a dent in him. But he hadn't slipped yet, he hadn't fallen yet.

"How the devil is he climbing with those weights?" Agnes hissed. "He doesn't pass if he doesn't use them!"

"He is using them." Midori grinned. "Look."

Sure enough, Gramont had the weights alright, he'd lashed them around the pole, using them to hold himself in place while he pushed with his legs.

"But that's not the task!" Agnes shook her head, she couldn't help but laugh. Except it was the same way she had completed this challenge as a girl. When you weren't as strong as a man, you had to learn to use all of your strengths, the body and the mind.

"The task is just to get to the top, right?" Midori asked. "So its not a problem."

The sun was rising to the East, starting to light the sky before slanting down to strike first the top of the flagpole, and then the rest of the camp. The morning call erupted just as Guiche made it a third of the way to the top. He was three quarters of the way there when the other recruits began to emerge from their tents, looking miserable and disheveled.

Eyes widened, the young mages pointed in disbelief at what they were seeing. Two weeks of having it ground into them that without their magic they were 'less than even commoners', to see one of their own beating Agnes' challenge must have been a sight to behold.

Cheers of encouragement rose from the students. Woops and calls of support floating up on the morning breeze. Guiche didn't seem to hear them at all. Face red and covered in sweat, wiry muscle straining beneath sunburned skin, the boy was completely focused on the pole in front of him. He probably didn't even know how close he was to the top until his head bumped against the arrow. At first, he didn't seem to know what to make of it. Agnes didn't know what to make of it either.

Midori smiled and opened an expectant hand. "I win. He gets to stay. Now pony up."

By now the Garrison CO had just emerged from his tent to find what the commotion was. He found out a moment later as an arrow planted itself in the ground at his feet. Sitting at the top of the flag pole, shirtless and covered in sweat, his youngest son panted as he looked down in wonder at his cheering fellow trainees.

General Gramont blinked rapidly trying to make sense of it. He shook his head, a prideful smile starting to cross his face. "That's my boy." He muttered. At last.

"So, he does take after his father." The Duchess Valliere said as she approached from her own tent. "The redeeming qualities as well."

The General snorted. "But of course! He's a man of the Gramont line! Now then, I wouldn't suppose you would you care to help me get him down? The lad looks like he's about to fall off!"

* * *

++ Bedtime Stories ++

"Taking hold of his bed side. The Black Swordsman, sickly and weak from his years of slumber, rose from his bed and took his first step into the into light."

Closing the thick, leather bound book. The dark haired young woman laid it neatly in her lap as she sat by the warm light of the airship cabin's ambaric lamps.

"Well?" The question came from a small, black haired boy who sat propped up in the narrow bed, snuggled closely by his twin sister.

"Well what?" His mother asked as she closed the story book and replaced it in her bag. The book's title was highlighted on the spine in gold lettering. _100 Stories of the Castle in the Sky._

"Did he find her?" The boy's sister asked curiously. Eyes big and round and dark as her mother's. "He found her right? She woke up like everyone else."

Their mother paused in her fashion, tilting her head as if thinking very seriously before answering. She smiled at last. "Well, I'll leave that to Ojiisan and Obaasan to tell you tomorrow."

"Why do we have to wait?" The boy asked. "Can't you tell us now?"

A chuckle came from the narrow doorway of the airship cabin, a tall, blonde man leaned against the door frame. "And then what would your Mom have to bribe you with before bed time? Besides, your Ojiisan is a lot better at telling the next part."

"Better than Mamma?" The girl asked as if not entirely sure that was possible.

When their mother really got going, she could be an amazing story teller, energetic and able to make the scenes come alive even without the picture book and its illustrations. Most of all, she wasn't afraid of seeming silly, jumping up and waving imaginary swords or reading the lines in funny voices, especially the parts about the Red Samurai. It was almost like she'd been there.

"Oh, way better than . . ." The man paused as his wife gave him an emotionless stare. " . . . I'll let you make up your own minds tomorrow."

"I still don't see why we have to wait." The boy grumbled as his mother put out the ore lamp and pulled the covers up over him and his sister.

"Remember, you promised to go to bed if I read two chapters tonight." Their mother said. "But that means the story is all done. I need the second book from your Ojiisan and Obaasan."

"We know." Both answered in tandem, the girl yawning and rubbing at her eyes. "Papa?"

"Hmm?" The man asked.

The girl blinked her big eyes innocently. "Did you and Mamma meet like the Black Swordsman and the White Flash?"

Both mother and father turned to look at each other, their father opening his mouth to answer. "That is . . . well . . ."

"Come on, there's no way Mom and Dad met like that." The boy turned over in bed. "That's way too amazing for our parents."

Neither of their parents wanted to argue the matter beyond another exchanged look, this time of relief. They stayed at their children's bedside until both had drifted off. The Children's mother tucking them in carefully, stroking their black hair and kissing each tenderly on the forehead.

Not for the first time, her husband thought that she really had grown into a wonderful mother.

Careful not to wake them, the parents retreated to their own small cabin directly across the narrow hallway and readied themselves for bed. The airship was scheduled to arrive early the next morning at the skyport and they had a long day planned.

Laying in the darkness, the steady -thrum- of the props could just be heard as they cut through the air outside. This was one of the new steam powered passenger ships that had become popular over the last decade, and while cramped, the accommodations were comfortable enough here in first class.

"That was close." The Husband said to his wife.

She smiled and shook her head. "I don't see why. Even if we told them, they wouldn't believe us."

"It doesn't sound that ridiculous." He answered indignantly, and then saw the look his wife was giving him and had second thoughts. "Okay, it sounds completely absurd." Still. "They're going to find out eventually you know. It's not like we've been trying to hide it from them."

"I'd expect them to." His wife agreed. "You know how smart Shouzou is." Snuggling against his shoulder. "He's really taking after his grandfather."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

His wife looked up as if shocked he had asked. "Good. Definitely!"

Thinking back to the run ins he'd had with his father in law stretching all the way back to that first 'date that was definitely not a date', he didn't know if the world could handle two of them. 'Scary.'

"Of course Midori takes after Obasan." His wife added casually. "And that's good too."

Digesting this fact, actually, he thought their daughter took more after his own mother, but his wife had never had the chance to meet her.

"Is something wrong?" His wife asked. She could always tell of course. She had a knack for that sort of thing, more than a knack, a power for it that was fundamental to who and what she was.

"No, nothing . . . It's just . . . I guess we've been pretty good parents after all."

"Of course we have, Ueda-kun." His wife propped her head up with an elbow. "We've been a very optimal mating pair. Since we're both so compatible, we don't fight often and we usually express ourselves and apologize quickly when we do. We have a comfortable and sustainable lifestyle and employment that we find meaningful. We have a healthy family dynamic that accounts for all of our needs in a mutually beneficial and considerate fashion. Most of all, Midori-chan and Shouzo are both healthy, well balanced, and emotionally secure."

Staring, Ueda forgot to blink. 'My wife is really weird.'

How couldn't she be? But he'd accepted that a long time ago, even if it did mean that she could be a little clinical, or even creepy sometimes. 'Like when she first told me she wanted to have kids.' But it had worked out for the best.

"Besides." Her smile softened as she took his right hand beneath the covers. "More than anything, I know that being with you, I'm sure that my children will grow up happy. Just like me."

His hand came to rest against the soft warmth of her lower stomach and he suddenly realized what she was saying. After a few false starts, he finally managed to choke out. "You mean?"

She smiled. "Mmm hmm."


	56. Airships of Halkegenia

Yeah, so, another entry in Argo's ongoing 'Encyclopedia Albionia'

Encyclopedia Albionia - Airships of Halkegenia - Don't Worry, it's Argo's Airitime Primer!

i. overview  
ii. ship layout  
iii. combat tactics  
iv. terminology  
v. classes  
vi. specific ships

i. Overview - While aeronautics has only been a field of serious study on Earth for the last century and a half, the Kingdoms of Halkegenia have long used the Wind Stones mined from high concentration mineral deposits to power large trading and war fleets of heavier than air craft.

Early airships began as simple modifications of the then existent maritime navies of each Kingdom. Though crude and clumsy to navigate, the elevation advantage provided to these ships made them favored weapons of naval warfare almost immediately, nearly wiping out seaborne ships as a method of military force projection and relegating them to transports of bulk cargo plying the coastal routes. (This might explain why the sea ships used by Halkegenia are relatively primitive. - Sakuya)

As time progressed, airship design and philosophy began to diverge more and more from its maritime roots. By the present day, the only remaining similarity between aerial and surface based ships are the use of wind for propulsion and the presence of a water tight hull (Many of the inland ports servicing the over land routes are situated near lakes to save on the construction of docking facilities. - Wales)

Today, Airships serve as the primary means of heavy force projection for all of Halkegenia's kingdoms and a powerful tool in assaulting fortified positions. However, they are not without their limitations. To remain airborne demands a constant supply of wind stones, and these stones are depleted more rapidly under a number of conditions. (Sufficiently powerful wind mages can also supply power to the Ballasting Engine but this requires many mages of great skill and power to keep the ship airborne for more than a brief time. - Wales)

Airships are also used extensively for the shipping of bulk cargo to inland locations and the isle of Albion as well as to transport passengers and high value commodities such as spices and rare fabrics. Transport ships often thrive on this trade and even more than surface ships, survive on their ability to take advantage of the winds at a variety of altitudes to make good time to their destination. (The best Navigator's know the Trade Winds well and also the best cruising altitude at any time of day to make port in a minimum of time and wind stone expenditure. -Wales)

ii. Ship Layout - Regardless of class, modern Halkegenian airships, like historical sailing ships, possess a number of defining characteristics in their design and construction. However, being built to operated in a very different environment, the design of Airships have diverged radically from that of the sailing ships of old. (If you only read one section of this primer before hopping on a ship, it should be this one! - Argo)

The basic layout of a modern Halkegnian sailing ship is thus.

As with surface ships, the core structural element of an airship is the keel. In surface ships this is a long spine like structure running down the center of the hull which provides much of the hull's strength and serves as a framework for additional bracing. The keel of an airship serves a similar purpose as an anchor point for structural elements, however, in the case of airships, this terms is generally used to refer to a large brass cap at the bow of the ship to which the major structural elements are anchored. (The basic layout of a Halkegenian airship's structural skeleton is not too different from that of a zeppelin. -Head of Engineering, Hyuga) (When engaging an enemy ship, crossing Mid-Tee refers to an attempt to get ahead of the enemy ship and rake its keel with ones broadside in hopes of braking the keel and causing catastrophic structural damage. -Wales)

From the Keel Cap, the major structural elements radiate outward to form the bow section of the ship which usually comprises around a third of the total length. The mid section, composed of much of the structural ribbing, forms the middle third, and rear of the ship usually tapers slightly and includes various rudder surfaces used in high winds to aid maneuvering and stability. (These structures are essential when Navigating around the edge of the Isle of Albion. - Wales)

In addition to the outer structural elements of the hull, a reinforced structure runs down the center of the ship and acts as a mounting point for the wind stone powered Ballasting Engine. This device is composed of a system of enchantments which regulate altitude by controlling wind stone discharge rate and also regulate the inertial effect generated by the wind stones. (It is this damping phenomenon, first discovered by the sailors of Albion, that allows airships to sail into the winds. Prior to this, ships had to travel with specific trade winds and were thus locked to very specific routes. Caution is warranted as increasing the damping effect to emulate a surface ship's keel also increases the load on the wind stones. -Wales)

The sailing configuration of an airship is also radically different from that seen on surface ships. In addition to sails arranged above the main deck, four, six, or more masts are mounted outboard on heavy brass pivots found either mid ship or affixed directly to the Keel Cap. (Warships generally prefer the latter configuration to avoid interfering with their own cannons. -Wales) Manning of these outward sails, even with a safety line, requires nerves of steel.

Merchant ships are generally configured so that they can make water landings and navigate adequately in coastal waters, allowing them to save on use of their wind stones during long journeys. Their sail configurations are generally more conservative with the option to arrange sails similarly to a surface going ship.

Since warships are deployed by national governments and are built specifically for battle, combat considerations trump everything else and thus their amphibious ability it usually limited. (Albionian warships are only able to land on the surface of the sea and perform limited maneuvers. The continent uses the terms Full, Half, and Quarter Worthy to refer to various levels of maritime sea worthiness. - Wales)

Warships, which require large amounts of open space along the flanks of the ship for their cannons and to allow dragons to land and take off from the deck, generally attach their sails far forward in a radial arrangement which leaves open space near the center of the ship. (The largest and fastest warships may dedicate the entirety of the bow to sail rigging. -Wales) (The Eagle really is beautiful at full sail. She looks like a bird in flight! -Silica)

iii. Combat Tactics - Tactically speaking, naval warfare in three dimensions can be considerably more complex than that of Earth's own age of sail. Ships are capable of changing altitude as well as heading, and even taking advantage of variations in wind speed. However these are not without limitations.

A military commander must seek to attain both a favorable position in the winds and also the advantage of altitude. A fleet firing from an elevated position has the advantage of range and gravity assisting their cannon fire. A fleet in a lower position must climb rapidly to match them, frequently sustaining heavy losses in the process if caught by surprise. (Being that our fleets start already high in the skies, Albion is especially at an advantage in this regard. - Wales)

Doctrine is organized based on the type of combat. Ship to ship or fleet engagement.

Ship on ship battles are usually the most dynamic with ships attempting to sink one another by gunnery fire or else inflict sufficient casualties that boarding and capture becomes feasible. In individual combat the objective is most often to 'cross the tee' with the enemy ship while denying this maneuver in turn.

In aerial combat there are three variations of crossing the tee based on the attacking commander's strategy.

**Crossing High Tee** - The attacking ship banks on approach from a slightly increased altitude and rakes the top deck with either cannonballs or grape shot in hopes of inflicting crippling casualties to the rigging crew and thus reducing the opposing ship's ability to fight and maneuver. Deck shots also provide the best chance of breaching the hull and striking the ballasting engine. This is an advantageous position because it favors the attackers shots while denying all but light weapons, swivels, light cannons, and small arms, to the defender.

**Crossing Mid Tee** - The objective here is to do damage to the Keel Cap in hopes of catastrophically compromising the integrity of the ship. This is rarely successful given the all metal construction of the keel cap and the more conical forward hull of air ships which tend to deflect cannon fire. However, if successful, the catastrophic nature of this attack almost guarantees the ship's sinking. (Notably, the 1st Rater Prince Charles, the Heaviest Ship in Albion's fleet at the time, suffered devastating damage to her keel in the last war. The raking bombardment from three others ships of the line caused her to break apart in mid air. - Wales)

**Crossing Low Tee** - Usually considered easiest to achieve as opposing captains will not readily sacrifice an altitude advantage and will be inclined to 'take it across the chin'. Low tee involves raking the lower hull of the ship with cannon fire. It is relatively less damaging as the cannon fire must be directed upward against the thick hull of the opposing ship. However it also invites the least reprisal as only the anti dragon swivels can usually be brought to bare. Frequently, chain shot is loaded in hopes of damaging the out rigged masts in preparation for another pass.

**Sky Dive** - A risky tactic where a ship at high altitude will rapidly descend to engagement range against an opposing vessel. The tactic is considered risky because at the speed needed to achieve proper surprise, the diving ship will experience great difficult in maneuvering and may easily overshoot its target and end up at a lower altitude. However, if timed properly, the method can allow the attacking ship to bring its guns quickly to bear with a high level of accuracy.

**Cloudburst** - In naval parlance, refers to a crash ascent through cloud cover. If done properly this technique can allow a ships to be taken almost completely by surprise. (The preferred method is for a mage with a flight capable familiar such as a hawk, to be used to see above the clouds and guide the ship. This is the favored tactic of privateers operating close to Albion - Wales) This tactic is powerful when used by one ship against another but considered risky in large fleet engagements where the chance of collision is greatly increased.

**Broadside** - The stereotypical maneuver of both sea going and aerial ships familiar with anyone who has ever watched a movie or read a book about ships at sea. Two or more ships line up opposite one another an let loose with their main batteries. This sort of combat can often prove indecisive between ships of the same class, at best, if stuck in this position, the battle might favor whoever gets lucky with their shots. Ships closing for assaults in an attempt to capture an enemy ship will frequently end up exchanging broadsides in the approach and during the boarding operation.

**Line of Battle** -The tactic of massed formations of ships operating in single file is especially important to the successful operation of large fleets. At sea, the Line of Battle allows individual ships to fire without fear of hitting their allies with their own guns and also allows the fleet to concentrate successive broadsides on a single portion of an enemy fleet. (This tactic was used to great effect in the War of White Roses by the Germanian General of the Air Viscount Borg to sink the Gallian Flagship _Triomphant _at the Second Battle of La Rochelle by concentrating successive fire from the entire Germanian fleet on the Flagship and its escorts. - Wales) The line of battle is even more important for ships operating in a three dimensional battle environment where collisions can come from any side and may prove far more fatal. A popular variant of the battle line is for two or more lines of ships to fly stacked on top of one another to maximize concentration of fire. (Generally the maximum for effective coordination of maneuver and fire is three lines, sometimes referred to as a 'Triangle Formation' - Wales) (Be advised, as in our own history, lines of battle have the considerable disadvantage that they usually cannot force decisive battle against a battle line of similar size. - Mortimer)

**Boarding** - Again familiar to anyone who has seen a movie or read an adventure novel. Boarding operations are an attempt to storm an enemy ship by force and either take her in melee or rig her for destruction by fighting below decks and setting charge on the wind stones or powder magazine. (Sometimes the boarders don't bother with the charges. Be advised, Reconquista fanatics have been known to use this suicidal tactic! -Argo) To repel boarders, most military ships issue weapons to the Airmen and also station dedicated armsmen trained for melee or close combat. (Tristain and Albion share a unique tradition of issuing long muskets to their armsmen so that they may attempt to kill enemy officers and armsmen from vantages on the masts of the approaching ships. - Wales)

**Consideration for mounts** - The availability of Flying Mounts to the forces of Halkegenia brings a new element into play in naval battles. Warships are much too unwieldy to fight mounts directly with their main batteries, instead this task is the duty of swivel gun crews, mages, and allied air cavalry who frequently fight their own, much more dynamic, aerial battles in a sky full of actively maneuvering and firing warships. The objective of these cavalry engagements is to drive off attacks aimed at the exposed undersides of allied warships while attempting to return the favor to the ships of the enemy. Duty among aerial cavalry requires fast reflexes, excellent spacial awareness, and nerves of steel. (Tristain has just commissioned two modified cargo ships to serve as Aerial keeps for up to a squadron of dragons. At this time, no such ships exist in the fleet of Albion. - Wales) (From what we can see, ALfheim dragons are slower, smaller, and more heavily built than Halkegenian dragons, but their resilience and power are all much greater for their size. - Gaius, Commander 3rd Provisional Cavalry)

iv. Terminology -

**Aft** - Rear of the ship.

**Airman** - The generic term for an experienced military sailor. These men are usually enlisted. Volunteers are preferred for ship service due to the difficulty/danger of the work and need for high morale. Both Tristain and Albion use the terms Master, Skilled, and Lay Airman to rate their sailors' experience. (There's a reason the crew working on the outrigger sails get one and quarter pay. - Argo)

**Armsman** - The Halkegenian term for marines. Basically the elite soldiers stationed aboard ships to repel boarders and keep order. (The armsmen are the closes thing Tristain has to an elite force of infantry under the command of the crown. Their marksmenship tactics also make them superb candidates for the new firearms and ammunition we intend to develop - Mortimer)

**Ballasting Engine** - The system of enchantments that is used to regulate the discharge and damping generated by wind stones. Wind stones are inserted into this mechanism, which consists of a large brass, iron, or bronze vessel, and power is adjusting by varying the proximity of the charms. (This requires precise control to avoid drawing the charms out of alignment. - Wales) The ballasting engines heavily reinforced construction helps to both contain brief wind bursts, and protect the wind stones from damage during combat.

**Bow **- The front of the ship and generally where airships anchor their primary masts. Being primarily aeronautical craft, this section of the ship is usually notably more tapered then that found on surface ships. This angling also helps to make the bow more resistant to canon fire, which is more likely to skip off at an angle. (Though it may endanger the masts. -Wales)

**Cannons** - The heavy hitters of any warships arsenal. Warships are usually heavily warded with spells (Think permanently buffed floating fortresses. -Argo) Rendering direct assault by cannons as the most effective means to bring them down. The cannons are usually found on gun decks below the top deck in order to protect the cannon crews from enemy fire. (It doesn't always work. - Argo) Cannons are rated by the weight of the shot they fire. Common sizes are 42, 36, 24, 18, 12, and 9, 8, and 6 pounds. These cannons are all able to fire a variety of ammunition, including, ball shot, canister blasts, grape shot, bar shot, and exploding shells.

Warships generally mount more of the larger cannons as size and power increases although stability considerations usually limit the largest cannons to the lower batteries. (Because Albionian warships can mount their cannons lower, due to their reduced provisions for water landing, ships such as the Royal Sovereign have provisions for up to two full gun decks of 36 pounders. However, they are usually only outfitted with these cannons on her lowest gun deck due to other considerations. -Wales) (Before we all get crazy with those breach loading cannons our Little Gal in the engineering department wants to build, we should see if we can't build our allies some mortars or Carronades for their top decks as a stopgap. Should help level the playing field between Tristain and Albion. -Rucks)

**Fore** - Forward on a ship.

**Gun Deck** - Self Explanatory, it's where the guns go. A warship is usually built with one ore more dedicated gun decks for slugging it out with other ships or preforming coastal bombardments.

**Keel** - Refers to an airships central structural element. Unlike a surface ship's keel, this is not a spinal element but instead refers to the brass cap at the head of the ship to which the main structural timbers of the bow are attached.

**Lifting Beam** - Closer to a traditional keel. This is a large spinal element, often formed from a single incredibly large beam. (You should see some of the Tree's that grow in Gallia and Germania. -Argo) Which, along with additional bracing affixed to the hull, supports the ship and mounts the Ballasting Engine which controls wind stones usage and damping.

**Urchin's Nest **- A deployed basket, sometime backed by brass or bronze plate for protection, used to defend the underside of a ship from dragons. Continental warships usually only outfit these on smaller ships which defend the line and on frigates/cruisers that will be patrolling independently. Those used by the continent are usually simply hung over the side by ropes, albionian nests are found on all classes of ships and are affixed to brass running rails for better stability. (The Eagle has two fine four swivel nests mounted mid ship. Larger vessels may have as many as eight. - Wales) (Apparently this term actually does refer to sea urchins . . . Well not really. More specifically it refers to children commissioned into the navy who were frequently posted for this task as apprentice gunners. Their small size means that they can sit comfortably in the nest and bring along more shot and powder. And you wonder why we have child labor laws. - Argo)

**Port** - The left side of the ship

**Powder Room** - Store room for the gunpowder. (Usually located near the lifting engine, since if one goes, the ship's a lost cause anyway. - Argo)

**Starboard** - The right side of the ship.

**Stern** - The back of the ship. Usually the location of the officers' quarters and the large stabilizing fins/rudders used to help steady the ship while traveling into strong wings or when anchored in high winds. (Think of a weather vane. -Chief Engineer Hyuga)

**Swivel** - A colloquial term for the small caliber, portable cannons mounted on ships and usually affixed to pivots for aiming and firing. These weapons form a ship crew's primary deterrent against boarding and air borne cavalry. (Be advised, without proper armor and defensive buffs, scatter shot from these cannons can shred Faerie airborne formations. - Mortimer) They are also issued to armsmen taking part in assault landings to use as light artillery. Owing to their many exploitable blind spots, larger warships will usually mount several 'urchins nests' on movable railings or cast over the side of the ship on ropes to protect the underside. One or more swivels can be mounted in each nest to provide protective fire for the bottom of the ship.

**Wind Stone** - The elemental magic stones used as a fuel source for airships. Wind Stones are naturally inclined to float, and in doing so, discharge their magic over time. A Ballasting Engine can be used to adjust the rate of windstone release, causing the ship to float level, rise, or descend. Wind Stones also generate a pseudo inertial phenomenon which is used in lieu of a sea ship's keel to allow sailing into the wind. (That's the best term we can come up with, honestly, the physics gives me a headache. It does help to explain why the tidal shifts don't cause Albion to oscillate all over the place. - Head Engineer Hyuga ) (Be advised, damaged wind stones are extremely unstable and can unravel into elemental wind magic violently! The largest known incident was aboard a Gallian cargo ship refueling a Blockade fleet in the Six Month War, the resulting windstorm annihilated the fleet -Argo)

v. classes of ship - Ships are generally divided into a number of classes based on their size and purpose. This section is by no means extensive but seeks to identify the broad general classes of ships and their characteristics.

**Transport Ships** - By far the most common vessels in Halkegenia. Transports include bulk cargo ships moving cargo between the Continent and Albion as well as along routes that would be difficult to travel over land. (The exception to this is the treacherous Rub Al Khali trade routes. The Elves seem to tolerate foot caravans but any air or naval vessel is met with overwhelming military force. - Wales) Cargo ships also move high value commodities and passengers quickly from place to place.

The two major type of Transport ships are bulk freighters and clippers.

**Bulk Freighter** - Large conservatively built ships with fully amphibious hulls. These vessels ply a variety of trade routes and make their way with large quantity, relatively low unit value cargoes. Seen in a variety of sizes, they make up the majority of the ships flown by the Continent. Usually these vessels are equipped with light cannons to defend themselves from pirates, but they are by no means warships. (This should be abundantly clear! - Wales)

**Clipper** - A term that has entered the airitime parlance of Halkegenia to refer to a class of originally Germanian designed high speed merchant ships. (Albion Suffered a considerably loss of pride when these vessels started to outperform our own merchants on long distance routes. - Wales) The defining characteristics of the clipper class is a streamlined, elongated hull, relatively small, collapsible stabilizing fins, an extremely large sailing configuration with multiple outrigger masts, a forward mounted sail array like that of a warship, and extended bow. (In a good wind, even the_ Eagle_ cannot run down a first rate Clipper like the _Sabrina_ - Wales)

**Warships** - The endless conflicts of the Continent have demanded a constant stream of ever larger and more powerful military vessels. At this time, almost all fleets utilize the rating system originally developed by Albion which ranks ships based on size and cannons carried.

**Ships of the Line** - Or Ships of the Line of Battle, are those built to serve directly in the front lines of naval engagements. They are generally the largest and most powerful warships that any country can muster. Economic, tactical, and strategic considerations have lead to these ships being organized into a rating system. Since large ships use more wind stone energy per unit of flight time and cost more to crew and operate, a balance must be struck between size, power, speed, and budget considerations.

**1st Rate Ships of the Line** - The heaviest warships built in Halkegnian and armed with an overwhelming amount of firepower. These ships can mount upwards of one hundred of the heaviest ship to ship cannons. (The Royal Sovereign is known to mount 108 cannons with potential provisions to bring this number to 120. - Wales) However they are slow, unwieldy, and demand considerably wind stone reserves to fly.

**2nd Rate** - Mounting between 90-98 Guns. 2nd Rates serve as a more economical alternative to first rates and generally make up the majority of flagships in smaller fleets. (Indeed, Tristain's flagship, the _Mercator_, falls into this size range. - Wales) Still considered large and clumsy, these ships have slightly better handling than 1st rates while being cheaper to operate.

**3rd Rate** - Frequently mounting 64-80 Guns, the 3rd rate is the smallest commonly used ships of the line of battle and also considered the penultimate balance between size, power, speed, maneuverability, and operating cost. (Most of any navies battle line is composed of this class. -Wales)

**Cruisers and Frigates** - Smaller ships that serve independently on patrol or as commerce raiders. (Basically pirates on the government's payroll - Argo).

**4th Rate** - Refers to a ship mounting between 46-60 Guns. This class has largely fallen out of favor due to being too small for the line of battle. However, the classification has been used semi frequently to refer to a new class of heavy "Super-Frigates" operated by the Germanian Navy. (Consideration is being made by Tristain to order a dozen of this class to supplement the battle line. - Mazarin.)

**5th Rate** - Ships designed to carry 40 guns, though operationally seen with up to 48 as in the case of the HMS _Eagle_. These ships are termed frigates and most frequently used on extended patrols and as commerce raiders. (In fact, the Eagle is of an Advance type of recently commissioned Frigate originally planned to replaced older ships in Albion's navy. - Wales) Like fourth rates, they are not meant to serve in the battle line.

**6th Rate** - Smallest Rated ships, usually mounting no more than 24 relatively light cannons. These ships see their most frequent usage in customs duty and patrols as pickets for a larger fleet.

**Dragon Carrier** - A ship class newly entering service with the Navies of Tristain and Gallia. Dragon carriers are built upon conventional cargo ship hulls, widened and with their rigging fixed forward like that of a warship to allow dragons to land and maneuver easily on the deck. Accommodations and fodder are made available below deck for multiple dragons to be cared for. These ships, though used as combat vessels, are armed only to the same extent as a merchantman and would be expected to stand off during ship engagements. (Though with a dozen dragons, this ship can easily bring down a 2nd Rater if caught alone. - Wales) (A hell of a lot more than a 2nd Rater if our dragoons are embarked. - Gaius, Commander 3rd Provisional Cavalry.)

vi. specific ships -

HMS* _Eagle_ - 5th Rater Commerce Raider of the Royal Navy. The last loyal ship of the Royalist forces. Captained by Prince Wales Tudor. Known to be of a highly modernized class and among the finest ships built in Albion.

HRAN** _Lexington_ (aka _Royal Sovereign_) - Former Flagship of the Royal Navy and now the lead ship of Reconquista. The Capture of this ship and its fleet sparked the beginning of the Civil War in Earnest by providing the Rebels with a force capable of matching the ships retained by the Royalists after Admiral Blake gave the stand down order. Equipped with 108 cannons but capable of arming up to 120 cannons. (Be advised, sinking of this ship has an extremely high priority. - Mortimer.)

HRAN _Thunderchild_ - 2nd Rater formerly of the Albionian navy and currently the command ship of Admiral Robert Blake. Distinguishing characteristics are an enlarged complement of light deck cannons on the top deck and forecastle. (Sinking of the_Thunderchild_ is only mid priority but every opportunity should be taken to eliminate Admiral Blake. He is far too dangerous to allow to remain in the services of Reconquista. - Wales)

SC*** _Mercator_ - Flagship of the Tristanian navy. A Tristanian built 2nd rater equipped with 90 Guns. Flagship of Supreme Commander Count Eren La Ramee. Captained by Sir Johan Fevis.

_Sabrina_ - A Germanian built clipper of admirable speed and maneuverability, currently owned and Captained by Captain Duran Thorn.

*His/Her Majesty's ship

**Holy Republic of Albion Navy

*** Ship of the Crown


	57. Chapter 14 Part 1

- So yes, the next couple of chapters are me indulging in a bit of preparation for 'the Finale' as it were. Again, looking back I've realized that this story has really expanded in scope. Dozens of OOCs and when not OOC then deciding to focus on characters that usually don't get this much screen time. I guess a lot of people don't like this so much, but eh . . . I'm having fun. I hope you all continue to enjoy the ride.

Sincerely, the Author.

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 14 - Part 1

Spring really was the very best time of year, Henrietta thought as she looked out on the southern grounds of the Royal Palace. The flowers were in full bloom and the trees were filled with the singing of birds. It was such a shame to waste the entire day inside. That was why she had chosen to take lunch outside while the House of Nobles broke for recess. With any luck, the final Treaty integrating the Fae into Tristain as subjects under the Crown could be signed as early as tomorrow.

The process had proved quite agonizing all things considered. The nobles, Cardinal Mazarin, and even the Faeries insisting that every part of the document be thoroughly gone over. Everything had to be explained and defined in detail. Neither side was willing to tolerate any ambiguity. And even beyond that, there were provisions for later modification of the treaty in case something had been forgotten. Though Henrietta could hardly imagine what might have been left out after all of that. There had been a rather lot of shouting, all things considered.

Still, she was grateful, after a fashion. After all, it had given her this opportunity.

"This tea is quite lovely." Henrietta's guest said from her place opposite the Princess at the table.

The Lady of the Sylphs was as serene as ever, a contemplative smile gracing her lips as she took in the aroma from the teacup held delicately in one hand. For the final negotiations before the convened Nobility of Tristain, she had exchanged her light green robe, the one she referred to as a Yukata, for a more formal one that had been hastily commissioned along with Lady Alicia's own ceremonial garb. Dressed as she was now, Sakuya affected a much more regal appearance that she had in their previous meetings. Which Henrietta thought, was rather the point.

"Do you like it?" Henrietta asked, pleased. "These tea leaves were purchased from one of the Rub' al Khali trade caravans."

"Rub' al Khali?" Sakuya asked. "That is the far Eastern human kingdom, is it not? I suppose it would be something like this world's China or Middle East in terms of trade goods. That makes sense. This tea reminds me a great deal of our homeland." Her smile turned melancholic.

"Drawing more comparisons between our worlds?" Henrietta asked curiously. This was what she most loved talking to Sakuya about. She had been right to judge the Sylph woman as a scholar, a historian. The world she was from had so very much history, wonderful, horrible, all of it fascinating. Most of all, Henrietta loved this little game where they would try to find parallels between the two.

"Hmm. In ancient times, the Middle East provided a trade route from the far Eastern lands." Sakuya elaborated. "It later declined somewhat in importance with the beginning of the age of sail and the formation of large overseas empires by the Great Powers. It makes me wonder if Rub' al Khali is simply one of many Eastern Kingdoms. The gateway to the East as it were."

"It is difficult to say." The third person at the table replied. Cardinal Mazarin was looking far better after his convalescence. By now he had fully re-assumed his duties as Henrietta's Regent, though he had continued to consult with her on matters relating to the Faeries. "Contact is tenuous at the best of times, dependent as it is on the trade caravans that skirt the Elven Lands. Air travel is completely blocked, and the seas beyond Romalia are treacherous, the spawning grounds of Whale Dragons."

"I for one find it most strange that there would be any similarity at all between our worlds." The last person at the table, Queen Marianne said as she set her own teacup back on its saucer. Though the Queen had rarely exercised her authority as sovereign, curiosity, and Henrietta's own urging had drawn her mother from her normal seclusion to observe this matter personally. "You say that there is no magic in your homeland. Surely this would have made it a very different place."

Sakuya nodded. "It has." She agreed. "Our people didn't have magic to help us till the soil or heal the sick. We've had to rely on science and technology instead. But it appears that people are the same everywhere." The last comment seemed to be said half to herself, and left Henrietta all the more curious.

"I think what Sakuya means is that magic is the only thing that divides Mages from Commoners. Beyond that, we are all simply people." Henrietta elaborated, receiving a small nod from Sakuya and a mildly concealed look of discomfort from Cardinal Mazarin. He would no doubt tell her later, in private, that she should mind the way she said such things. But it was the truth, wasn't it? The Nobility may have been given magic in order to have the strength to rule, but they still had to make themselves worthy of that right.

"Science and technology." The Queen murmured. "That is the natural philosophy that you wish to provide to Tristain, is it not?"

"Yes." Sakuya said as the servants began to arrive with their meal. Having heard that they would be feeding not only the Queen and their Princess, but a Faerie Noblewoman, it seemed the palace chefs had outdone themselves this morning to represent Tristanian cuisine. "Although the ideas and devices we intend to introduce for the time being are quite simple and easy to implement. They mostly focus on Tristain's agricultural situation." Sakuya smiled, seeming a little embarrassed. "That should more than alleviate the burden we've placed on Tristain's food supply."

Cardinal Mazarin nodded. "A rather ingenious four crop rotation, and this new machine, what did you call it? A Macor-Make Reaper?"

"McCormick Reaper." Sakuya corrected. "Between these two, and the other agricultural advances we want to introduce, Tristain should be able to see considerably increased food yields in the coming years and free up additional labor for work elsewhere. Barring any natural misfortune of course."

"Of course." Mazarin breathed softly. "Though it may take some time for these ideas to spread. Many Nobles will want to see proof before they will commit."

"And they will." Sakuya said as she went to work on her plate, shredded game fowl wrapped in a crepe and covered in a rich sauce. "Count Woestte may be an unpleasant man to deal with, but he is all too happy to experiment with new avenues for making money. You would think that he and Rute were kindred spirits."

Henrietta's nose wrinkled at mention of the short Leprechaun. He was not an entirely unpleasant man, but rather more arrogant and pompous than most of the other Fae. At least he would fit in well enough with Tristain's nobility.

"He may not be the only one." The Cardinal observed as he raised his first bite to his own mouth. "I've heard word that Duke Valliere has decided to sponsor the Gnomes and Leprechaun's in their efforts to set up a new forge."

"The Gnome Council certainly are an industrious lot." Sakuya observed, referring to the collection of ground dwelling Faeries that had taken to managing the mining town of Tau Tona, the Gnome home city.

The Gnomes had yet to elect a proper leader to become their representative among the Nobility, instead sending a delegate temporarily empowered with the authority to negotiate on their behalf to participate and observe the proceedings in Tristania. The Puca had done something similar to the Gnomes, while both the Imps and Undines had already selected new leaders. The Imps had chosen a pious man named Zolf who had been a lieutenant to be their leader, while the Undines had put forward a man named Thinker who had taken control of the chaos in Orlein in the days after their sudden appearance in Halkegenia.

"And of course, we can expect this exchange of information to be reciprocated, can't we?" Sakuya asked with a slight edge of caution.

Cardinal Mazarin and the Queen exchanged glances, a nod was shared between the two. "The Tristain Academia will be made available to research the phenomenon that brought you here." Queen Marianne said. "Although from what I have been told, they do not know where to even begin at this time. It could take years to decipher just what brought you here and years more to translate that knowledge into a way to return you. That is, if it is possible at all."

The Sylph Leader's expression grew pained, and Henrietta's heart went out to the other woman. She was in a difficult situation, responsible to her people, but unable to guarantee even the slightest assurance for them. "I suppose that is all that we can hope for. Thank you once again on behalf of us all." Sakuya replied solemnly.

Sensing the mood, Henrietta worked to lead conversation away from a sensitive subject and the rest of the lunch hour was spent on happier topics, the discussions of trade, and the continuation of Sakuya and Henrietta's little game. So far they had decided that Romalia matched closely with Sakuya's Italy, and that Gallia was comparable to her world's France. Albion was apparently similar to the Isle of Britain which was also referred to as the White Isle, although not for the same reasons as Albion. Germania was the hardest of the countries to place given its history. It reminded Sakuya of something called the Holy Roman Empire but she seemed to think Germania was considerably stronger and more unified than that Kingdom when compared to its peers.

"I would hardly call Germania a unified kingdom. More a particularly bloody commonwealth." Cardinal Mazarin said with a note of distaste. "There is constant infighting among the Princes of Germania to place themselves in line to be the next Emperor. The whole nation is a web of constantly shifting political alliances kept barely in check by the intermarriage of the various families. Of course, this just means there are more claimants for the seat of the Emperor."

"And Tristain is about to marry into this mess." Sakuya stated with a hint of disbelief.

Henrietta bit down as she was reminded once again that her fate had already been decided. The marriage would take place in but a week. In a weeks time she would depart Tristain to be wed to the Emperor of Germania. As his bride, as his pawn, her blood would offer legitimacy to the current Imperial Family's next generation when it came time to squabble once again for the right to rule. Why did it have to ache so much to do one's duty?

"Quite." Cardinal Mazarin agreed softly. "This treaty signing will be the last official act of Tristain as an independent Kingdom. I understand that some of the conditions do not sit well with you, but believe it or not, it is in the interest of your people for the signing to be concluded swiftly. Tristain is a small nation, but it has a high proportion of mages and many old and powerful Noble lines. Germania generally does not dare to interfere to egregiously in the internal affairs of its constituent principalities."

Setting her fork back at its place on the table and lacing her hands before her, Sakuya gave the cardinal that peculiar smile that seemed to hint at an inner venom. "So, we'll only have to worry about interference from the Nobles of Tristain. Or of course, any interference they invite."

Mazarin took a breath but nodded all the same. "At the Princess' behest I have tried. But we cannot protect you and your people from everything."

There was no time for more to be said. A messenger arrived to inform them that the meeting was about to reconvene. Cardinal Mazarin and Queen Marianne departed hurriedly, Henrietta trailing behind the Regent and her Mother, lost once more in thought as she made her way down the wide hallways of the Palace's second story. A hand came to rest gently on her shoulder, it was Sakuya, a look of concern furrowing her brow.

"Princess, are you alright? You seem very troubled right now." The Sylph woman said. Behind her, a pair of Griffin Knights stood calmly, keeping enough distance to allow their Princess some privacy while speaking with her guest.

Henrietta tried to smile, Sakuya had her own troubles, she didn't need to be burdened by those of a Princess as well. "Its hardly anything at all." She said. "Nothing but a trifling matter." It was just . . .

Sakuya didn't seem to believe her. Odd, most people politely turned away when she said it like this. Though, why should she expect that of the Faeries? They were such forward people after all. Their manner could border on offensive. But at the same time, it was endearing, Sakuya never seemed to be trying to tell her just what she wanted to hear.

"I'm getting married." Henrietta said, almost babbled really. "I'm getting married. I should be happy, shouldn't I?" She questioned, her smile growing painfully tight. Yes, happy, just so!

Sakuya gave her an understanding look. "You do a very noble thing Princess. It's not what you want, but you're willing to sacrifice your happiness for your people." Henrietta nodded. Yes, it was exactly as Sakuya said.

"Have I really been so obvious?" She asked. Louise hadn't seemed to pick up on it at all, or had she simply ignored the signs out of politeness?

Sakuya tucked her hands back into the cuffs of her robe, closed her eyes, and shook her head reassuringly. "It's only natural. You think your destiny has already been decided. I can't imagine what that must feel like. In a way, even a King is less free in this world than the lowest commoner was in ours. There are things you will have to do in life, and you will really feel like you are sacrificing yourself. But never let that stop you from finding happiness."

Henrietta smiled back. "Yes. Thank you. I'll try do that." She said before moving to catch up with her mother and the Cardinal. Find happiness? She didn't know if she could do that. Not anymore. She'd cut her ties with joy only a brief while ago. Now all that was left was a bitter resentment that filled her chest until it ached. Sakuya was right, if she'd been born in that other world, she'd have been much more free than she could ever be in this one.

The journey to the meeting place was short. So short that it didn't even warrant a carriage ride save for the impropriety of the Queen and Princess arriving at the meeting on foot. The House of Peers was built directly opposite the front gates of the Royal palace as a meeting place so that the Landed Nobility could discuss subjects of national interest and bring grievances before the crown to seek redress. It was both a practical building, containing a meeting chamber with sufficient room for all of the major Noble houses to present themselves and take part in a meeting, and also a symbolic one. The House of Peers was a significantly smaller building than the palace and also came only to three stories in height. The palace, with its long eastern and western wings, four floors, and extravagantly domed grand ballroom, faced it majestically, and was a constant reminder of the crown's authority.

Stepping down from her carriage, followed by Lady Sakuya and flanked quickly by her two escorting Knights, Henrietta looked up at the face of the House of Peers before following behind her mother and the Cardinal, mounting the steps to enter the foyer of the building.

Nobles and their retainers were clustered together in tight groups muttering like a microcosm of conspiracies, all swirling around the broad doors that led into the Council Chambers themselves. A pair of guards opened the doors for Henrietta and her companions and they were admitted into the vast room, already over half filled as Nobles returned to their seats after a brief recess. Until today, Henrietta had never been in this room. It was an important place, but only frequented by the Royalty in times of dire emergency or momentous national occasions. More often the Nobility would confer her and then bring their concerns before the King or Queen at the Palace.

As people began to settle in, Henrietta was able to pick out the dividing lines. They could almost be seen by looking at the crowd and who sat next to who. In her novice opinion, there were three prevailing power blocks among the nobility of Tristain in the matter of how to deal with the Faeries and the rest of ALfheim. They were transient things, much too nebulous to be called any sort of permanent political alliance, much less to have selected names for themselves or to have been assigned names by their opponents. But shortly, Henrietta thought of them as the Opportunists, the Moderates, and the Radicals.

Making up about a quarter of the Nobility were the Opportunists. They were pragmatists more interested in how the arrival of the Fae might be used to improve their personal fortunes. To a man, they were among the Nobility who had been least directly effected by the arrival of ALfheim. Those whose lands were mostly intact, and generally close to one of the new Faerie settlements. While by no means friends of the Fae, seeking to hobble them under Noble authority, and yoke them as beasts to till the fields of their own fortunes, they were not adverse to the idea of cooperation if it would gain them wealth. Cardinal Mazarin had proven an especially deft hand at balancing these interests, gaining concessions from the Nobility on behalf of the Fae that Henrietta would have though impossible.

The next group, making up a little less than two thirds of the nobility were what Henrietta termed the Moderates. Mostly they were lower ranked Nobles with lesser titles and smaller estates to their names or else Old Nobility who had not ended up close to any of the major Faerie settlements. They preferred a wait and see approach to dealing with the Fae and were more interested in maintaining some semblance of stability for themselves. In general this group was willing to grudgingly tolerate the Faeries given the concessions that were being made in turn by the Fae and primarily sought a reaffirmation of their Noble privileges. Those that thought they could benefit from interacting with the Faeries leaned more towards the opportunists while those who favored isolation from the Fae leaned towards the last group, the Radicals.

The radicals were the remainder of the nobility, perhaps no more than a tenth, composed of those whose lands had been partially or entirely displaced in the transition or else pious men and women demanding that the demi humans be brought to heel. They sought the most extreme measures in dealing with the Fae, isolation, subjugation, perhaps even extermination, though none had been so bold or foolhardy as to say such things out loud. They based their legal arguments on the Fae being interlopers encroaching on the lands given in perpetual Stewardship to the Nobility and based their religious arguments on the broad discretion that the Church had given Tristain in settling this matter.

Henrietta's eyes next turned to the handful of truly friendly faces in this affair. Near the front of the chamber, a pew of seats had been set aside for the representatives of the Fae. It was already mostly filled.

The familiar, red haired figure of Lord Mortimer was hunched over with the rotund Leprechaun Lord Rute. All the while, the raven haired Lady of the Spriggan, Morgiana, stood over both, arms crossed confidently, commenting on whatever they were discussing with a look of open amusement.

Another man with brown hair, wearing an almost martial uniform, spoke animatedly with a slender silver haired woman who was similarly dressed. Their pointed ears were indistinct, not marking them out as any particular Faerie race. Sakuya had informed her that they were the representative of the Undines and his lieutenant respectively.

Next was a mild looking man with black hair, slightly pointed ears, and deep red eyes. When Henriette had first met Zolf of the Imps in the company of Duchess Valliere, the Duchess had been almost immediately suspicious of him, closely watching whenever he ate or drank. However, gradually, the Duchess' manner had slowly returned to its normal neutrality as if satisfied with her observations.

It had left the Princess quite curious what could have elicited such a response. Henrietta had only met with him briefly but she judged Zolf a gentle man if not a gentleman. His most peculiar trait was the small, almost Brimiric cross that he wore around his neck. Normally hidden in his robes and vest, the silver cross would appear from time to time in his hands, most often when meditating on some matter.

Following Zolf was a grizzled looking Gnome who was a rarity among the Fae for appearing old. Henrietta thought that Ruks of the Gnomes resembled a man in his fifties by human standards, his hair and mustache mostly white with a fringe of clinging gray. His dark gray eyes seemed to know more than they let on, yet the man rarely spoke, and when he did it almost seemed a riddle. Only the pale skinned, brunette girl at his side, Zia, the Representative of the Puca, had spoken less during the negotiations.

The only delegate missing today from among the Faeries was Lady Alicia who had traveled out the night before aboard a Tristanian Frigate to contact Kirito and ascertain the situation in Albion. Henrietta had been badly tempted to go with her in hopes that Kirito might be at Newcastle, might be in the company of Prince Wales Tudor. But in the end, she hadn't the courage, nor the strength to face him and not break down. In either case, Lady Alicia had left her assistant, a scholarly looking Cait Syth named Alden to see to things in her absence. Henrietta didn't know much about the man but he seemed polite enough in his bookish way.

Opposite the gathered faeries were Henrietta's own allies within the Nobility. The Duchess Valliere, and surprisingly, Count Woestte. The two represented two sides of the same coin, Henrietta supposed. Both the Vallieres and Woestte were among the opportunists, though for different reasons. The Duchess Valliere seemed interested in having things settled as swiftly as possible in order to see to Tristain's continued internal stability, Count Woestte likewise wished to see the prosperity of Tristain though in his case it was purely in order to line his own pockets. As Lady Sakuya had said, the Count was quite intrigued to try out the new agriculture methods that some of the Fae had suggested.

A bell was chiming to call everyone to their seats. Lady Sakuya's hand brushed gently against Henrietta's shoulder, giving a small, reassuring squeeze before vanishing back into the sleeve of her robe. The Sylph moved calmly to take her place with the other Faerie Lords, drawing the eyes of much of the nobility who looked on with a mixture of curiosity, intrigue, and in the cases of the few noblewomen present, open jealousy. It seemed that Sakuya's choice of exotic ceremonial garb was having the intended affect, people didn't know what to think of her, but they knew to take her seriously.

Henrietta was just about to move to her own seat when there was a voice to her back. "Princess!" She turned to see a Knight, but not one of her Griffin Knights. Instead, the man war the uniform of an officer of the Manticore Knights, the second smaller contingent of mounted Mage Knights that were under the direct control of the crown. Usually, as the Griffin Knights protected Henrietta, the Manticore Knights provided her mother's guards.

The Griffin Knights flanking Henrietta did not move from their places, nevertheless, the Manticore Knight gave each a suspicious glance. "Princess, I am Sir Hammond, Captain of the Manticore Knights, there is an urgent matter needing the attention of Cardinal Mazarin and Yourself."

Henrietta blinked rapidly. "I'm sorry, but I don't understand. The council meeting is about to reconvene."

"I beg of you Princess. I have been told this is a matter of the very greatest urgency." Though he spoke calmly, looking at Sir Hammond, Henrietta was certain it was only the calm of a man who had seen countless battles. Anyone else would be in open panic.

She felt her stomach twisting up. Looking back over her shoulder, Henrietta saw a pair of Manticore Knights speaking heatedly with the Queen and Cardinal Mazarin. The Duchess Valliere approached, receiving a salute from the older of the two knights before waving it off with a look of open annoyance. They spoke for a moment more before all three followed the Manticore Knights to a side door concealed in the paneling of the chamber wall, a side chamber where meetings could be held in private.

Henrietta nodded to Sir Hammond. "Very well. Lead the way Captain."

The Knight cleared a path through the convening Bobility for the Princess and her guards. Quickly, they made their way to the same door and the hallway beyond. Henrietta's mother, Cardinal Mazarin, and the Duchess Valliere were waiting for them, along with another four Manticore Knights.

"Sir Weltwall, Sir Bjorn, this is as far as you will be going?" Captain Hammond said to Henrietta's escorting Griffin Knights. Neither man, trained to give their life to protect Henrietta's own, took the instructions well.

Sir Weltwall's eyes narrowed, the man's sharp features growing instantly suspicious. A hand came to rest on the hilt of his sword wand. "With all due respect, we are not to leave the Princess's side until relieved by acting Captain Dahl or else Captain Wardes himself.

"That would be the problem." Sir Hammond said softly. "Both of you, by order of the Crown, I order you to stand down."

"What is the meaning of this?!" The blonde haired Sir Bjorn asked sharply.

Stepping forward, Queen Marianne looked to both Griffin Knights. "Please, both of you do as the Captain Requests. This is an order from your Queen. For the time being you will return to your barracks and await further orders."

Though hesitant, slowly, both men stood down. Both looked to Henrietta who nodded that it was okay for them to depart. Bother Knights gave their Princess a small bow before turning back down the hallway.

"Mother, what is the meaning of this?" Henrietta asked. The Queen's expression simply turned pained, prompting her to turn to Cardinal Mazarin. Deep down, she thought she knew, their could only be one thing that would cause this sort of reaction. 'Please, don't let it be that, oh Foudner, do not forsake me with such misfortune.' She thought.

The door behind her opened again to admit another Manticore Knight. In his company was Lady Sakuya and Lord Mortimer. Both Faeries looked as mystified as the Princess as they were shown into a meeting room, all wood paneled with tall windows that looked out on the surrounding gardens. A long conference table occupied the center of the room with space for two dozen people. Two people were already waiting when they arrived.

The first was yet another Tristanian Knight, though not of either the Manticore or Griffin forces. His more utilitarian uniform marked him out as a Dragon Knight. His face was wind whipped and his hair was swept back as if from prolonged flight.

The second figure was all the more Surprising. Standing at his side, dressed not in her ceremonial robes but instead her scandalous casual garb, Lady Alica Rue smiled wanly, dark rings running under her eyes. It looked like she not had slept in the past day.

"Alicia?" Sakuya asked, concern in her voice as she hurried to her fellow Lord's side.

"Hey Sakuya-chan." Alicia said weakly, chuckling a little under her breath. "Sorry it took so long, but we had to wait for the Dragons to get back and rest from patrol so that we could fly over the ocean."

"Hammond." The Duchess Valliere nodded to the Manticore Captain.

"Karin." The man replied quietly.

"Explain yourself now. What is the meaning of all of this?" The Duchess Valliere instructed levelly. Henrietta was surprised at the way that the Duchess worded her request as an order. She was even more surprised with how immediately the Knight Captain obeyed.

"A precaution. A necessary one." Hammond said. "At the moment, the loyalty of the Griffin Knights must be considered suspect."

Henrietta licked her lips. "Why? Whatever for?" She asked. "My Knights have always served dutifully."

"That is very true Princess, which is why they were asked to return to their barracks rather than being arrested on the spot." Captain Hammond said before taking a breath. "I fear I must inform you that we have received word of treachery from the Captain of the Griffin Knights themselves, Viscount Jean Jacques De Wardes."

Henrietta didn't know how to describe how she felt at that very moment. The strangest sense of falling. "Treachery?" She asked weakly. Cardinal Mazarin's face became a mask of dull horror. Even the Duchess Valliere seemed to have grown pale.

"I heard it from Kirito-kun himself." Alicia spoke up. "We contacted him last night with Moonlight Mirror like we planned. Except when we got through to him he was waiting with a man named Paris and someone who claimed to be the King of Albion."

"Then he made it to Newcastle." Duchess Valliere said. "What treachery did Wardes commit?!" A tinge of anger had entered the Duchess's voice. As she balled her fists, Henrietta couldn't help but notice the way the tendons stood up tightly in her forearms.

"Well." Alicia looked around the room. It was clear how bad the situation was. The normally chipper Cait Syth looked run ragged. "He tried to assassinate Prince Wales."

"Assassinate?!" Henrietta felt her heart leap into her throat. No!

"He tried, but he failed." Alicia confirmed, picking up speed now. "From the sound of it, the Prince was at death's door after the assassination attempt, but Kirito-kun was able to force a vial of World Tree Sap down his throat. That kicked him from fatal into critical condition. He was still unconscious when I made contact, but it sounds like every water mage in Newcastle was at his bedside. They think he'll make it."

Henrietta felt her whole body shake with relief. But her joy was short lived. Wardes was traitor. There was only one cause he could be a traitor for.

"The Viscount was an agent for Reconquista." The Duchess Valliere said softly.

The Queen grimaced. "Karin, can you be sure?"

The Duchess nodded confidently. "It's the logical conclusion. Why else attempt to kill a doomed Prince save to demoralize the last Royalist holdouts? Which means, if he serves Reconquista he no doubt had another objective."

"The letter." Henrietta breathed softly. No, please not that. This was some sort of nightmare. Wasn't it?

"It was an attempted assassination." The Duchess observed. "If it was thwarted, then was Wardes killed?" The questioned carried a note of desperation. A last hope.

Alicia shook her head from side to side. "He used some sort of wind clone to do the deed after he'd already left."

"Ubiquitous Wind." The Duchess murmured, eyes going narrow.

"And it gets worse." The Cait Syth Lord said, ears folding flat as she recalled. "Prince Wales hadn't woken up yet, but the other guy you sent, says that he asked around and confirmed that Captain Wardes was spotted departing the private quarters of Prince Wales about half an hour before the assassination attempt. It sounds like he probably got whatever he came for. About the only good news is that Kirito-kun found our missing Faeries, they're all in Newcastle, holed up with the Royalists." Alicia Rue's ears twitched. "You said something about a letter?" All eyes in the room, but especially all Faerie eyes, turned to Henrietta.

"I . . ." Henrietta began. She looked to the Duchess Valliere, her mother, and then to Cardinal Mazarin. What should she do? Finally, she nodded. "Yes, Viscout Wardes was sent to retrieve a document from the person of Prince Wales. He was to return it to me here in Tristain before my wedding." Henrietta felt a hotness beginning in the corner of her eyes, but she would not cry. Looking up she saw past her mother and the Cardinal to Lady Sakuya and Lord Mortimer. Her people, and these other wonderful people, they were all going to be endangered because of her childish whims. 'Stupid. Stupid Girl!' She cursed herself. "I fear that letter might spell disaster for our coming alliance with Germania."

"Princess?" Sakuya asked softly. "If I may ask, what were the contents of this letter?"

"It was . . ." Henrietta bit her lip as if she could hold in the truth, the reality that was sweeping over them. "A love letter. An affirmation of a vow Prince Wales and I made to one another some time ago." She closed her eyes. She didn't want to look at the people she had betrayed with her selfish whims. Sakuya was right, she should have tried to seek happiness within the bounds of her circumstances. She should have known to have the letter removed or destroyed sooner.

A hand came up and wiped the first tears from her cheek. When Henrietta opened her eyes, she found her mother standing before her. "Henrietta." The Queen said softly. "Please, this is not a time for weakness. Show strength right now as our Kingdom's Princess." The words were not admonishing, they were encouragement. A plea for Henrietta to do her best.

"This love letter? How seriously will Germania take it?" Lady Sakuya asked.

Cardinal Mazarin grimaced. "The Princess made her drafts available to me after confiding in me the existence of the letter." The Cardinal leaned against the conference table for support. "The best we can hope for is that Germania will demand punitive terms be added to the marriage contract. More likely, the elements opposed to the marriage will use it as grounds to void the whole alliance. They'll leave us to draw the attention of Reconquista while building up their own defenses."

"That seems absurd." Mortimer observed clinically. "All over a love letter?"

Sakuya gave her fellow Lord a sideways glare. "Such letters can cast doubts upon the line of succession an legitimacy. They can be toxic to any agreement sealed by marriage." Turning back to Henrietta and Cadinal Mazarin, Sakuya asked quickly. "Then what does this mean for Tristain?"

"I cannot fathom any good outcome." Mazarin replied. "I would say invasion is by far the most likely. Without Germania's aid, Tristain cannot resist. We have less than half as many ships as Albion and no standing army to speak of beyond the Cavalry forces and garrisons. Reconquista will not wait for us to prepare. They will attack as soon as they've finished with the Royalists. Tristain's Royal Family will either be executed or exiled. What will happen to you Faeries, I cannot say."

"Nothing good." Lady Alicia concluded flatly. "Kirito-kun says Reconquista has really gotten behind the propaganda bandwagon calling the Faeries heathen demons of the land. Sounds like the best we can hope for is getting burned at the stake."

"It sounds like Cromwell is taking a page from the Church's early attempts to break Albion of its superstitions." Mazarin snorted softly. "Trust Cromwell to use a sledgehammer for the work of a physician's mallet."

"In either case. What is our next move?" The Duchess asked as if awaiting orders. She looked first to the Queen and then to Cardinal Mazarin. "We cannot simply wait. Reconquista may not know it yet. But they have sent us a message that we would be fools to ignore."

"A message?" Henrietta asked. And then understood. Yes, this was a message. In fact, Reconquista agents would probably contact them shortly to list their demands. No doubt the surrender of the Royal Family and the complete surrender of Tristatin.

Lord Mortimer nodded slowly. "Ah, this much I understand." And then he said what no one else dare. "It's a declaration of war."


	58. Chapter 14 Part 2

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 12 - Part 2

Sakuya was certain that this had to be a nightmare. Funny, she thought she'd have grown used to that feeling after finding herself trapped within her avatar made flesh in a world where magic was real and deadly. But this was somehow worse. It was like all of her worst fears were beginning to unfold before her and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

After Mortimer had offered his brutal assessment, the meeting room had grown completely silent. Sakuya could hear the birds singing in the trees outside. It had been Cardinal Mazarin who had been the first to respond.

"Your Majesty." The Cardinal said, turning to Queen Marianne. "What would you have me do?"

Queen Marianne seemed surprised by the question and hesitated to answer. "I . . . This is difficult to accept. That the commander of the Griffin Knights is a traitor to the Kingdom."

At the Queen's side, the Duchess Valliere shook her head, regaining some of her lost composure. "I must agree. So far we only have word carried by Faerie Magic."

"Are you implying something?" Alicia asked shortly, the normally chipper Cait Syth's personality had been worn thin by lack of sleep and stress and her tail lashed in open agitation as she faced off opposite the Duchess.

"Merely that we cannot entrust the fate of the Kingdom to a spell that we know so little about." The Duchess replied, looking down at the short Faerie Lord. "You Fae have been granted great leeway and trust by the Crown, surely you can accept that both have limits."

"Do you really believe that, Karin?" Queen Marianne asked.

Surprisingly, the Queen's softly asked question seemed to get a rise out of the Duchess, her face flushed faintly. "No. As you say, it is difficult to accept. But I believe them. Though if possible I would like to travel out with Lady Alicia and observe the spell being used for myself." The Duchess took a breath, and then, like the faithful at confession, she added. "Your Majesty, I am the one who originally sponsored the Viscount to join the Griffin Knights and who suggested he be sent on this mission. I did so acting as a Knight of Tristain and former member of the Manticore Corps, responsibility rests on my shoulders alone."

"Karin, what are you saying?" Queen Marianne asked. "This is no more your fault than it is mine or Cardinal Mazarin's. None of us could have expected this treachery."

"Be that as it may, your Majesty, I can offer only my humble services." The Duchess de la Valliere bowed deeply to her sovereign.

"Queen Marianne is right." Mazarin said. "You may have suggested Captain Wardes, but I also approved of the choice and would have put his name forward if you had not." With a shake of his head the Cardinal cast his eyes downward as if ashamed. "We believed that a member of the Griffin Knights would be above suspicion. We were mistaken. If even the Royal Guard is suspect, then who can we trust?"

Turning to her daughter's regent, the Duchess bowed her head deferentially. "Cardinal Mazarin, I'm afraid I must ask your services once more for the good of Tristain. Please lend us your experience and wisdome. As Queen, I will offer whatever aid I can to you and my daughter."

Mazarin bowed his own head in acceptance. The elderly man's lips began to move as if he were speaking to himself, or perhaps uttering a short prayer. "If that is the case, then first we must decide who we may trust. Captain Hammond, how many people outside of this room no about this?"

Sakuya looked over to the Manticore Knight. "In total, only the Knights in this room and the two guarding the door at this moment."

"There's also a couple of Cait Syth that were with me aboard the Navy Frigate and the ship's Captain. Oh and Mister Dragon Knight over here." Alicia added before letting out an long, involuntary yawn that seemed to defy the severity of the situation. "Ah, sorry!"

"The ship is the Wildhunt, her Captain is an old hand and in so much as he already knows, I am willing to trust that he is loyal. The same can be said for the Manticore Knights in this room right now." Cardinal Mazarin concluded. "Strangely, I believe that the people we can trust the most at this moment," he turned to look Mortimer and then Sakuya in the eyes, "Are the Fae."

"We have as much to lose as the Royal family if Tristain is invaded by Albion." Sakuya breathed softly. No, even more, the Royalty could at least flee and seek refuge in a foreign nation. Sakuya had learned that shelter had long been given by Romalia to the ruling lines of the various nations. The same could not be said for the former players. If the forces of Reconquista took control of Tristain, they would likely launch a purge to slaughter every Faerie they could get their hands on. She closed her eyes and nodded. "I understand. Please let us know if there is anything we can do."

Mazarin nodded his head as he thought. "For the time being, our highest priority must be to have the treaty signed before the convened nobility. This will mark into law the standing of the Fae and help stabilize Tristain internal situation."

"Then by all means, let us sign and be done with it." Mortimer offered. "All that is left are a few minor matters to resolve. They can be handled later through the amendment provisions."

"No." Cardinal Mazarine said quickly. "We must not be too hasty. There are factions within the nobility that will scent that something is amiss and try to delay. We will simply have to go forward with tomorrow's signing as planned. In that regard, this warning is something of a blessing. The Rebels will still think us ignorant. Doubtless we will soon receive an ultimatum from from one of their agents within Tristain. We must use the time until then wisely."

"Then you want us to help in this deception." Mortimer concluded.

"May we at least inform the other Leaders?" Sakuya asked, not missing a suspicious glance from the Duchess.  
Cardinal Mazarin exchanged glances with Queen Marianne. "I see no way to avoid it. Regardless of what happens next, I believe we will be needing your help. For better or worse, the Fae are now involved in this matter. You became involved as soon as your agent departed in the company of Viscount Wardes."

"Kirito-kun sure has a knack for finding his way into trouble." Alicia observed, voice full of dark humor.

"He's also good at fighting his way out of it." Sakuya countered with a small shake of her head. Not that she could see how that would do them any good. Kirito was good, but he couldn't fight an army.

A distant chiming could be heard echoing down the hall, muffled by meeting room doors. Cardinal Mazarin seemed to stare through the would paneling in annoyance. "I believe that will have to be all for now. Until tomorrow, we must all dutifully play our parts to ensure the treaty signing is a success."

With that, the Cardinal had gestured to the door and the gathered Fae and Mages had begun to file out. "Alicia-chan, are you coming?" Sakuya asked, noticing the way that the smaller Faerie was dozing on her feet.

"Hmm?" Alicia blinked and shook her head. "I don't think so. I'm not really dressed for the occasion and Alden knows what I'd do." She gestured to her jacket and leotard combo. "Besides, I need to catch a bit of shut eye before I fly back out tonight. I told Kirito that I'd call back before dawn tomorrow." Alicia smile slipped a little as she saw the worry on Sakuya's face. "It'll be alright, Sakuya-chan. Just you wait."

Sakuya smiled at her friend. "Yes, I'm sure you're right." She said, before departing after the others. They were lead back to the House chamber, flanked on both sides by Manticore Knights.

Walking beside her mother, Princess Henrietta's eyes were downcast and her hands were clasped tightly before her. It must have been a sort of torture for the gentle, well meaning princess, to learn that her love letter could start a war. Good. A small, ugly part of Sakuya thought meanly. This was all Hernietta's fault, and a lots of people would end up suffering much more than her before all was said and done. She strangled that thought while it was still half formed. No, Henrietta wasn't to blame for this. It was more unfairness, that a Kingdoms fate could be sealed by the whims of a teenaged girl, it was cruel!

Sakuya wanted to reach out and reassure her, but then they were stepping out into noise of the House chamber once more and there was no more time to speak. Henrietta sat down beside her mother while Sakuya and Mortimer made their way back to sit with the other Faeries. The only one who seemed to pay their absence any mind was Morgiana who gave them both a questioning look as they sat down.

As the last Noblemen found their seats, Cardinal Mazarin climbed back up to the podium and brought the session back to order as if nothing had happened. What had followed could best be described as five hours of hell.

The minutes, that had seemed so fleeting before, had dragged on into infinity as Sakuya found herself glancing impatiently to the time piece built into the front of the chamber. At this point, the actual negotiations were all but over.

At the head of the room, a thick stack of papers sat before an assembled group representatives of the Tristain Legal College and the Fae's own legal representatives. Translating the treaty into both Tristanian and Japanese had proven a monumental task for the staff of lawyers, legal clerks, and amateur linguists who had volunteered for the task, but at last, after many readings, they were satisfied that the two versions were as closely matched as they could hope for.

All that was left now was more pointless posturing by the Tristanian nobility, a collection of racists and religious fanatics torn from the pages of the 17th century. Sakuya took a breath, catching herself, forcing herself to remain calm and composed. Glancing to her side, she saw the Mortimer looked as stoic as ever, though looking more closely she could see that his jaw was ever so slightly clenched. For the Salamander Lord, that was as good a boiling over. Beside him, the other leaders, still ignorant about what had transpired in private, watched the proceedings with a mix of interest, dutiful attentiveness, and boredom. Morgiana of all people, was sitting up straight, taking notes in surprisingly small, neat, handwriting.

At last, as the sun had begun to set over the rooftops of the capital, the final draft of the treaty was approved by Cardinal Mazarin and Queen Marianne and the signing was scheduled for tomorrow morning. There gains and losses tallied, the assembled Nobles began to disperse, spreading out onto the darkening streets of Tristania's noble quarter in search of dinner and entertainment. Any other night, Sakuya would have loved to have seen a period performed play or opera, but now, much graver things were on her mind.

The Fae delegation had waited for the crowd to thin before departing, Morgiana leading the way to cut a path through the loitering Nobles. It was well known that the delegation had been staying as guests of the Royal Family, so there was no suspicion as the Leaders and their staff made their way as a group back across the narrow streets to the Palace gates.

Almost as soon as they set food within the palace ground, they were met once more by Cardinal Mazarin, Queen Marianne, Princess Henrietta, the Duchess de la Valliere, and their attendant Manticore Knights. With hardly a word, the Leaders were separated from their retainers, Sakuya politely begging a dinner invitation from the Queen and Princess to celebrate the Treaty signing.

"Really now, what is the meaning of all of this!" Rute asked, brass buttoned coat flapping with each step. The stout Leprechaun had to hurry to keep pace with his fellow Lords.

"Mind answering the question? You and Sakuya seem to know what's going on." Morgiana suggested as she stalked along easily at Motimer's side. "Or am I going to have to pry from you, Mort?"

Mortimer's eye twitched ever so slightly. "We've been made aware of some trouble news."

Morgiana's expression became uncharacteristically serious. "Troubling . . . Can't remember the last time I head you say that. Right, how bad is it?"

"In a word." Sakuya said. "Bad. But it's not something we can discuss out in the open." There was not telling who might be eavesdropping. Especially after what the had learned from Cardinal Mazarin. Tristain might be full of sympathizers to the cause of the Albion Rebels.

Their final destination lay beyond a pair heavy oak wood doors, flanked by a pair of musketeers. The Palace guards saluted at the sight of their Queen and Princess before opening the doors. The room beyond was spacious, luxuriously so, a wide room with high ceiling. Their were no windows, instead, the room was lit day and night by chandeliers and dozens of magelights that cast a warm glow from above. The Manticore Knights peeled off as they entered, taking places around the perimeter of the room beyond.

A long table dominated the center of the room, surface glowing in the reflected light. Alicia, looking considerable better of a few hours sleep, and her Dragon Knight escort, were already waiting for them.

"Nice digs." Morgiana commented as she looked around the room. "Gotta say, Royalty definitely know how to do interior decorating." Eyes narrowing slyly she turned back to their hosts. "But I'm guessing you didn't bring us here to admire the architecture."

The Duchess glared daggers at Morgiana as the Queen stepped forward, walking towards the head of the table. "This is the Palace War Room, where the Generals of Tristain confer with the King in times of conflict. It hasn't been used in years, but it has been kept maintained and well warded against eavesdroppers in case there ever came a need for it."

"Need such as now." Cardinal Mazarin said softly. All eyes in the room, all Faerie eyes, were on the Cardinal.

"Excuse me." Thinker, the newly elected Leader of the Undines took a halting step forward. "Are you saying that there will be a war? Isn't the alliance with Germania supposed to discourage that?"

Cardinal Mazarin nodded gravely and gestured to the conference table. "Please be seated and we will explain."

Sakuya watched her fellow leaders as Mazarin began to lay out the situation, Alicia chiming in from time to time to clarify. At first there was shock, than anger, and finally silence as the full impact began to sink in. Thanks to the primers and reports constantly being generated by Argo and her army of volunteers, they had all been well briefed on international affairs. They all understood as well as Sakuya what losing the alliance with Germania would mean for Tristain.

Thinker leaned back in his chair, looking much older than he had mere moment ago. Without thinking, his left hand reached out to take the right hand of his Lieutenant, Yulier, squeezing tightly. Zolf had retrieved the crucifix he wore from beneath his robes and was even now bowed in thought. The Puca and Gnome representatives were both speechless.

At last, it was Morgiana who broke the silence. "Distressing news . . . I gotta say Mort, you've got a talent for understatement." The Salamander Lord's eye twitched once again. Eyes narrowing, the Spriggan glanced slyly to Sakuya. "So, any reason you waited till now to tell us all of this?"

"It was Cardinal Mazarin's suggestion." Sakuya said quickly. They couldn't afford to figthing among themselves, now least of all. "Tristain is in a very precarious situation at the moment. Externally because of Albion and internally because of us. We couldn't risk showing our hand in the middle of the House chamber."

"That is correct." Mazarin said. "For the good of the Kingdom, it would benefit us all for the treaty to be signed tomorrow as planned."

"Okay, that makes sense." Thinker said before his eyes began to widen in realization. "But if the treaty is brought into effect now and Tristain ends up going to war with Albion . . ." He exchanged glances with his Lieutenant.

"Then we will be required to provide our aid to the realm." Sakuya said tightly. That could be anything from paying to hire mercenaries to providing volunteers to fight. That much had been nonnegotiable, if the Fae wanted the rights and protections afforded to the landed and petty nobility, then they would have to take on the same responsibilities.

"The Imps won't approve of this." Zolf said quietly. "Domeeska is finally settling down after the Transition."

"They are the terms you have chosen to accept." The Duchess responded with a hint of steel entering her voice. "You cannot renounce them now."

"The Duchess de la Valliere is correct." Mazarin said, placing his hands before himself on the table. "And like it or not, if Albion decides to invade, the Heretic Cromwell will brand you as abominations. Your choices will be to fight, die, or be scattered to the winds." Zolf recoiled at the Cardinal's brutal reply. However, Mazarin was not an unkind man, now that he had made his point, the Regent's expression softened. "The Crown has offered you its aid over this past month. Now," Mazarin closed his eyes, "We must ask for your help in return."

"I only have one question. What now?" Morgiana spoke up. Leaning over the table, she fixed Mazarin with a level stare. "You say you want our help. Okay, that makes sense, we're the new kids on the block, and it's a safe bet we don't have any ties to Reconquista unless someone here is feeling particularly suicidal. But what exactly are you after right now?"

"For the moment, the services of your agent in Albion." Mazarin stated flatly. "Sometime within the next day, we are likely to receive word from Rebel sympathizers. Most likely some form of ultimatum for our surrender with the letter used as leverage. We do not intend to announce anything to the nobility until this letter is received."

Motimer nodded sagely. "We want to keep the full capabilities of the moonlight mirror hidden for as long as possible. At the moment, Kirito-kun is a set of eyes and ears within Albion."

"My thoughts exactly." Mazarin said.

Sakuya steeped her hands before her. "I have no issue with this. However, that is up to Kirito-kun, I can't order him to endanger himself."

"Your Kirito is quite the mercenary, is he not?" The Duchess de la Valliere observed disapprovingly.

Morgian snorted. "That's the Spriggan way lady. We live and die by the Yurudo!" She shook her head. "Or at least, that's how it used to be. Now though, Kirito-kun's a good kid, and it sound's like he's got good instincts if he's an SAO survivor. He's the man on the ground, so I say we trust him."

"Besides, isn't Kirito-kun's main mission to help evacuate the rest of the SAO survivors in Albion?" Alicia asked. "I don't think he'll be willing to abandon that mission."

"I ask that you at least suggest the arrangement to him when next you make contact." The Cardinal said.

Alicia gave a small nod of acceptance before Mortimer added in. "We should probably set up a relay then so that we can receive and send messages faster. It should only take a few dark magic users to cover the span from Albion to Tristania at night."

Zolf looked up. "I may not have stomach for sending others to fight, but the Imps can at least lend you some of our mages."

The Cardinal looked satisfied with this arrangement. "In the mean time, we need to begin making what preparations we can without arousing suspicion. Due to the Transition, both Tristain's garrison forces and Fleet are at high alert in order to combat the mob threat. We will announce plans to focus on the commercially important coastal regions in the coming weeks and transfer additional troops to those areas. In the mean time, the battle fleet will be concentrated here in Tristania in case Albion decides to launch a raid in force. Once the the official announcement is made public, we will expand our patrols in the direction of Albion so as not to be caught unaware. I would also like for you to lend us your Forces for the time being to bolster the army."

"To fight as soldiers, you mean." Sakuya clarified, she hated this, fighting and slaying the mobs so that people would be safe was one thing. Sending people to fight and kill their fellows humans was quite another.

Mazarin turned to her, eyes shining in the light. "I hope that they need not fight at all. These are preparations for the worst, there are still some maneuvers we may attempt to contain the damage that will be cause by the Princess' letter. But if it comes to that, then yes, they will be asked to fight to defend the Kingdom."

Sakuya let out her breath. "Then . . . You better damn well honor your treaty with us." Sakuya whispered softly. Eyes of brilliant green met the Cardinal's own.

"You have my word before the Founder himself." Mazarin replied before turning his attention to the Queen and Princess. "I would also ask that both of you be ready to speak before the nobility. The Crown will need to show strong leadership." He gave Henrietta an apologetic look, but the Princess seemed too occupied by her thoughts to notice.

The meeting had rapidly descended into details from there, transforming into an impromptu strategy session. Servants were called for to bring maps and documents from the Royal archives while food was brought up from the Kitchen. That night, even the Queen of Tristain did not have time for a proper meal and instead satisfied herself with bread, cheese, and soup.

Mazarin once again displayed his political expertise as he laid out how the Crown would leverage its political capital to best effect. It became clear as the night progressed that the Cardinal had given this some considerable thought. No doubt his own obsessions tended towards fearing for the worst.

Lists of Noble families were gathered and sifted through, the most influential ranked in terms of their perceived influence and allegiance to the crown. Meanwhile, the Faerie Lords decided on how they would break the news to the people under their care. An official statement would have to be made, something that instilled both the gravity of the situation and assured people that they would not face danger alone or unprepared. Fortunately, the address would be given in parallel with that of the Crown so they would be able to point to what was being done to see to the Kingdom's defense. The important part would then be to emphasize their own contributions so that people were reassured that their leaders were looking out for them.

They needed a more formal system than simple popular election, Sakuya thought. Never mind Tristain's position, the position of the Leader's was much to precarious. She was a firm believed in representative government, but until they had something written down and codified, being an elected leader among the Fae was little more than being a chief tyrant selected by the masses.

At some point Alicia had disappeared, departing along with her escort to return to the Frigate lurking just beyond Albion's airspace. Lacking the convenience of a phone, or even a watch to check the time, Sakuya found herself stumbling from the War Room in the early hours of the morning. She thought that her head had barely struck the pillow when she was roused by a concern Novair, the sun just beginning to peak through the Curtains of her room.

That morning, she barely touched her breakfast, waiting impatiently for the time to finally arrive. The signing had been set for late morning. When at last the meeting had been called into session, the House of Peers had been filled to the bursting point with members of the Nobility seeking to witness the occasion.

Sakuya and the other Leaders and empowered representatives had stood before Queen Marianne and the Cardinal, each adding their signature and seal to the final page of each of the sections of the Treaty of ALfheim. At last, the document had been presented to the Queen for final review and her own signature.

The deed done, a shower of polite applause filled the Chamber. If they only knew.

That afternoon, an indistinct nobleman had arrived by wind dragon, setting down at the far edge of the Capital and surrendering himself into the custody of the Manticore Knights that came investigate. He came bearing a simple letter under a banner of truce and was allowed to depart after giving testament to being a member of the Armed Forces of the Glorious Holy Movement of Reconquista.

Sakuya had been there when the letter was unsealed by Cardinal Mazarin and its contents made known. The seal on the letter belonged to Lord Oliver Cromwell himself, she snorted at yet another coincidence, it was becoming like a form of deja vu. The message was short, written on three sheets of paper. The first was an excerpt copied from Henrietta's letter, given as proof that it was indeed in the possession of the Rebels as feared.

The second was, as Mazarin had predicted, terms of surrender. There were only three.

First, the Kingdom of Tristain was to offer its unconditional surrender. Garrison Forces were to lay down their arms, mercenaries were to be discharged from service, and the fleet was to stand down and disarm. The lands and property of the nobility would be sparred from sacking so long as they pledged themselves to the movement's Glorious Cause.

Second, the Crown was to renounce all authority. All ranks and Privileges of Royalty were to be revoked, and the Crown's property and estates were to be stripped. The persons of Queen Marianne and Princess Henrietta de Tristain were to be surrendered into the custody of the appointed Officers of Reconquista. Any attempt by either to flee the country would result in Reconquista taking punitive action against the populace of Tristain.

Third, the Fae were to surrender themselves alongside the Royal family to face judgment, or else depart Tristain at once. Though there was no clause implying retribution if they fled, there was really no place else for them to go and the Rebels knew it.

The final scrap of paper had fallen free from the envelope almost as if it were an afterthought. Written on a smaller sheet of plane white paper in tightly scrawled writing, Sakuya was informed that the seal and signature were those of Captain Jean Jacques de Wardes. After rereading the note twice, Mazarin had carefully offered it to Duchess de la Valliere.

The older woman had read the note once, face twisting up in displeasure before tearing it to pieces. Morgiana, perhaps with more curiosity than sense had blinked once and asked. "So, what was that about?"

Surprisingly, the Duchess answered the question, voice filled with ice cold hate. "The Captain just tendered us his letter of resignation. It was dated from the day that he departed Tristain."

Sakuya shared a look with Morgiana. They'd already known that Tristain was inhabited by orcs and dragons, it was a hell of a time to learn it also had trolls.

* * *

Prince Wales Tudor, the Prince Valiant, Crown Prince of Albion, found with some surprise that he was still alive. Or at least, he didn't think that death would feel quite this lousy. Eyes fluttering open, he was confronted by a low, timbered ceiling that would not have been out of place aboard a ship. Was he on the Eagle? No, he would have been able to tell, a ship, even a ship in port, had a feel to it, a smell to it, that couldn't be mistaken for anything else. The sound of distant voices and soft chanting, and the pungent smell of medicinal herbs, impinged on the very edge of his consciousness. Slowly, he began to piece things together.

This was the Fort Infirmary, he must have been brought here after . . . after . . . Wardes . . . Wales' eyes widened as he sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. He immediately regretted it as his chest blossomed into pain that nearly drove him back into oblivion. Wales fought stifle a hiss of pain. It hurt to take more than the most shallow of breaths and hit chest felt partially constricted. Moving his arms feebly beneath a thin blanket, he found that his upper torso had been wrapped tightly in bandages that carried the syrupy smell of healing ointments.

"You're finally awake." A soft, feminine voice stated. "Welcome back."

Wales struggled to sit up and almost fell back in agony before an arm reached out to steady him and offer its support. Wales was met by an astonishingly beautiful girl, pale face framed by obsidian black hair, dark, gold flecked eyes peering into his own. His memories began to sort themselves out, the last moments, a silhouette standing above him. She was . . . the angel who had been coming to take him away . . . No. Rather, he was certain she had saved him. Something nagged at the back of his mind and for a moment he couldn't place it, but then it fell into place. Of course, the person before him wasn't a girl, wasn't a female of any sort in fact.

"Take it easy now. Even with magic, your wounds could open back up if you push yourself." The Faerie swordsman Kirito gave him a mildly concerned look. "I'll go get the healer."

Kirito was just beginning to rise from his bedside when Wales grabbed his wrist clumsily. "Wait just one moment." Wales rasped, his throat felt raw and dry, like that of a man dying of thirst. Blinking a few times, he tried to clear his head. "I'm alive . . . how? I remember the Viscount and . . ." Wales trailed off as he started to take in his surroundings. His first guess had been right, he was indeed in the Fortress Infirmary, one of the small private rooms reserved for treating injured officers.

There were two beds in the room, one occupied by himself, and the other . . . "Lady Asuna?" He asked feeling a faint hint of panic as he saw the girl laying on her side, covered by a thin blanket. Had something happened to her?! Founder, don't let it be that Wardes had gone after another!

"She's fine." Kirito assured, a small smile on his lips as he turned to take the hand of his sleeping wife. "She's been coming here to keep on eye on you every chance she gets. Asuna isn't the kind of person to abandon a friend. Thank you . . . For helping her. Asuna told me everything. I know you asked for a lot, but you tried to give a lot too." Kirito gave him a look of thanks.

"I only wish I could do more." Wales said sincerely. Past Asuna, he noticed others in the room. A chair by the door was occupied by the sleeping form of Lucane, his face bandaged across one side, while curled up on the floor with a blanket, Kino slept fitfully. The Faerie boy's entire left side was swaddled in bandages, the legacy of his run in with the treacherous Viscount's duplicate.

"As for your first question, you almost died, the water mages said your heart was stopped for around two minutes and they couldn't get it going again." Kirito explained, one slender arm holding Wales rock steady as he spoke. "I used a vial of purified sap of the world tree to resuscitate you, but the shock almost killed you all over again." Kirito shrugged apologetically. "I guess the kick that Argo warned about is a lot stronger for humans."

Wales grew thoughtful as he recalled what he thought would be his last moments. "I see, then that's why I feel like a was sat on by a dragon."

"Well, I'm pretty sure you'd feel that way no matter what after being run through by a sword." Kirito said without a hint of humor.

"In any case, I am in your debt." Wales said, trying to sit up further and then grimacing as the aching spread. "Though, I'm curious, if what you say did happen, then did Caramella really strike my father?" Surely that had been a hallucination!

Kirito looked to the side as if faintly embarrassed and scratched at his cheek with his free hand. Even knowing that this form was nothing but a mask worn by a Faerie swordsman, Wales could not deny that it was an endearing gesture.

"Ah, that, well, your father, the King, showed up and thought that we must have had something to do with your attempted assassination. He wasn't going to let me pore some mysterious potion down your throat and we were running out of time to explain." Kirito's expression became apologetic and he gave a small half bow, long bangs swaying gently. "Once your condition was stabilized, Lucane and Paris managed to explain things to your father. He's decided to forgive Caramella's transgression since she was protecting you. Though right now he has her on punishment detail watching the walls. I think because she hit him a bit harder than was was really necessary."

Behind him, the conversation had roused Lucane from his sleep. Smacking his lips once the Knight's eyes widened as he saw Wales sitting up in bed. "My Prince! You're awake!" The man stumbled to his feet. "I will call a physician immediately." The dark haired man gave Kirito a suspicious glance, no doubt wondering why the faux swordswoman hadn't already done so before disappearing out into the main infirmary. He returned a moment later with a pair of healers, the Fortress' head physician, Doctor Paman, and one of his assistants.

"My Prince! You should not be sitting up yet!" The Doctor said as he leaned over to examine Wales, pulling down the blankets and opening the front of the Prince's nightgown so that he could examine the bandages and dressings. "The assassin's strike pierced one of your lungs and narrowly missed your heart and spine. The trauma put a great deal of strain on your body and then that . . . Fae concoction," He glanced to Kirito, "Nearly did you in even as it saved you."

"It sounds like you got pretty lucky." Kirito observed while the Doctors worked. By now, Kino and Asuna were starting to stir, woken by the sudden noise and activity. Both were quick to come to Wales' bedside, almost crowding the physician's out before being asked, politely, to keep their distance. Kino in particular looked relieved to see him alive. 'No, we haven't said our goodbyes just yet my young friend.' Wales thought kindly.

"If not for a moments warning, I'm sure the Viscount's construct would have plunged its sword through my heart. I doubt even Faerie magic could have done anything for me then. I must remember to thank that young man who was in the company of the Viscount." Wales replied clinically, odd that he could speak so easily about his own near run in with death. "Kino, Lucane, both of you, thank you."

"My Prince?" Lucane looked startled.

Wales smiled weakly. "If not for you two, the Viscount may still have succeeded when his wind construct detonated. I trust neither of you were too badly hurt on my account."

"I . . . " Lucane was left speechless.

"We're fine." Kino insisted. "You're the one who's been unconscious in bed for the last day and a half."

A day and a half? Wales thought. A day and half since Wardes had fled, and with him . . . Wales felt faint, though not from his injuries. Brushing the Doctors away Wales reached once more for Kirito, speaking desperately. "Ki . . . Miss Midori, Lady Asuna, there is a matter of grave importance, before the Viscount revealed his treachery, he was sent by the Crown of Tristain to retrieve a letter, the contents . . . "

A warm hand took his own, gently peeling it away from Kirito's wrist. "We know." Asuna said softly, taking her husbands hand with her free hand. "Guiche-san told us about the mission he and Captain Wardes were sent here on. Midori-chan sent news when she reported in, and then got a message back before dawn this morning."

"Then you know the contents and consequences if that letter is released." Wales stated dully. He should have destroyed it long ago, long, long ago. He'd had no business keeping such a thing when it would so surely endanger the safety of his Cousin and her Kingdom. What a fool he had been! "Lady Asuna . . . I cannot even begin to ask your forgiveness. My selfishness may now endanger the safe haven you hoped to reach."

Wales didn't look up, the silence that followed was damning enough. Then, his answer came. "You're . . . an idiot." The Prince looked up to see both Kirito and Asuna looking down at him gravely,"You're right." Kirito continued, "Because of this, Tristain is in danger of invasion by Albion. But people like Reconquista aren't going to stop just because of this Marriage Alliance between Tristain and Germania. If it wasn't your letter it would have been something else." The stern look was replaced by a reassuring smile. "One way or another, the chances were good that Tristain was going to have to fight the Rebels."

"As part of an alliance!" Wales nearly doubled over as the shout caused his chest to explode in pain. He waved the Doctors away as they tried to return to his side. "As part of Germania. Henrietta would have at least been safe, and the combined forces of Germania and Tristain would have stood between her and Cromwell!"

Those gathered around his bed fell silent. "Wales . . . it'll be okay." Asuna said suddenly, as he watched, she gave her husband's hand a small squeeze, looking first to Kirito and then back to Wales himself. "We've been through a lot worse than this, and Kirito-kun say's there's a lot of smart people in Tristain, we'll find a way to get everyone through this. So please continued to be the Valiant Prince that your men rely on."

That his men relied on? Was he truly to relied upon in this sorry state? "Doctor Paman, what is my condition?" The Physician seemed confused by the question. "Can I stand?" Wales clarified in a voice that demanded an immediate reply.

"I . . . Your condition is stable, the tissue has begun to knit back together quite quickly, we think it is the after effects of the that Fae elixir that Miss Midori's allies supplied to her." The Doctor nodded to Kirito. Then, he didn't know Kirito's true identity, Wales realized. Of course not, Kiritio probably viewed it as vital to keep his true form and abilities secrete for as long as possible, especially after the incident with the Viscount. "Then I can walk?"

"Well . . . Yes." Doctor Paman admitted.

"Good, then I wish to inspect the wall." Wales said as he struggled to sit upright and placed his feet on the floor. "Word of the assassination attempt must certainly be known to everyone. It must have damaged morale. The men need to see their Prince."

"I . . . But . . . " The Doctor fumbled for something to say. "You need your rest, my Prince." He said lamely.

Wales laughed softly lest he send himself to the floor in pain. "I can hardly rest until I set my mind at ease. Lucane, my jacket!"

The dumbfounded Knight nodded and reached for the damaged garment, for whatever reason, it had been carried to this room, still bearing the blood stains and a hole where the sword-wand had pierced through his back. Leaning against Lucane for support and flanked by Kirito and Asuna, Wales thought he must have been a sight, a disheveled, landless Prince, dressed in nothing but a night gown and an officer's jacket. And what of it! He thought, if he was a Prince of Albion, then what did it matter how he presented himself so long as he stood by his men?

Emerging from the infirmary, Doctor Panam in tow, fretting endlessly about his condition. At every turn Wales received stares, first of shock and then near reverence. He was saluted and bowed to, the few who were not too shocked to answer quickly begged what they could do to be of service. Were they so surprised to see him standing? And then he remembered what Kirito had said, his heart had stopped beating for over two minutes. Combined with a chest wound and the Fort's sorry state of resupply, it was not difficult to see how some would not be able to believe that he could survive, much less stand after less than two days.

Soldiers rushed to open the main doors of the Fortress Citadel and Wales was almost blinded by the morning sun. All activity in the courtyard came to a standstill as the people of the Fort saw him descending the steps. Noblemen saluted, commoner retainers bowed, all watched as if they were seeing an apparition. He payed them no mind, concentrating insttead on keeping his footing. As the Doctor had promised, he was well enough to stand and walk, barely, he needed Lucane's help to scale the steps of the inner walls where the cannon crews were busy inspecting the guns. Every man saluted as he passed, a few even half reaching out as if wanting to touch him and see for themselves that he was real.

"Prince Wales!" The Gunnery Commander, Captain Hamilton saluted stiffly. Though more reserved than his men, the Captain was no less in awe.

"At ease." Wales ordered, pleased by how firmly he could still speak. He'd feared his voice would come forth as nothing but a rasp. "How are the men today."

"I-in fine shape my Prince!" Captain Hamilton reported.

"And the guns?" Wales asked next.

The Captain, recovering from his surprise, appeared pleased at the question. "Also in excellent condition. Captain Lydel has been recovering well from his injuries and has taken to directing powder production himself. With the sulfur retrieved from Wallsend, we won't be wanting for charges." Adding viciously. "With magic and cannon, we'll give those Rebel dogs a good fight if they try anything."

"I expect so." Wales said. "I am honored by your continued loyalty and service to the Royal house." Wales turned and gave a slight bow to not just the Captain, but all of his men. "Carry on and stand tall as sons of Albion." The men saluted once more and in the silence that followed, Wales could make out shouts and jeers from beyond the inner walls.

"What is that?" Wales asked, leaning against the parapet wall for support.

Captain Hamilton Grimaced. "That would be the Rebels, Sir, they came under a flag of truce to demand our surrender. They say that if the soldiers stand down and hand over the King, our children and women folk will be allowed to seek exile."

Wales snorted softly, he somehow doubted that, too many of the children here were the last surviving sons and daughters of a number of influential Noble houses. Their survival could not be allowed by those that sought to plunder their estates and take their family properties as their own. The male children would be killed off, the mothers and girls would be married off to garner legitimacy.

"They've come twice since yesterday. The King has told them off both times, but mostly it's been that crass Faerie woman since mid morning. I fathom that it's less negotiation and more meant to discourage us at this point." Captain Hamilton observed.

And why not? Wales thought. After all, the Viscount had most likely reported him a dead man, or as near to it as to be guaranteed. Enduring the taunts of the traitorous dogs beyond the gates must have been a torment all its own. An idea occurred to Wales at that exact moment. "Tell me Captain . . . Just what has been told to the Rebels about my condition?"

The Captain blinked a few times and then shrugged. "Aye, they've been told you still breath, but it sounds like they think it propaganda on our part, trying to shore up our own morale." The Captain paused for a moment and then cautiously asked. "Begging your pardon, but it's true, isn't it? What I've been hearing said?"

Wales blinked in confusion. "And what have you heard said, Captain?"

Looking between the Prince and the Faerie girl standing beside him. "There's been rumors that when you were dying, that Lady Asuna offered some Faerie drought to save your life." It was now Asuna's turn to look surprised. Glancing beyond the blushing girl to her husband, the lips of Kirito's beautiful mask twitched slightly in a small smile, his nod was so faint as to be invisible to anyone not looking for it.

"I suppose it was something like that," Wales said with a small smile of his own, "Or so I've been told. If it strengthened their resolve to fight, Wales would not deny a small twisting of the truth to his men. It was indeed true that a Faerie had saved his life after all. "Now then, I do believe I shall go introduce myself to the Rebel emissary. Please be so kind as to find my father and tell him that I am about this morning."

"A-as you wish my Prince!" The Captain said, still looking quite unsure of what he had just witnessed.

The walk to the outer walls was somewhat less tortuous being almost entirely down hill to a wooden bridge that overlooked the outer courtyard and allowed cannons and equipment to be moved swiftly between the bastions. During an assault, the bridge would be raised to hinder the attackers. As they neared, Wales began to make out more of what was being said.

"Soldiers of Newcastle!" A voice belted from beyond the parapet. "You've fought honorably to your last holdout, but now the Royal Family is finished, your Noble Prince has fallen, and only the Tyrant King James remains. The Tudor line is all but extinct, your loyalty to them means nothing now. In his generosity, Lord Cromwell has deemed fit to offer you this last chance to see the error of your ways and lay down your arms. You've displayed great honor and conviction, the glorious forces of Reconquista would gladly accept you among our ranks if only you surrender and accept the error of your ways."

The crowd gathered on the wall began to part as Wales approached, the same phenomenon that had overcome the people in the Citadel and inner courtyard taking hold once more.

"Bullshit!" An angry voice shouted back, much to high pitched to by one of Wales' men, it was voice he knew all too well by now and he almost had to smile. "You really think there's anyone here stupid enough to think you dipshits will let even one person in this Fort survive? You've got be out of your fricking minds!" Truly, though Caramella was usually restrained with her language, when the mood took her she could be a match for any two sailors. Though the meaning of some of her more passionate obscenities were often quite difficult to decipher. "Besides, the Prince aint dead! And damn do I feel sorry for you dumbasses on that one. Wasn't this Wardes guy supposed to be some ultimate badass? How much did it take to bribe him to kill the Prince? Cause it sounds like you got cheap skated."

The voice from below was joined by chuckling from a half dozen sources, probably the messenger's escorts. "Honestly now? You say the Prince lives? We have it on good word that he was run through the chest. Perhaps he still breaths, but only as an invalid or surely we'd have had the pleasure of his company by now?"

"Well." Wales said as loudly as he dared, drawing his jacket closed to concealed the nightgown beneath. "I've been told that my hospitality is often wanting. An unforgivable offense in a Prince, I know."

Suddenly, the laughing stopped. Caramella spun around from her place on the Parapet, a grin beginning to spread across her face. "Speak of the devil." She breathed, looking him over.

"I heard you punched my father." Wales observed. "You're lucky he didn't have your life for that."

The Faerie swordswoman snorted. "Then he could have had yours instead. Look, Wales, I'm through seeing friends die when I can stop it. I . . ."

"Thank you dearly, Caramella." Wales offered. "I never thought I would find myself so honored."

"What?"

"To be your friend." He explained. "I never thought I would know that joy from so many new faces at a time such as this." Wales enjoyed the faint look of embarrassment that appeared whenever the gruff young woman's mask slipped. It was like she didn't want people to see that she was really very kind.

The swordswoman crossed her arms. "Yeah, well, make sure you earn it." She grumbled, stepping aside so that Wales could approach the parapet.

"Good day, Gentleman. I do hope I haven't kept you waiting." Wales called down, seeing the tormentors of the wall sentries for the first time. Seven men on horses, a mounted standard bearer carrying a flag of truce. The spokesman was a portly looking noble who Wales could hardly believe was actually a soldier. More likely, he was some Noble fool who had fashioned himself an Officer.

The fat Nobleman squinted up at Wales and then glanced to a fellow mage. A wand was raised and met by a half dozen wands and two dozen muskets on the wall. However, the mage did not point his focus at the Prince, he did not make any threatening gesture with it at all in fact. A shortly whispered chant was heard and a blue light flickered at the wand's tip, a favored technique of the Albion nobility when screening for an illusion. Odd, Wales thought, looking over his shoulder. Did that mean that Kirito's disguise was more than a simple change of appearance? Kirito's expression betrayed nothing as he stood beside his wife.

The portly mage looked back up, clearly agitated. "It's truly a pleasure to see you well Prince Wales." The man said with a surprising degree of grace. "I wouldn't suppose you'd mind telling us how you survived your assassin?"

Wales smiled as Asuna and Kirito came to stand at his side. "Well, I confess having a lung pierced is no easy thing. But like a good man of Albion I walked it off." Laughter pealed down the wall, causing the mounted messengers to recoil, looking now very uncertain. "I would suggest you all run along and remind your leaders that the Prince Valiant still lives and still commands this Fortress. When they choose next to fight me, perhaps they will deem to face me directly rather than strike from behind with an assassin's dagger."

Reigning in his horse the Rebel said nothing more, simply turning to return the way he came. A short cheer rose from the men as Wales was offered a seat, his strength giving out on him after the brief exertion. Doctor Panam, having followed from the infirmary, came to his side, fretting over the strain he had just put himself through.

"I haven't felt this well in weeks." Wales breathed, well, by a certain definition of felt, certainly his body felt broken, but his spirits felt strangely lifted at the sight of his men and their accolades. That left but one thing.

"Lady Asuna, Miss . . . Midori. I assume you've made arrangements to contact your allies in Tristain again?" Wales asked.

The two exchanged glances, Kirito nodded. "Yes, tonight. Alicia said they're going to try to set up a relay to Tristania using multiple mages, so we'll have to see how it works out. But we should be able to send and receive several messages or maybe even communicate directly with the capital."

"Very good." Wales said. "Then, I will want to be there."

"Are you sure you'll be alright?" Asuna asked, gesturing to his chest and the bandages. "You just woke up."

"I'm quite sure." He said confidently. "Like you said, we will find a way. By my honor, we will find a way to keep Rebels from advancing against Tristain, and we will find a way to keep your people from their hands." Memories of the undead Fae fought by Asuna and Caramella flashed before Wales's eyes. The revelation had come as both a shock and a relief to Asuna. That she had not killed her friend but that he had been twisted in death to serve everything he had fought against in life. Kirito had barely responded at all when told, his eyes had simply narrowed and his entire body grown subtly tense as he placed a hand on the hilt of his sword. No, Wales would not allow that to happen to these people, to his friends. Nor would he allow it to happen to any of the civilians still under his care. "Surely, that will be an honorable and worthy achievement for the Last Prince of Albion."


	59. Chapter 14 Part 3

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 14 - Part 3

Belgen de Gramont, Count of Gramont, the Stone Wall, strolled easily down the hallways of the Royal Palace in the company of the Duchess de la Valliere, gray eyes observing the chaos that was beginning to unfold all about him. In his day, and that day had not been so very long ago, the nobility had comported themselves with more dignity during a crisis.

It was the times, he thought, too many noble sons raised on soft living, too many old Nobles who had lost their iron over the years. Present company excluded of course, he thought as he laid an appraising eye on the Duchess. Karin Desiree had certainly grown into womanhood well, and then kept on growing into. She'd kept her grace and beauty better than most women her age. He almost envied the Duke if not for what he knew of her personality, now there was a Rose with some thorns! But at least he knew where she stood and that they were of like mind on the current matter.

"Just like old times, is it not, Karin?" Belgen asked, receiving a glare from the Duchess.

He waved his hands quickly. "Ah, just an attempt at small talk!" He assured quickly.

This seemed to placate the woman as she sighed softly. "I'd hardly describe this as being like old times." A small gesture was made to the hallway crowded with Noblemen, most awaiting their opportunity for an audience with the Queen and Cardinal Mazarin.

Belgen grimaced as he recalled the event of not but an hour ago. The Regent, Cardinal Mazarin, had called an emergency meeting of the House of Peers, summoning the many nobles who were still in Tristania after witnessing the Treaty Signing that morning. Most had arrived in a state of open annoyance at being called back on such short notice having intended to enjoy the sights and diversions of the Capital before returning to their properties. The Baron himself had been fetched while having a late lunch and game of crowns with an old acquaintance at his establishment.

Belgen had sat in the elevated pews over the man floor, listening with the other Barons and highly placed Chevaliers as the Cardinal delivered the shocking news. The Rebel Forces under the command of the rogue priest Oliver Cromwell, had communicated their possession of a document that jeopardized the upcoming marriage alliance between Tristain and Germania. Though the exact contents of this document remained a state secret, the Cardinal vouched for its authenticity and that the threat was tantamount to a declaration of war. After conversing with Tristain's spymasters and military commanders, it was estimated that the Rebel forces could launch an invasion in as little as one month time, a raid in force with their air fleet in little more than a week.

The floor the House of Peers had exploded with shouts and cries of protest. Nobles had abandoned their dignity, Dukes screaming at the top of their lungs, Counts climbing over seats and one another to have their questions answered. Pools of calm had existed among the madness, like the last ice of the spring snow melt, mostly the martial families, but also some of the more more self interested sorts like that damnable Count of Woestte. The Cardinal had demanded order, roaring for the fools to take their seats, but to little avail. After the third attempt to assert himself, Mazarin had instructed for the meeting to break until evening so that heads might be allowed to cool. In the meant time, the Crown had opened itself to receive delegations at the Palace and to answer the most pressing questions shared by the nobility.

As he departed the house of peers, intent on making his way to the Palace Eastern wing, where the more militarily inclined nobility would now doubt be congregating to advise the crown, he had been intercepted by a Manticore knight and soon found himself in the less than charming company of the Valliere Matriarch herself.

Though he lacked political tact, and his business ventures were more often that not failures, the retired General was still an experienced hand when it came to shuffling an army, and at least one person with some clout seemed to remember that.

Returning to the here and now, Belgen chuckled a little. "How is this not like old times, outnumbered, outgunned, out of our minds . . ." He leaned in and whispered under his breath "Those surrender terms were rather favorable, wouldn't you say." The murderous glare he received from the Duchess promised a swift death if he ever again so much as joked about such things.

"Perhaps it is a little like old times." She said, voice barely above a whisper. "My urge to strangle you has certainly returned."

At last, satisfied that he had gotten the rise he had been looking for, the Baron gave a small half bow, growing serious once more. "It's a grave situation we find ourselves in one way or the other." Belgen appraised. Not that one needed to be a military genius to determine that. Tristain, though prosperous for its size, had never been known for the might of it armies beyond the unusually had proportion of mages that they could field on a regular basis.

"The disparity in military power is almost too large to grasp." The Duchess agreed. "We will have to exploit every defensive advantage if we are to give the army time to assemble.

Belgen ran a hand through his hair, though he was in his fiftieth year, his blonde hair was only now beginning to grow peppered with gray. To those who did not know him, Belgen de Gramont was not an inspiring or particularly impressive man, in fact he was somewhat on the slender side of things, though he kept himself in good physical condition through an ongoing love of fencing, his limbs possessing a wiry strength than many larger and more corpulent men his age would struggle to match. It was only when he came into his own over a map table or leading soldiers in battle that most accepted that he was indeed one of a long line of celebrated Tristanian soldiers.

"Who's the supreme commander of the armed forced right now? It's La Remee if I do recall." He asked. He had sought retirement at the same time as many of the aged military staff of Tristain and so when he had departed, many of his old contacts had done so as well.

"That would be correct." Karin answered as they hit their stride, walking down the Eastern hall towards the Palace War Room.

Belgen scowled, in distaste. "Eren's a good ship Captain and he knows how to move a fleet around, but he's hardly cut out to lead the entire army." Of course, Count La Remee had the political connection to hold the position. He supposed they were lucky that the Count was almost as good as he boasted and was in fact a good and honorable officer of Tristain's armed forces.

The War Room doors were opened by the flanking Musketeers guards and the two nobles stepped into the heart of a madness. The room which had hardly been touched in over a decade was now a whirl of chaotic motion. Cork boards and chock boards lined the walls or stood beside the central meeting table. Aides and junior officers rushed to and fro, laying out maps and collecting markers to identify troops dispositions.

At the center of it all was Count Eren La Remee, a gray haired man with still dark whiskers, he was a navy officer and a man well respected, even by his rivals. The Count was currently leaned over the meeting table examining some report just delivered to him by a messenger, of all things a Fae. Judging by the girl's delicate bone structure, and exquisite figure, he supposed she was likely a Sylph. Such lovely creatures to have the good fortune of having as new Neighbors to the Gramont estate, they and the Cait Syth alike. Noting his distraction, the Duchess reminded him of the need for professionalism via a swift but concealed kick to the left shin. He wince slightly, of course she would remember to aim for the left, he thought.

Even so, he let his eyes follow the girl's departure. The Fae intrigued him on more merits than their aesthetic, although there was a great deal of merit in that alone to his delight, he had read his sons letters time and time again and compared them to his own dealings with the Sylphs and Cait Syth. They were uniformly strange being, full of ideas and odd mannerisms, but undeniable able if novice fighters and possessing many unique and powerful magics. The Fae were a wild card, an unknown factor in all of this. They might prove inconsequential one way of the other, or they might offer some means of salvation. It remained to be seen.

"Ah, it's been a long time General Gramont." La Remee said, noticing the latest arrival and bowing to his former comrade in arms.

"Indeed it has." Belgen said as he looked over the table. "Since the last Gallian incursion if I do recall. I see that you're already setting things out." He winced as he noted the troop placements, yes, La Remee was certain a sailor first and a ground legged soldier second.

"Only some preliminary ideas." La Remee confessed. "I hardly call them worthy of being called any sort of battle plan. Perhaps you could offer us some of your deeply held wisdom, as an advisor of course." The Count gave Belgen a meaningful look that said not to ask for too much.

Belgen frowned, did Eren really think he was going to walk in and demand his own regiment? Admittedly, as much as he might love to do so, he wasn't likely to succeed with the bridges he'd burned over the years. Some of them quite literally.

"Now then, everyone appears to be here." La Remee noted, nodding to himself as if satisfied. "Why don't you all take your seats, Gentlemen, ah . . . Duchess de la Valliere?" He asked, looking mystified as Karin took a seat at the head of the table.

"I am here merely here to observe on behalf of my husband. Please be so kind as act as if I were not here." The Duchess said, folding her hands delicately in her lap. Though her face remained neutral, Belgen had known the Duchess long enough to think that she was probably laughing inside at her own little joke

"Ah, of course." The Supreme Commander said, quite unsure of how to responde.

Soon enough, everyone was seated around the long table and in chairs set around the perimeter. Most in attendance were military officers, the Captain of the Capital Garrison, the flag staff of the Fleet, and the Generals of the army, or else retired military men, old soldiers such as himself. The solitary exceptions were the small handful of Fae seated at the far corner of the table, four in all, including the rather glamorous black garbed Countess of Muisca and the fiery haired Count of Gaddan. It would be interesting to hear what they had to say, if anything. Neither the Queen nor Cardinal Mazarin were in attendance, there was no need for what was simply a preliminary meeting.

"I now call the emergency strategy session to order!" La Remee announced as he took his own seat as the head of the table. "The purpose of this session is to devise strategies for the defense of the Kindgom in the event of an Albionian attack."

"The first thing I would like to know is what's already being done." A high pitched, almost obnoxious voice came from only a few seats over. The owner of said voice was the diminutive Baron de Tott, an ordinance officer, and a man who it was said preferred horses as large as he was short as a means of compensating for his height. Some said he was compensating for other deficiencies as well.

"For the time being, orders have been sent to all Garrisons and the mob hunting forces to consolidate at the border Forts and stand by for further orders." La Remee said. "The fleet has been placed on high alert and the battle line is being gathered her as we speak. As a precaution against surprise attacks we are also moving our cruiser and cavalry patrols out to the edge of Albion's airspace."

"Will this not cause a problem with the remaining mobs?" A broad shouldered and mustached man in the uniform of a Ground Cavalry Officers questioned. "I was under the impression that they are an ongoing problem even now."

The Count of Gaddan made his first contribution to the meeting. "For the time being, we've completely cleared the major roadways and many of the minor thoroughfares. Though the mob behavior has grow erratic, they are still very territorial creatures and will be reluctant to spread out for the time being. I would however advise posting signs along the roadways to direct travelers away from the less used roads."

"Thank you, Lord Mortimer." La Remee nodded sincerely to the Faerie. Many of the surrounding officer eyes him with suspicion or distrust, neither of which seemed to effect him in the least.

"As the Count has said, the Mobs can be considered partially dealt with for the time being while we see to more pressing matters." La Remee laced his fingers, looking over the backs of his hands at Lord Mortimer. "On that note, I would like your feedback on how we might best make use mob clearing troops to support the Army and Navy. It has been suggested that we divide them into companies under the command of each regimental commander."

The Faerie Lord didn't answer immediately, at first Belgen thought he may simple not have heard, but then Mortimer looked up as if had just come to a decision. "I agree that deploying the mob patrol units in company strength units makes sense. It's workable with out own raid force dynamic. But I protest any attempt to place them under the direct command of a Tristanian regiment."

"May I ask why?" The Question came from the same cavalry officer. "I am under the impression that your forces are unblooded in battle. Surely it would be best that they be placed under our commanders for field operations."

"Again we agree half and half." Mortimer said. "We lack experience in battle, but at the same time, your own officers lack experience in Commanding Faeries. I would suggest deploying Fae Companies autonomously alongside the regimental commands, preferably grouped something like your Mage Ground Cavalry for the time being."

"Sensible." The Cavalry Officer admitted. "I supposed it would be best to trust your men and . . . women to know best about their own abilities. Perhaps an attache to company, a Dragon Knight to act as an adviser?"

"Such would be appreciated." Mortimer agreed, closing his eyes once more.

The matter could have been settled there if not for the protest of Baron de Tott. "I don't like it. One way or another it smacks of distrust !You Fae have caused us a lot of trouble already, and here you insult the wisdom of our Noble Officers!

The looks around the table said that de Tott was not the only one who thought this way. Belgen crossed his arms in exacerbation, by the Founder they had already wasted enough time with this foolishness! Let it be sorted out later in the details.

"It's hardly distrust." Mortimer said without opening his eyes. "When you speak of wisdom, you speak of experience gathered through countless battles, axioms that are developed, refined, and disseminated. That experience is naturally to be valued and respected, but it is not a universal constant. Paradigms change, and inevitably, when they chance, the old lessons must be relearned with new blood." Red eyes opened and skewered de Tott viciously from across the table. "Perhaps you have not noticed, but we are not nearly so numerous that we can afford to pay that toll lightly."

De Tott was left gaping angrily while he struggled for a comeback. "Y-You! We agreed just now to honor your blasted treaty. You firstborns accepted becoming subjects of the Crown and fighting in the nations defense in times of war! How dare you claim that and then cower when directed! You . . ."

"I believe that is quite enough." La Remee stepped in, finally taking control before things got too out of hand. "On the matter of numbers, one of the subjects to discuss is what is to be done about our numerical disparity. Put simply, the Rebels have us at a complete disadvantage at the moment." La Remee waved a sheaf of papers held in one hand. The very same papers that had been delivered by the sylph courier not more than a few minutes ago.

"Of course, accurate numbers are difficult to come by, but working with the worst case scenarios, the Rebels could have upwards of fifty two ships of the line and over one hundred rated frigates and cruisers. Estimates based on prewar forces and the number of free companies hired give them something on the order of eighty to ninety thousand ground troops and perhaps as many as four hundred and fifty Dragon Knights. If the pre war troop numbers and mage distribution in the mercenary forces remain consistent, than one in fifteen of those ground troops will be mages." La Remee said as if giving nothing more exciting than an account of the weather.

As he spoke, La Remee began to make gestures with a pointer which also turned out to be a magical focus. With a casual wave of his wand he summoned forth a number of the small troop markers and arrayed them around Albion atop a large map spread over the center of the table. Once satisfied he began doing the same with Tristain, but this time with blue painted markers. "To oppose them we have only twenty six ships of the line and sixty of our own cruisers and frigates. Our ground forces number only fifteen thousand with an additional two thousand Faerie volunteers in the mob patrols. We also have only one hundred and sixty Dragon Knights, less than half of their total number. While our mage ratio is much better, one in seven, it is overcome in terms of absolute numbers."

When finished, the map painted a grim picture. Even if these were only worst case estimates, the Rebel forces would have ample forces to simply crush Tristain's navy and airborne knights, at which point they would enjoy total air dominance and their armies near impunity beneath the guns of their fleet.

"So what you're saying is that we're outnumbered two to one in ships, about two and half to one in dragons, and five or six to one in troops." Lady Morgiana summed up casually." The brutal assessment seemed to sober even the staunchest of soldiers in the room. Even Karin paused to bit her lip. "Look on the bright side."

"There is no bright side." One of the gathered officers grunted. A fair appraisal, Belgen thought.

"I wouldn't say that." Morgiana leaned over the table with a sly grin. "We've got'm outnumbered an infinity to one in Faeries. That's got to count for something."

"We've also been informed that the Griffin Knights may . . . be made available to support Dragon Knights directly. That brings the air cavalry to almost one hundred and ninety." Lord Mortimer said carefully. Something about his manner said that there was story behind that.

"What, the Griffin Knights?" de Tott spluttered. "But those are her highness's Royal Guards! Why would they be seconded to the army?!" And how had Mortimer learned about this so quickly? Gramont wondered. It couldn't be coincidence that the treaty with the Fae had been signed so smoothly just prior to the revelation about Albion. The Crown was putting a great deal of trust in its newest subjects. Perhaps by choice, perhaps by necessity.

"Lord Mortimer is correct." La Remee stated calmly. "For the time being, the Manticore Knights will take exclusive responsibility for the safety of the Royal Family. While this does help a little, it is only a little. Even worse, beyond the numerical disparity in ships, the vessels of Albion's navy are of generally superior make and design to our own. We will be badly pressed unless we can concentrate the battle line. Ideally, the best we can hope for is that Albion launches a raid in force which overextends itself, at which point we may be able to catch them when they attempt to retreat with our own battle line."

"Assuming they don't simply send enough ships to end a fleet battle decisively." Another Naval officer stated.

Lord Mortimer stroke his chin as he looked over the map. "Tell me, in our world, battles between two equal strength fleets tended to be indecisive. I assume that holds true here as well?"

La Remee seemed slightly surprised by the question, Belgen was as well, it betrayed both broad knowledge and a lack of detail about naval engagements. "That . . . is generally correct." La Remee agreed. "The Albionian Commanders will want to maintain a reserve force, at least half of their fleet, to deter a counter attack by Germanian opportunists or any punitive raids by our own forces."

"Then I would assume that Albion's commanders also know that a fleet engagement will be at, at worst, indecisive." Lord Mortimer steeped his finger thoughtfully. "At best we can only harass them."

"Not entirely." Le Remee explained. "With enough warning, we may be able to maneuver the fleet so that the wind gauge favors us. If we can amass enough of our Frigates and Dragon Knights in support, we can force their fleet to do battle far from Albion where we will have the advantage of resupply from the ground and enough amassed gunnery to sink them. The ability to receive fresh windstones will also allow our ships to sail into the wind without consideration for discharging their ballast which would give us the edge in maneuverability. This plan would naturally hinge on surprise and very rapid communications. A . . . Courier network of sorts would have to be arranged." La Remee eyed lord Mortimer.

The Salamander's face remained neutral as ever, but for an instant his lips seemed to twitch. Interesting. "That would naturally weaken the dragon Knights and Fae forces available to respond to an attack."

La Remee seemed apologetic. "I fear you might be correct, but alas, it is the best we can devise given the circumstances."

"Then I assume this should be considered a plan for the short term." Mortimer surmised. "A best case scenario as it were."

"Meaning?" Another Naval officer asked.

"Your . . . Our intelligence says we have a week before Albion can be prepared to launch a raid in force. Within one to two months they may be able to invade properly. What then?"

The table was silent once more. La Remee made to speak, but then closed his mouth before uttering the first word. Belgen felt for him, he'd fought a few losing battles, more than most. La Remee was a good sailor, but he just didn't have the ships to win and it was all too easy to point that out. The topic was shifted to procurement and the hiring of mercenary forces to bolster the Tristanian army.

Assuming that the emergency funds requested from the nobility were raised in a timely fashion, it was surmised that in the time they had, they could gather around thirty thousand free company soldiers from Germania or Gallia. At best, this would make the ground battle roughly even. Though there were concerns that Albion had already picked up the best of the mercenary units on the continent, leaving mostly low grade or poorly equipped free companies or those already in the employ of other powers and so not available for hire. It also ignored that they couldn't win on the ground if Albion's fleet was bombarding them from the skies.

'What a mess.' Belgen thought as the meeting began to break for the evening. No matter how the problem was looked at, Albion's fleet was just too strong. They'd need a miracle of the Founder to level the playing field.

By the time the meeting let out, a brief break for fresh air, Belgen was feeling generally quite depressed with the whole affair. All they could do was defend, and they could do that only poorly. Tristain had relied too often in the past on its close ties with Albion. And now to find itself on the other side of Albion's powerful fleets, it was simply too much. The retired General made his way to one of the tall windows left partially ajar to let in the night air and was pleased by the scent that wafted in from the Rose gardens, quite reinvigorating, he found his constitution almost immediately buoyed. Now if only whoever was arguing down the hall would just be silent . . .

"My apologies Lord Mortimer, but you've already read over everything we have on Albion. All that is left are road maps and a few old documents." Leaning back from the window with his hands tucked in pockets, Belgen saw the Salamander Lord looming over a terrified looking servant. An impressive feat given that said servant was in fact taller than the Faerie.

"Surely there must be others that I could make use of. Navigational maps of the coast perhaps?" Lord Mortimer insisted. "If not, the road maps will do so long as they show the coastal regions."

The man, he couldn't have been much more than a boy really, nodded quickly. "Please just one moment." He disappeared back through a doorway adjacent to the War Room and returned a moment later with a rolled tube of paper and several tattered and yellowed sheets folded up tightly and tied off with twine. "I'm afraid these are all we have. Even the spares are in the War Room right now."

"Yes, I suppose they would be." Lord Mortimer said, unrolling the map, he looked it over, squinting as he read the text carefully. "Thank you, that will be all for now, except . . . " Looking around as if realizing something he ought to have noticed before. "I wouldn't suppose I could make use of your map table."

The servant gestured into the map room. "Of course, this way Lord Mortimer."

"What is all of this about?" Belgen asked with a mix of curiosity and suspicion. Mortimer's behavior had been strange. Even for a Fae, he seemed to know things, more than even trusted Noble Officers, and that odd exchange between La Ramee and the Salamander Lord when discussing communications had been quite suspicious if one payed any sort of attention.

Mortimer gave him a look that was equal parts disdain and distrust. Of course, they hadn't been properly introduced yet. "Belgen de Gramont, Baron of Gramont." He half bowed to the Salamander Lord. If he had the Fae's system correct, then the Fae before him held a rank equivalent to a count.

"Good, you two have met each other." Karin said as she approached from the down the hall. With a small wave of her hand she dismissed the servant standing behind Lord Mortimer, the boy thankfully taking his leave.

The Duchess was certainly looking a bit more worn. Doubtless it wasn't just the fatigue that left her weary. Half of what had been discussed had been nothing but petty politics, how to wrestle funds from the Nobility to fill the war chest, and who would command what regiment. The very things that neither he nor Karin had any stomach for. Though to her credit, Karin had grown much more adept in that role even as Belgen's skills atrophied.

"Lord Mortimer," The Duchess addressed, "This is General Gramont. He is one of the best Earth Mages I have ever met and an able commander of men." Belgen was almost too busy preening at the compliment to notice Karin's expression grow momentarily resolute. "His Loyalty is not to be doubted."

Mortimer stared at the Duchess and then, nodding, turned back to Belgen. "Gramont . . . As in Guiche de Gramont?"

Belgen's mood soured almost instantly. "Unfortunately." He sighed in exasperation. "I do hope my son hasn't made a nuisance of himself . . . again."

Guiche, so much like his brothers, so very much like Belgen himself, but lacking a certain . . . quality. The lad simply didn't have the iron. Belgen blamed it on the coddling he had received from his mother. Not that he'd ever say that to his wife. Ah his beautiful Monalise!

"Then you haven't been told." Mortimer concluded, looking warily to the Duchess.

"Told what?" Belgen asked, growing on edge. What had his son gotten himself into now? In his last missive, Guiche had been babbling about some great honor he had been bestowed, an opportunity to serve the Kingdom as a proper Gramont. A hand slowly rose to the former General's face. "Karin, please do tell me that Guiche hasn't gone and done anything so very foolish."

"Tell me." Lord Mortimer delivered flatly. "How foolish would you consider being trapped in Newcastle at this very moment?"

Again Belgen had thought that nothing was left that could surprise him this day, and again he found himself proven wrong. Blanching, "Newcastle?" His head spun back to the Duchess who simply gave a small nod.

"He volunteered." Karin said as if that explained everything. "He's certainly his father's son and I knew that as a Gramont his loyalty would be impeccable."

"You? You sent Guiche of all people into the middle of a war zone?!" He reached out with his right hand, almost grabbing hold of Karin by the collar before he caught himself. "Karin. This is . . . What could possibly have possessed you to do something so reckless?!"

"You seem to have a certain lack of faith in your son." The Duchess observed dispassionately. "I wouldn't have expected that, seeing as he's partly responsible for thwarting the assassination of Prince Wales Tudor."

And again surprise took him. Assassination? The retired General placed a hand against the wood paneled wall to steady himself. "Perhaps I should sit while you two explain." Both the Fae Lord and the Heavy Wind nodded sympathetically.

He was lead into the map room a long, narrow space lined with cubbyholes and bookshelves filled with tomes and yellowing papers and lit by mage light and many, small, oil lamps.

Belgen listened as Mortimer and then Karin briefed him on everything that had taken place over the past week. The love letter and the missing Faeries. The departure of Guiche along with Viscout Wardes and a Fae agent. The Viscount's betrayal and the theft of the Princess' letter. The reports that they were receiving even now by means of Faerie magic. And his son's part in all of this, small though it was. It certainly went a long way to explain the peculiarities that he had observed during the strategy meating and previously in the day in the House of Peers.

Belgen chuckled weakly, "It must be true what they say about the Founder's softness for fools and children."

"For what it's worth, Belgen, responsibility does rest partly on my shoulders." Karin said with uncharacteristic softness. To think he would ever here that short tempered girl being kind.

"What?" Belgen looked up. "Perish the thought!" He said, getting back to his feet, mind already racing. "A traitor in our midst in one of the most trusted offices in the land?! I say we must count our good fortunes where we can! Though," He glanced over his shoulder to the still open door, "I do have to wonder about this strategy session. If the Captain of the Griffin Knights could betray us then . . ."

"We've already vetted everyone here." Lord Mortimer stated. "Given the betrayal of the Viscount, there is no guarantee that anyone can be trusted. But to trust no one is to paralyze ourselves completely." Belgen could see the merit of that, a calculated risk.

"Everyone gathered here tonight is invested in the Crown." Karin elaborated. "Either military families raised to status for their service, or else long time allies called upon now to serve. Allies such as the Gramonts. They are as trustworthy a group as we may hope to gather."

Belgen bowed once again to the Duchess. "I am, of course, honored that you would think so highly of me, Karin."

The Duchess' eyes narrowed. "Actually, it was La Ramee who wanted your input. I would have left you rotting on your estates."

He bit off a retort, of course she would say something like that at a time like this. "However I may be of service. More over I gladly offer my life to the crown." Standing straight, he looked back to Lord Mortimer and the map he still held in his hand. "Then, I might guess that you are attempting to devise some way to extract your wayward Faeries and my wayward son?"

Mortimer nodded. "A difficult proposition at the moment. Ideally we could retrieve them by ship, but Albion's fleet has every approach covered. Newcastle is completely blockaded and heavily patrolled by Dragon Knights. As mentioned, we do have the ability to communicate with our agent in Newcastle on a nightly basis. I would like to get a better lay of the land before we contact him again."

Leaning over the map table, Belgen read the roads and towns scattered across Northern Albion. The North was sparsely settled country compared to the denser lands around Londinium. Newcastle was situated on an outcropping at the far tip. It was a superb defensive position, almost completely unassailable. It was also completely isolated. There was nowhere for the defenders to run to. And his youngest son was trapped in that. It was all he could do not to despair. Monalise would be furious when she learned and his other son's would no doubt be worried sick for their youngest brother.

"Duchess de la Valliere." A voice came from the doorway of the map room. Another servant had arrived, an older man, breath short.. "The Queen and Cardinal have requested your presence in the Throne Room."

Karin frowned at the thought of more politics. It was a game in which she excelled, but as in her youth, it was not one that she enjoyed. "It seems I am needed elsewhere." The Duchess said. "I do trust you will report on what I miss, Belgen."

"Yes, yes, as you wish!" He waved her off with nary a second glance, already beginning to pore over the map. She departed giving a nonplussed look that was missed by both Belgen and Lord Mortimer.

There was silence between the two men as they studied the maps. It was as if neither even noticed that the other existed, only acknowledging one another as they stepped aside or reached for a compass or ruler. At last, it was Belgen who spoke first after getting the lay of the land. "You said you have a man in Newcastle Fortress. Has he informed you of the strength of the siege?"

"We received an estimate in the last communications." Mortimer said, fishing a small, leather bound book from his pocket. The pages were covered in a dense script that was Foreign to Belgen who prided himself on his fluency in both Romalian and Gemanian and their associated alphabets. "The Royalists estimate that there are roughly twenty thousand troops stationed on the siege line. They are supported by three squadrons of Dragon Knights, six squadrons of Mage Ground Cavalry, and no less than eight batteries of heavy artillery." The Salamander's eyes traced down the page and turned to the next. "The blockade at last count consists of twenty two frigates and two ships of the line, one of them is a second rater commanded by the former Supreme Commander of the Royal Navy."

Belgen cursed to himself, finally, shrugging off his jacket and hanging it from a nearby chair. He fished out his coin purse and began scattering the contents across the table, gathering up the low denominations copper pieces and arranging them around Newcastle. He could have conjured up some proper force markers, but years as a soldier had taught him to loathe squandering his magic needlessly and to make due. "So what did you have in mind?"

"Excuse me?" Mortimer seemed almost taken aback at the question.

"Ideas lad! I can't imagine you haven't given this much thought." They needed ideas! Some proposal to give to Count La Ramee. His youngest son's life now depended on it. He watched the Salamander intently, this man was supposed to be the Fae's most skilled strategist and war leader, yet he hardly looked older than Belgen's third son.

In reply, Mortimer simply raised his hands. "I am, sadly, at a loss." He confessed, voice never wavering from that neutral tone. "At present, only a handful of the SAO survivors show any ability to use their wings for unassisted flight, so our options for retrieval are limited. The best I can devise is a blockade run but . . ." He waved vaguely to the coins representing the gathered Albion forces. "I know little about aerial sailing tactics. I can't imagine a ship fresh from port has the same advantages in the air as it would at sea."

"Aye." Belgen agreed, vaguely recalling something to that effect. "If you wanted to break through that blockade, you'd need a large raiding force. At least one for every two of theirs if you simply wish to break through and beat off pursuit. And there's still no guarantee it would work. La Ramee won't risk that much of the fleet." They'd need every hull they could scrape together just to hang on.

"The Royalists' gun batteries would be able to support the ships once they reach Newcastle." Mortimer observed thoughtfully, hand resting beside Newcastle on the map. "I've been informed the fortress is equipped with a number of heavy cannons to counter long range bombardments."

"If it were just the frigates, you'd be right. but they're not what I'd be worrying about." Belgen explained and pointed to another dot on the map. "This here is the Port City of York, the closest large port to Newcastle. It used to be the home port of the Royal Navy's Northern Squadron and I can't imagine the Rebels have changed that." Without thinking about it, Belgen's right hand fell to his thigh, fingers tapping out a hollow rhythm as he thought aloud. "The blockade will have ships arrayed to catch any runners. They'll see a fleet coming long before it reaches Newcastle's airspace. Any commander worth his salt would send message to York and you'd have a full squadron of the battle line barring down on you as you try to retreat."

Mortimer seemed displeased with this assessment. "Then you are saying that ships of the line would be needed just to break through."

Belgen, shook his head. "I fought on the ground, no in the skies, but I can tell you that you would need half the fleet to do what you're proposing. Any way you look at it, the risks not a fair trade for a few hundred Faeries and a Nobleman's Son." Even for one of his own sons, Belgen thought sorrowfully. The Salamander stood stock still as if struck. "What is it?" Belgen wondered aloud and then realized shamefully his error. "I meant no disrespect to your people . . . Lord Mortimer?"

"Mortimer is just fine." The Salamander Lord murmured, half distracted as he stared again at the coins on the table. "A fair trade . . ." He said under his breath.

"Excuse me?" Belgen asked.

Mortimer placed both hands down on the map, bracketing Newcastle and York. "You know, I'm surprised it didn't occur to me before now. We have a golden opportunity laid out before us." For a moment, Belgen wasn't sure whether the Faerie was on the verge of some grand revelation, or had simply gone mad. And then he noticed the way that the Lord's right hand clutched the coins around Newcastle tightly. "In war, soldiers, ships, and supplies are currency after all. One must hoard them and spend them wisely." Mortimer observed, blood red eyes glinting as he raised his hand and let the coins spill back down across the map. "How many would we need to sink to buy passage off Albion?"

Belgen listened as Mortimer elaborated. It was daring. It was insane. If they were going to make it even remotely workable . . . "We need a Naval Officer in here." Belgen decided, glancing to the door. "Wait here." He gestured to Mortimer before hurrying back to the War Room.

At some point, the meeting had reconvened without them, but that wasn't important now. As La Ramee droned on about consolidating defensive positions and constructing additional fortifications in Tristain's heartland, really things that he had no business talking about, Belgen spotted what he was looking for. He returned to the map room with a second Nobleman in tow.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Captain Fevis, commander of the Flagship _Mercator_, spluttered before Belgen and Mortimer quickly began to explain. The man fell silent, and then looked at them as if they were mad. Then, he actually started listened to what they were saying. Crossing his arms, he shook his head. "Unworkable." He decided. "You would have to force the Albionian fleet to do battle against a numerically superior force. Albion's fleet doctrine is to always deny battle against a superior foe."

"Then we'll simply have to catch them by surprise and force them to fight." Mortimer said as if he was suggesting nothing more difficult than a bit of light gardening.

Fevis snorted derisively at the Faerie trying to tell him how to do his job. "How pray tell do you plan to do that? There is no higher ground than Albion from which to stand watch!"

"I can think of some ways." Mortimer stated mysteriously.

"As can I." Belgen exchanged a look with Mortimer. "We need a Knight Commander in here." Belgen said, returning once more to the War Room and grabbing the first Squadron Captain he could find. To his delight, the man turned out to be Captain Elting, who had once served under him as a Lieutenant long ago, and now was Captain of the 2nd Dragon Knight Squadron.

The Knight Captain was likewise left speechless by the proposal, but as expected of a Cavalryman, quickly turned his attention to finding some way to make it work. "The biggest problem would be inflicting enough damage before the garrison can respond. You'll have a very short window, even if you can catch them by surprise. Honestly, the Cavalry would better used for screening our ships against Albion's own Dragon Knights. You want dismounted Mage Knights and sappers for something like this, and I'm sad to say, that would be suicide in a place like York."

"Suicide for Mages on foot. But Faeries can do it." Mortimer said confidently. "Our size and mobility suits us to this sort of work."

Elting's brow rose. "I've heard the stories about your people and where you come from." The Knight said, voice betraying a hint of disbelief. "Certainly your men have acquitted themselves well on patrols, and some show promise as soldiers, but are you sure you want to pit merchants and craftsmen against seasoned Albionian mages?"

"Not every one of us was a salary man or student. There are soldiers among us, and others who can fight . . . Excuse me, but I believe this is a job for the Spriggans." It was Mortimer's turn to depart the room briefly, returning in the company of Lady Morgiana and a handful of low ranking army Officers who had grown curious about the selective poaching that was taking place in the War Room.

"What's up Mort?" The First Lord of the Spriggans asked casually as she was shown to a place by the map table.

Belgen found himself starring as Mortimer explained once more what they were devising. He hadn't yet had the pleasure of the Spriggan Lord's company, and the more he watched, the more he thought that a shame. She was certainly unique, even among the varied and beautiful ranks of Fae women. Tall, and broad across the shoulders, very feminine figure, but with a physique that spoke of hard training as a fighter. There was a natural, almost predatory sleekness to her. She was certainly a rose of vicious thorns, but that only made her all the more intriguing. He watched her face grow from curious to intrigued, the smile that began to spread across her thin lips like a poisonous flower in all of its glory.

"Mort, this is a really bad idea. A really, really, bad idea." She breathed as she unsheathed the almost ceremonial looking knife that she carried at her waist, twirling it easily before sinking the blade through York on the map. "Lets do it!"

"I thought you would say that." Mortimer said, seeming for once almost pleased. "What I need to know is how many of your Guild are likely to volunteer."

"Kurotaka?" Morgiana asked, voice suddenly thoughtful. Her face scrunched up in thought. "Well, we've got a hundred and forty members total. About half of those volunteered for mob patrol. Drake's group got stuck in it with bandits a while back and ended up killing a few." Morgiana seemed to stared off into the distance for a time. "So, some of my guys couldn't take it, some are dealing with it. I can't be sure off the top of my head, but I think I could get around two dozen who are willing and able to fight." She shook her head and grinned. "Actually, make that two dozen and one. Can't let the kids go it alone."

"Between my brother and myself, I can pledge around a company's worth of forces." Mortimer concluded. "We could likely manage similar contributions from the Sylphs and Cait Syth and a few supporting formations from the other Races."

Captain Elting gestured once more to the map. "A squadron or two of Cait Syth Dragoons would also be appreciated. Those flying blast furnaces of theirs would free up our own Knights for screening."

"I'll see what can be arranged," Mortimer stroked his chin, "Now then . . ."

"What is the meaning of this!" Standing in the doorway of the map room, Count La Ramee starred a the gathered crowd of Officers. Ah, unfortunate, Belgen thought. He had been hoping for a little more time to prepare so that they could present a more polished proposal. "What are you all doing wasting time?! Every second is one we lose in preparation!"

As Belgen tried and failed to find a way to answer tactfully, Lady Morgiana deigned to provide a most eloquent reply. "We're saving your ass, that's what."

La Ramee had a reputation as a mild man, even so, he spluttered like a certain pompous ordinance officer at the uncouth language coming from the mouth of a woman. "Belgen! This is your doing isn't it!" He glared with a mix of anger and betrayal that actually made the retired General feel guilty.

"Not at all. This is Lord Mortimer's plan, I'm just helping to correct his mistakes."

"Plan? We have a plan!" La Ramee barked.

"Yeah, and its a bad one." Lady Morgiana cut in.

"Wha-?" La Ramee shook his head again, to his credit he regained his composure even as he answered. "How dare you . . ."

"What? State the obvious?" Morgiana's throaty laughter caused the Count to recoil. "Yeah, we've got a plan, and right now it's a ridiculously bad one." La Ramee tried to protest but was trampled into silence as Morgiana continued on, neither raising her voice nor allowing anyone else to be heard. "It's a bad one, because otherwise we wouldn't have all been stuck listening to six hours of everyone trying to cover their ass. Look, I'm not a strategist like you or Mortimer." She shrugged in a way that could almost have been an apology. "But I'm not stupid. Right now, we're pretty much screwed the way we're going, so why not sit down and take a look at what we've been cooking up?" She laughed again in the same way, what a beautiful sound it was, deep and rich, not the dainty giggles one might expect from a member of the fairer sex. Belgen thought that it perfectly suited her. "I mean, it's also a ridiculously bad plan, but either Mortimer's got some hidden Charisma stat I didn't know about or else a lot your officers are really getting behind it too."

"You might as well hear us out, Eren." Belgen said, adding what little weight he had.

La Ramee was left gaping. Finally, he turned to Captain Fevis, staring at the man as if to wordlessly demand an answer. "Well . . ." Fevis began carefully.

* * *

Karin Desiree de la Valliere, Duchess de la Valliere, Karin the Heavy Wind, found herself at a loss for words as she returned to the War Room to find it all but abandoned. Papers and documents had been left scattered across tables, Maps marked up, battle plans incomplete. There were only a handful of junior officers, standing about and speaking to each other.

"Excuse me." Karin stopped the nearest man. "But what has happened. Is the strategy session over?" She didn't think it likely. Knowing La Ramee, the man would work well through the night if need be, and there was was certainly need at a time like this.

"Oh, Duchess de la Valliere." The young Lieutenant bowed to her. "The Count is in the Map Room with the rest of the senior staff preparing a proposal for tomorrow morning."

"A proposal?" Karin wondered, curiosity compelled her, and she found herself returning to where she had parted company with Baron de Gramont and the First Lord of Gaddan several hours ago. What she found left her without words to describe it.

The gathered Noblemen, who fit comfortably in the spacious War Room, filled the Map Room almost to the bursting point. There simply wasn't enough space for everyone to to be seated, and many stood, attempting to see over the their fellows and catch a glimpse of the center of the room. Karin, exploiting the chivalry of her fellow Nobles as well as the rather solid heels of her shoes, managed to clear a path for herself to the heart of the room and the source of this strange phenomenon.

Instead of answers, she found herself with only more question. "This all hinges on up to date intelligence. You're sure your man can supply that?" La Ramee asked, looking across the map table to Lord Mortimer.

The red eyed Faerie Lord nodded. "Given his reputation and what he's managed so far, both now and in the past. I believe that Kirito-kun will be able to do what we need of him."

"That still leaves how we tie up the ships at York." Captain Fevis tapped a hand against the edge of the table. "It does us no good if they manage to set sail."

"Heh. Leave that to me, Mort, and General Gramont." The First Lord of Muisca, Lady Morgiana, gave a vicious smile.

"Count La Ramee! Lord Mortimer!" From behind Karin, a slight young man in a Lieutenant's uniform squeezed his way though the crowd carrying a parcel in the crook of his arm. "I've returned with the ledgers you asked for. This is the total of what the Fort has in stock right now."

La Ramee took the books from his subordinate and began to to turn pages until he found what he was looking for. "We have over twenty tons in stock here in Tristania alone. I must remember to have more laid in immediately. But that should be adequate for your needs, should it not?"

"And also the lamp oil." Lord Mortimer said. "But yes, that should be more than enough, assuming we can have the casings fabricated and gather enough volunteers." Reaching to a plate atop the table, the Salamander picked up a thick loaf of bread layered with cheese and ham, using the bread slices to keep his hand free of grease as he ate. Others around the room were eating the same and cups of hot tea were being passed around even as she watched.

"Fabrication is no problem." General Gramont said. "These don't have to be very precise, just sturdy enough to survive impact. I'm more concerned about delivery. The Rebels will have the local airspace well patrolled, even merchantmen will be challenged on approach.

"We could try bluffing our way in." Lady Morgiana suggested, holding up a hand. "Of course, if that doesn't work, there's always bribing a ship's Captain or else a good old fashioned hijacking."

Unable to hold it in any more, Karin spoke. "What are all of you doing?" She had to fight to not preface the question with 'idiots'. Her traditional system for classifying people was most efficient, but left little room for anyone who was not a superior, a subordinate, or an incompetent.

The rampant discussion around her fell silent, all eyes around the map table turned to observe her as if they had just realized she was there. "Ah, Karin! Wonderful for you to join us!" Belgen waved for the other officers to make room beside the table for the latest arrival. The map that Belgen and Lord Mortimer had been studying when she left was still spread across the table, now covered in a bewildering array of coins, silverware, measuring implements, playing cards, and even dice. "Mind the mess by the way, none of us much thought to go grab the markers from the War Room."

At first, the map seemed to be nothing but a chaotic mess, the twin eyes of the storm centered around York and Newcastle, but as she studied it, a sort of mind bending pattern began to present itself. "Just what is this?" Karin asked as she leaned over for a better view. "Count La Ramee."

"Ah, well, this is a tentative overview of the forces arrayed around Newcastle and York. The various paraphernalia are stand ins for troop . . ."

"I know how to read a strategy map, Eren." She said shortly, wishing for once that her reputation had been a little more public. "I mean, what is this?" She gestured, emphasizing the entirety of the map.

The gathered Officers and Faeries exchanged looks before wordlessly selecting Belgen as their spokesman. The man who had grown from the foppish boy she'd once known gave a cavalier smile as he gestured grandly. "Why, what does it look like? We're plotting the downfall of Albion."

Karin looked at him hard, Belgen's smile didn't waver even once. He was . . . an idiot. "Yes, we shall crush them with our overwhelming advantage in kitchen cutlery." Karin picked up a fork near the edge of the table, only to have it plucked from her hand by Count La Ramee and returned to its place. "We ran out of spare change." He said with a hint of embarrassment. "The Rebels have a rather large number of ships."

"A condition we intend to relieve them of." Belgen added. With a wave of his wand he set the makeshift markers into motion as he explained. Formations gathering and dispersing, pieces removing themselves from the map as lines of forks cross paths with gold coins. When he was done, Karin was given a moment to digest what she had just been told. She had been wrong, he was worse than an idiot, he was lunatic, and judging by everyone else, it appeared that only the mad still supported the Crown.

As difficult as it might have been for some to believe, the Duchess had not always been the calm and collected woman that she presented herself as. Indeed, her external persona was the result of years of self discipline, learning to channel her emotions and especially her temper into productive venues. But one thing that had always held constant, whether now, or in her fiery youth, was her Loyalty to the Royal Family and to Tristain. "You're under utilizing your Cavalry at York." Logically, she must have been a madwoman as well.

Both Lord Mortimer and Captain Elting looked to the map. "We're expecting the Fae to pick up the slack."

"The Faeries have to land to replenish their flight magic. You still need at least a squadron of mounts for support." She insisted. "Else they'll be eaten alive by the Dragon Knight squadrons in York." Perhaps literally.

"The Problem would be smuggling them in close." Captain Fevis explained. "Faeries, yes. One or two mounts, perhaps doable. But a whole squadron? Out of the question I'm afraid." The man hardly even seemed to take note of who had asked the question.

Karin starred at Newcastle. Why was their a knife stabbed through the city? "Then we'll just have to make sure those one or two mounted Knights are enough." In a way, this settled something within Karin. For the last two days she had been living with the fear that she would never find a way to restore her tarnished honor. But it seemed the found had seen fit to offer her a path.

"Going to have to be a couple of amazing knights to hold off multiple squadrons on their own." Captain Eting said with a bark of laughter and a shake of his head.

Karin closed her eyes solemnly. "I can think of at least one."

"Then are there any further objections?" La Ramee asked. Hearing none, the supreme Commander gave a small nod of satisfaction. "Very well, then we will begin moving forward at sun rise. It should take several days to make the necessary arrangements. I will remind you all," La Ramee swept the room with his gaze, "That this plan is contingent on receiving further intelligence from within Albion. Until we can confirm the forces present at York, it can only be offered to the Crown as a suggestion. What's more you are to speak of this to no one outside this room. Simply go about your assigned duties and conduct the agreed upon preparations. Is this understood?"

There were murmurs of acknowledgment from the gathered Nobles, each swearing on his honor to see his duty done. "Now then." Mortimer said quietly. "I do believe it is nearly midnight. I should be on my way if I am to speak with Kirito-kun."


	60. Chapter 14 Part 4

Yeah sorry for the late update, I just concluded writing this entire arc and spent a lot of time writing the epilogue snips (So many threads to tie up!) It turns out writing lots of short snips can be way more time consuming than one long snip!

Also always, R&R, and to whatever 55wh01e decided it would be funny to dump spoilers in the reviews . . . (As has been previously mentioned, this story is updated elsewhere first and then polished a bit for its posting. I prefer to do it this way as I have become quite comfortable with the people I'm writing this with and don't want to mess with a good thing)

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 14 - Part 4

"Humbly, my Prince, I have to agree with Lady Asuna." The Knight, Lucane, urged as he walked at the side of Prince Wales Tudor. "You should be resting right now, just look at how easily you tired today."

Prince Wales, Crown Prince of Albion, scowled at his retainer. "The only thing I tire of is being told that I need rest, Lucane." The Prince tightened his grip on his Knight's offered arm to steady himself. "Every man in this fortress has a duty, and this is part of mine." He looked like he would have said more if a shortness of breath hadn't overtaken him. Well that was hardly surprising, having been brought back from the brink of death, and with only one good lung for the time being.

Asuna knew he was pushing himself too hard, but she had enough experience with stubborn streaks to know that saying it wouldn't do any good. At her side, Kirito rolled his eyes in disbelief. Their destination wasn't much further now, just around the curve of this hallway, the Offices of the Fortress Commander.

When they arrived, they found King James and a pair of his Knights as well as one of the King's advisers, a man named Paris, and the young Tristanian Nobleman who had arrived along with the treacherous Viscount, waiting for them. Asuna didn't miss the way that Kirito's eyes narrowed upon seeing Guiche. She'd only met the blonde boy in passing, but something about him seemed to set Kirito on edge. It was a little strange, if he was dangerous, she was sure Kirito would have done something about him.

The King of Albion, never happy to see Asuna or any of the other Faeries, was caught between a smile and a frown as he saw his son in her company. After Wales had been taken to the infirmary, the healers struggling to keep his heart beating, the King had refused to leave his son's bedside until he was out of critical condition. For all of his other faults, King James really did love his son.

"Father." Wales greeted, standing a little straighter and taking his hand from Lucane's side to approach on his own. He was shaky on his feet, like an old man, but both Lucane and Kirito were ready to catch him if he fell.

The King bowed his head, "Wales, my son." His eyes narrowed as he looked to Asuna. "And Lady Asuna, an honor as always." He bit off with the bare minimum of courtesy. Asuna gave a small curtsy in reply, a gesture that she did her best to make look as sincere as possible. The King gave a harumph and gestured to the oak double doors of the office. "Your allies are scheduled to contact us at any time, are they not?"

"Lady Alicia said she was going to be later tonight than she was yesterday. She said the Faeries were going to try something different." 'Midori' explained casually as she walked up to the King. It seemed Kirito had been right to keep his disguise up around King James. "It shouldn't be long now."

The King turned back to Wales. "You should have rested before this my son."

"And risk sleeping through it?" Wales snorted softly. Despite his bravado, there were rings beneath his eyes. Even magic couldn't heal everything, and the Prince had long since exhausted himself. "I'd take little chance of that."

King James lead them into the Office without further comment, his Knights standing guard at the doors. The inside of the office was spacious, extremely so, reminding Asuna of the Headquarters of the Knights of Blood back in Aincrad. The ceiling arched up high above their heads, supported by six, thick stone columns. The room's previous occupant had left the office luxuriously decorated with rich tapestries and hardwood furniture.

A space had been cleared at the middle of the room for the Moonlight Mirror spell to be activated and a long table had been set out with chairs for everyone. If not for the King, Asuna would have laughed. Who would have ever thought of using magic for teleconferencing?

King James took the seat at the center of the table, flanked by Paris and his son. Lucane quickly took the remaining seat beside Wales, leaving Guiche to take the end seat while Asuna and Kirito sat on the King's opposite side. The King sat, arms crossed, listening intently as Paris commented on something that Asuna couldn't quite make out, even with her acute hearing. They weren't left waiting long.

Asuna sat up in her chair, her eyes drawn to a spot in the air before the table where motes of light were beginning to collect. The tiny pinpoints rapidly coalesced and expanded into a bright silver ovoid, bordered in gold, like the evil witch's magic mirror. This was the long rang communication's spell Moonlight Mirror. Originally created as a novel method for players to communicate over long distances in the game world of ALfheim Online, it was now their sole link with their allies in Tristain.

Beneath the table, Asuna gave Kirito's hand a quick squeeze as the light poring from the mirror began to fade, revealing the people standing on the other side. Asuna heard a sharp intake of breath and looked over to see Guiche sitting rigidly straight in his seat.

Looking back to the mirror, Asuna found herself facing a small delegation. Unlike the last time, the energetic cat girl, Alicia Rue, was nowhere in sight. "Lord Mortimer." Kirito said, looking straight at a red haired man whose pointed ears identified him as a Faerie. His features were young but severe, pale skinned, with shoulder length red hair, and cold red eyes. His only acknowledgment that Kirito had spoken was a small nod of his head.

The other two men were humans, definitely mage's based on their dress. The first was a stern looking man, gray haired, with dark whiskers. He was dressed in a coat that was reminiscent of the one favored by Wales and some of the officers who commanded the Eagle.

The second man was taller and more slenderly built, his gray hair was still shot with gold, and even though he was certainly older, he would still have been considered quite handsome. In fact, Asuna noted a distinct similarity too . . . She glanced across the table to where Guiche was fidgeting anxiously.

"King James." The whiskered man bowed slightly. "I am Count Eren La Ramee, Admiral of Tristain's air fleet. It is an honor to meet with you, your Majesty. I do hope that we are coming across clearly."

Looking past the men, Asuna could see tall windows back lit by the twin moons. They weren't on a ship, in fact, they looked to be in a mansion. But how was that supposed to work? Kirito had mentioned that the moonlight mirror had a limited range, even at night. Her explanation came a moment later as a familiar tail swished into view out of the corner of the mirror.

"Lady Alicia, if you would please." La Ramee admonished to someone out of view.

"Neh? Oh, sorry, this takes a lot of concentration." The Cait Syth announced, voice sounding slightly nearer than that of the Count.

"A relay, that's actually pretty clever." Kirito murmured softly to himself.

Asuna got it after a moment of thought. If one Moonlight Mirror didn't have the range to reach from Tristain to Albion, then maybe two, or more, could do the job. That had been the reasoning that Alicia had given them the night before, but Asuna had simply expected that to mean that they would get an answer back the same night. Instead, it appeared that the Faeries of ALfheim had been able to use the mirrors themselves as relays, pointing one mirror at the next until the last mirror was in range of its destination. Kirito was right, it was a pretty clever solution.

If King James thought so, or even cared, he showed no sign of it. In fact, he looked pleased that he didn't have to continue talking to Alicia. "We can hear and see you well enough" The King replied. "Count La Ramee, what matters do you have to report to us?"

The Count didn't answer immediately, in fact, for a moment, he looked hesitant. "Your Majesty, as always, time is of the essence in the these communications, our allies cannot maintain this spell for long. We have a plan in the works. We wish to know if you have any information on the forces stationed at York."

"York?" The King was left momentarily speechless. "Why the devil do you need to know about the forces at York?"

"So that we may annihilate them." The red haired Faerie said without a hint of hesitation or mercy, causing the King, Prince Wales, and Paris to recoil in shock. Asuna had to admit, from everything Kirito had said about the Lord of the Salamanders, he certainly didn't disappoint. Still, she wondered if he really understood what he was saying.

"Annihilate them? I fear it would be Tristain's fleet that would be destroyed." The King shook his head. "If this some form of Faerie joke?" He asked with a hint of bitter humor.

The red haired man gave a small wave of his hand. "I assure you King James, that this is no joke. Allow me to introduce myself, I am . . ."

"Lord Mortimer of the Salamanders." King James concluded, receiving a frown from Lord Mortimer. "Yes, I already heard. Even so, Miss Midori has told me enough about the personalities of you Fae that I would think there's nobody else you might be."

"Then knowing me, you must also know I have something of a reputation." Lord Mortimer said, eyes narrowing. "Without going into details, we've spent most of this evening devising a plan that we believe will work to shatter the blockade around Newcastle and open a corridor for an evacuation. But in order to do so, we need to remove the battle fleet at York from the equation."

The gray and blonde man on the opposite side of Count La Ramee grinned boyishly. "Forgive us King James, but we're going to have to sink a portion of your Kingdom's rather fine fleet."

"General Belgen de Gramont." King James sighed as he regarded the man. Gramont? Asuna looked back to Guiche who was still starring at the man. Well that confirmed it then. "It's been quite some time since last we met."

"Over a decade I do believe." The General bowed humbly.

"And I don't suppose you approve of whatever madness these Faeries have devised?" The King waved a hand vaguely towards Lord Mortimer. The King's attitude was really starting to wear on Asuna's last remaining nerve. If she'd felt this way two nights ago, she might have punched him before Caramella had the chance, and probably a lot harder.

General Gramont smiled as he looked up from his bow. "Oh, I assure you I approve of every part of it, what as seeing that I devised around a third of it myself." The General boasted proudly. "Now then, can you, or can you not, give us an estimate of the forces in York? This entire plan will hinge on knowing what we go to face."

King James leaned back in his seat, a frown pulling at his face. He seemed to be weighing General Gramont's words, and there was a coldly calculating look in his eyes, like a computer shuffling game stats to determine a winner. He looked over to Paris, the old adviser giving only an apologetic shrug, and then to his son who nodded seriously.

"Certainly we would if only we could." The King said at last, a hand rose to his temple as he spoke. "Unfortunately, the Rebels had proven damnably good at rooting out our loyal informants beyond the walls of Newcastle. But a month ago we could have told you easily, but to date . . . " The King sighed in resignation, forced to tally his losses for the first time in a long time. "My son was the last Royalist to be in York and that was over a week ago."

"I also departed on the heels of a gunpowder explosion, courtesy of Lady Asuna and her troop." Wales added to his father's assessment. "If there is one competent man in all of York, the defenses will have been reinforced and more ships brought up to bolster the squadron stationed there. However, how many, I cannot say."

The table fell silent. If they needed to know the number of ships in York, then it meant somebody was going to have sneak back past the siege, infiltrate the City, and then make it back as soon as possible. Asuna gave Kirito a worried look, he was already thinking the same thing, and knowing him, he'd volunteer in a heartbeat.

"Six frigates on patrol or in docks. Seven third raters, two second raters, and one first rater ship of the line which I do believe was the _Royal Sovereign_. There were signs of Dragon Knights flying air patrols over the city, no more than six at a time, which probably means two full squadrons on garrison duty if they were maintaining standard rotations. Also, the forts along the cliffs were notably lacking in heavy cannons. I would fathom most of those were moved to support the siege or mounted to ships in preparation for storming Newcastle."

Every eye at the table, and on the other side of the mirror turned to the young man sitting beside Lucane. "What?" Guiche de Gramont looked aghast. "Ah, begging your pardon, your Majesty!"

"Mister Gramont, how do you know all of that?" Prince Wales asked.

Kirito nodded in agreement. "That's right, you don't know anything."

Guiche huffed at the insult. "I'll have you know, that as war is looming between Albion and the Continent, I thought it prudent to examine the Port when we were coming in to dock. After all, there's no telling how well the Rebels have managed to maintain and repair their captured ships. That could be valuable intelligence when we returned to Tristain!" General Gramont nodded his head in approval.

"Guiche, it's valuable intelligence right now." Kirito sighed.

"Still, the Royal Sovereign." Prince Wales half rose from his seat. "Are you sure? Absolutely certain that ship is in York?"

Guiche looked suddenly nervous to be pressed for answers by Royalty. "I . . . well . . . She was certainly a first rater, and that gilding on her stern was has oft been mentioned in descriptions. She seemed to be carrying a few extra guns as well."

"I should think so." Wales sat back down, he seemed strangely frustrated. "If that's the case, then now you know. The Royalists have stationed their flagship in York for good measure. Is that all you need to know?"

"Yes, that is quite enough." Lord Mortimer answered, like the King, his mind was already churning over what he had just heard. "In which case, there is but one other matter to deal with. Without going into details, this plan depends a great deal on the element of surprise. We need some way to get a ship over the Port without alerting the Rebels."

"Over the port?" Wales asked curiously. "Are you planning to bomb them?"

The three men exchanged looks, Lord Mortimer shrugged. "Something like that. We need to know of any codes or identification signals so that we can close on the port without rousing suspicion."

"I'm afraid that there is no help for that." Wales answered after a moment of thought. "The Rebels keep a careful list of trusted vessels and the docking signals are changed regularly. You would need the help of one of the Captains." The Prince's lips twitched in a small smile. "Fortunately, if you can find him, I know just the man. Tell me . . . Do you know if my Cousin Emily is well?"

* * *

"At this point in the operation, having completed our objectives, the frigate squadrons will withdraw ahead of the battle line. The rear of our formation will be composed of our heavy combatants and Dragon Knights squadrons to deter pursuit." Count La Ramee finished, pocketing his wand and turning his attention to the Queen and Cardinal Mazarin.

Henrietta had no experience in warfare, her only training in battle were a few spells for self defense taught to her by members of her bodyguard detachment, but even so, she could almost instinctively tell that this plan was both very bold and very dangerous. There were many assumptions, many unknowns, both in the quality of the Rebel forces and in the quality of their own allies. At the same time, she could see by the way that Count La Ramee and Baron Gramont argued for it, that the rewards would be equally great if it succeeded.

"You vouch for this plan, Count La Ramee?" Cardinal Mazarin asked, the Cardinal had never looked so old, and Henrietta could understand perfectly why.

As her Regent, the Cardinal was used to making difficult decisions on behalf of her and Tristain. Even in the alliance to Germania he had attempted to safeguard both Henrietta's own well being and that of the Kingdom. Now, once again, he was confronted by a difficult decision. Not for the first time, Henrietta felt guilty. Even now, she was laying her burdens at his feet, she was hiding because she lacked the strength to lead.

"Truthfully?" La Ramee asked as he studied the map that had been laid out on a table in the Throne room.

Covered in magically activated ink and brass force markers that moved about on their own like miniature golems, the presentation made it all seem so clean and elegant, but if Baron Gramont was to be believed, their time devising it the night before had been anything but. All three men and the Duchess de la Valliere appeared to have gotten little sleep. Well, that was the same for all of them. Henrietta hadn't slept well even when Mazarin and her mother insisted that she rest, and the same seemed to be true even for Sakuya, who while not quite disheveled, looked notably wilted this morning.

"I think that this is a terrible option." Both Lord Mortimer and Baron Gramont seemed ready to speak out as Ramee continued. "But it is the least terrible of many terrible options. Put simply, if this plan is to succeed, it will require over half of Tristain's entire fleet. Which means if it fails . . ."

"The Kingdom will be left defenseless." Cardinal Mazarin finished without further prompting.

Count La Ramee nodded in agreement with the Cardinal's assessment. "It is simple fact. Tristain lacks the ships and manpower to defend against a dedicated incursion by Albion. Unless the political situation improves drastically within the next month and we can form a modified defensive pact with Germania, then fighting a purely defensive war will be . . . untenable."

Untenable. That was a euphemism if ever Henrietta had heard one. "Even so, we do have a more conventional defensive plan in place if the Crown so decides." La Ramee took a deep breath, it was the sort of breath that came before a man bet his entire fortunes. "But if this plan succeeds, even partly, we will steal the initiative from Albion and buy ourselves valuable time, if it succeeds in full, well . . . We might just stand a chance."

"And what is your opinion of this, Karin?" Queen Marianne asked the Duchess de la Valliere.

The Duchess almost smiled as she answered. "It is as La Ramee has already said, immensely reckless."

"Then you disapprove?" Marianne asked.

Shockingly, the Duchess shook her head. "On the contrary. If we are going to fight, then we will never again have a better chance of success. The Rebels have not yet consolidated, their fleet is scattered across the White Isle, and their forces, save for those around Newcastle, are likely at a low state of readiness while their leaders plan their next move. I think we should make the most of it."

"Are you sure, Karin? It seems rather overly orchestrated." The Queen observed. "Didn't you once tell me that a complicated plan is usually a sign of poor strategy?" Lord Mortimer looked offended at this, but a glare from the Lady of the Sylphs silenced him before he could speak.

"Not quite." The Duchess elaborated. "A complex plan that relies on one's enemy acting as one expects is doubtless doomed to failure, it will lack flexibility. A plan that allows for many outcomes, such as this one, can be adapted in the field. See here?" The Duchess pointed to the map. "Even if we fail to sink the forces at York, we can delay their launch long enough to ensure the success of the operation at Newcastle. And if the Newcastle forces cannot breach the blockade, they need merely await reinforcements from the York detachment." Henrietta felt a little surprised, the Duchess seemed to be speaking with a great deal of experience, of course, now that Henrietta recalled, she had mentioned being a Chevalier. "There are also many ways for this operation to succeed and only one way for it to fail, that is to say, with the annihilation of our own forces."

"We also have several advantages that the Rebels will be ill equipped to counter." Lord Mortimer stepped in. "The Rebels will not expect us to be able to communicate instantaneously over long distances, nor will they be equipped to deal with mages that possess our mobility on the battlefield." Well, it sounded convincing enough to Henrietta, but . . .

"That is what concerns me about this plan." Mazarin stated. "Your soldiers were craftsmen and students not too long ago. This plan is contingent on them performing their role to the letter. Can you guarantee that they can fight? Can you guarantee that they can kill?"

"I agree with the Cardinal." Lady Sakuya announced her position. "The people under our charge are not soldiers, even the mob patrols. They can't be relied upon for a mission like this. Sending messengers and mages to provide communications and support is one thing. But a strike force? Assault teams? We can help you, we cannot fight a war for you. Certainly not without more time to train and prepare."

Mortimer didn't answer at once, it was clear that he had given this some thought, he wasn't surprised by the question. But there was world of difference between coming to a decision and voicing it openly. In the end he didn't have to, the Lady of the Spriggans did it for him.

"Well, you're right about one thing." Morgiana said, taking up a look of concentration. "Most of us are raw as hell. Those Dragon Knight recruits we saw drilling the other day are probably more ready to see battle than most of us will ever be. But that doesn't matter because we'd have to mess up pretty badly for our part in this to turn into a straight up fight. As for the killing . . ." For a blink of an eye, the Spriggan's relaxed smile vanished, her face grew neutral, lips tracing a thin, flat line. "Well, as for the killing, some of us have the right stuff, and we're doing everything we can to be sure that we bring them along for this."

"Our forces may also be necessary to check any of the Rebels own . . . acquired assets." Lord Mortimer said, his cold veneer falling for a moment, the man looked almost ill. Henrietta couldn't blame him, her stomach turned at the very thought of what had been reported.

There was a Necromancer in the ranks of the rebel army, and a powerful one at that. The very vilest form of a water mage.

Their only consolation was that his power was being used sparingly, though it was unclear if this was related to the exact nature of the undead that were being created. The fact that the undead that had been encountered had exhibited complex behavior and a high level of cognition was grave cause for concern. Henrietta, having access to the Royal archives for her own studies, knew that it was possible to create a lifelike zombie. Such abominations, if created from a freshly dead corpse and manipulated by a skilled necromancer, could even imitate their living selves for a brief time after death, functioning as a sort of flesh golem under the control of their Necromancer Puppeteer.

But there were limits to this magic. Even under powerful preservation spells, an undead's body could not heal and would continue to brake down as the minor damage of constant activity began to accumulate. The animating magic also tended to interfere with any spells of permanence cast on the body.

Over time, usually no more than a day or two, the previously lifelike zombie's faculties would begin to deteriorate gradually, starting with the ability to access higher memories and skills, then fine motor control, sensory acuity, and gross motor control. Barring the very highest levels of preservation magic, the undead would soon be reduced to a shambling mass of rotting flesh capable of obeying only crude instructions and fooling nobody as to its true nature.

However, from the testimony given by the Fae in Albion, as well as the lone Royalist survivor of the encounter, the reanimated Faeries had shown not the slightest hint of decay almost a week after their deaths. Their had also been no signs of a controlling mage within close proximity. It could simply be that the Royalists were taking care to reanimate their preserved Faeries a few at a time so as to 'stretch their supply', Henrietta thought with distaste. Or it could be the sign of an exceptionally powerful Necromancer, perhaps even a high level square mage. Either case was horrifying and both General Gramont and Lord Mortimer had emphasized the deployment of Salamanders and fire mages to ensure the hasty incineration of any fallen soldiers and to give any undead that were encountered the final peace of oblivion.

The revelation had also decided something else. It had eliminated all possibility of negotiation with the Rebels. Cromwell had made himself a twice damned heretic. Cardinal Mazarin already intended to forward this news through his contacts to the highest offices of the Church itself. There was hope that the Holy Father would finally be spurred to action by the news. But regardless, it would take time, time for the Church to investigate the allegations, time for Romalia to enter the fray, time that Tristain did not have.

The Cardinal gauged Morgiana's response and then nodded reluctantly. "Then there is only one last question . . . Is this what you want, Princess?" Mazarin had turned to her now.

"W-what?" Henrietta was shocked back to the present. "Cardinal Mazarin, surely you can't mean to ask me?!"

Mazarin's expression remained severe. "I surely do intend." He said solemnly. "Or have you forgotten?By appointing me as your regent, your mother the Queen surrendered much of her legal authority into stewardship until such time as you are Crowned."

"And I have not been crowned! And surely will not be this day unless you have the Legal Collegiate and the assembled house of Peers waiting outside!" This was simply too sudden and too much!

Mazarin's expression grew stern, a sight that Henrietta had not seen since he had first been appointed as her Regent. "Princess Henrietta de Tristain. This is not a time for uncertainty. Regardless of what is decided in this room, your country will soon require strong leadership. Leadership that I cannot provide." The Cardinal bowed his head. "You are right, there is no time for a formal coronation, but you were recognized by the legal collegiate as the rightful heir to the throne on the day you turned sixteen. With your marriage cancelled, that ruling still stands. Please Princess, I have done all I can to shepherd our country, it is time now for you to take up the mantle left you by your mother . . . and by your father."

Henrietta felt her mouth going dry. This was too sudden, Cardinal Mazarin couldn't possibly mean to ask her. After all of this, after her horrible mistake? How could he think she was ready? Surely he couldn't be seeking her judgment! But even without him speaking, she knew that was exactly what the Cardinal was asking. This time, there was no clear path for him to choose, this time, the burden had to fall on Henrietta's shoulders.

"I . . . I . . . " Henrietta stalled for time, eyes falling on each person in the room.

Mazarin met her gaze, she knew already that the Cardinal would favor a more conventional defense. If they could hold out for even a few months, the Cardinal might be able to devise something, some temporary defense pact with Germania, or call in whatever political favors he had with the Church to invoke Romalia's aid. The Pope had already denounced Cromwell, the next step would be military intervention or throwing their weight behind an alliance to retake Albion. The chances were good, especially if they could retrieve one of Rebels' undead creations for examination.

Beside the Cardinal, her mother looked on encouragingly. After the death of Henrietta's father, her mother had all but withdrawn from leading the country, leaving everything in the hands of Cardinal Mazarin. It had been the Queen's hope that one day Henrietta would take the throne and rule in her stead. She knew her mother would support whatever decision she made. Normally, that would have been comforting, but now, it gave her no guidance. She looked elsewhere in the room to Lord Mortimer, Count La Ramee, and Baron Gramont. All three would support this plan, they had envisioned it, refined it. They were confident, and she suspected as able a group as could be hoped for to lead it.

Finally, her eyes rested on Sakuya, and behind her, several of the other Faerie Lords and representatives. Zolf was holding his cross close to himself while Thinker and his Lieutenant, Yulier, leaned against one another. Sakuya had made a good point, the Faeries were not warriors. Henrietta understood that more than anyone after spending so much time talking with the Sylph woman. Sakuya didn't just look young, she was young, only a few years older than Henrietta herself, and the same was true of many of the other Faeries. But that wasn't all, some of them were brave, and able to fight, men like General Eugene were proof of that.

And also . . . If they could reach Newcastle, then it would be possible to evacuate not just the Faeries, but all of the surviving Royalists, including . . . A tiny part of her whispered poisonously in her ear. Everything she had ever wanted was before her for the taking. The alliance with Germania would be called off, there was no reason to deny herself now. All that she had to do was gamble with other peoples lives.

Henrietta felt her chest constrict, her heart aching so badly that she feared she would sink to the floor and weep. No, she knew in her heart that she favored this plan, this operation put forward by Lord Mortimer, and she knew the reason why was selfish. How could she choose? How could she be sure she was choosing for the sake of her country and not for the sake of herself? She was too weak, too too weak, a pitiful girl like her had no business deciding the fate of her people when she could not even master her own heart.

"Oy, Princess, are you listening?" Henrietta looked up, and then nearly took a step back. Morgiana had come face to face with her, though perhaps it was more accurate to say face to chest, the Spriggan Lord stood head and shoulders taller than her after all. The Manticore Knights behind her mother twitched anxiously, they never seemed quite certain of how to gauge the Faeries.

"Uh . . . Y-yes?" Henrietta stammered. "Yes, the plan, I think that . . . I think that . . ."

"Good, then before you decide, think about this." Morgiana interrupted, causing everyone in the room to stop and stare. The Spriggan Lord always seemed so relaxed and jovial, but right now she was dead serious.

"Look, Princess, I'm not a strategist like the Count over there or some sort of tactical genius like Mortimer or Baron Gramont. I'm a fighter, put me someplace where I can get stuck in it. But I do know something about being the small one in a fight and about thinking you're too weak to do anything." She breathed softly, a strange look overtaking her. "You're scared senseless right now, you think that there's no possible way out. Good, that means you know what's on the line. But you need to know something else too, a little secret. The smallest person in a fight is always the most dangerous."

Morgiana seemed to be looking past her, eyes shinning, to a different time, to a different world, but at the same time she was looking straight into Henrietta herself. "That's because people single out the little ones. Thy think they'll be an easy mark. Why do you think the Rebel's are going after Tristain first? When you're weak, everything is a struggle. When your small, you don't have the luxury of quitting or taking it on the chin." The Spriggan Lord loomed over her and Henrietta had to wonder how she had ever gained any experience with being 'small' in a fight. "That means you have to lead with a sucker punch! You have to get inside their guard and hold on with everything you have. Use every weapon you've got, use your feet, use your whits, use your fingernails and your teeth. But most of all, ounce you to start it, and you have to finish it!"

"All this strategy and politics stuff? Sorry I can't help you there." The Spriggan's usual smile returned as if nothing had happened. "But I'll tell you what, Mortimer's telling you how to win a fight as the little guy, maybe you should listen."

"That's what you think?" Henrietta asked carefully. Was she just going to cling to the last opinion given to her, was she really that weak?

"No." Morgiana said. "That's what I know. And I think you do too."

Try as she might, Henrietta couldn't discern the meaning of that statement, Morgiana's return to her normal persona telling her that the topic was closed for further discussion, even to the Princess of Tristain. Did she mean to simply choose without regard? Which was for the best?

The people here were meant to advise her, and they had made a convincing argument. If the operation were launched and it failed, then Tristain would have no choice but to surrender. But if they fought defensively, there was also little guarantee of success and many more would likely to be killed as the fighting took place in the fields and across the skies of Tristain.

Armies on the move would ravage the lands and pillage and burn the cities. The people would starve where they were not simply slaughtered. The other option was surrender, but given the distressing reports of Cromwell's latest . . . practices, that was no longer an option to be entertained. No, Henrietta thought, she had been foolish to think there was another choice. Ignoring her own wishes, ignoring her own doubts, there wasn't really a choice to be made.

"Cardinal Mazarin . . . I will defer to our military officers. Count La Ramee, Lord Mortimer, Baron Gramont, I will do what I can, little as it may be, to ensure your success." She tried not to look at Sakuya, or the disappointment in her eyes. Henrietta couldn't shake the feeling that she had made a mistake.

"Very well, Princess." Count La Ramee bowed, followed by Baron Gramont and Lord Mortimer. "We will commence preparations immediately. Lord Mortimer?"

The Salamander's red eyes opened as he stood back straight. "Indeed, we will now make ready for operation Dunkirk, the evacuation of Newcastle, and the elimination of Albion's Northern Squadron."

* * *

The meeting had let out just before noon. There was much too do and little time to do it, only a matter of days at most. The plan, or Operation Dunkirk as one of its architects had decided to name it, would rely as much on speed as surprise and communications. They had to move before their chance was lost. Every man and woman in the throne room, each of them trusted to act in confidence, had set out to perform their assigned tasks.

The Manticore knights had scattered immediately, taking flight to deliver sealed orders to the Naval stations, ordering together over half of Tristain's fleet and cavalry formations. This could now be done openly under the guise of preparing for the defense of the Capital.

At the same time, Count La Ramee would begin to plan out the fine details of the the raid, developing contingencies for the fleet under a variety of circumstances and disseminating them as sealed orders to be read by the Captains only after they were fully under way. Meanwhile, Baron Gramont, temporarily reinstated as a General of the Tristanian army, would begin working with Mortimer and Morgiana to lay out the details of the ground operations.

The other Fae also had their instructions. Zolf of the Imps had agreed to gather up his most trustworthy subordinates, Imp mages who could cast Moonlight Mirror repeatedly, even in daylight, to serve aboard the command ships during the Operation.

Rute had agreed to supply the best weapons and equipment left in the stocks of Goibniu, and out of the charity of his heart and desire to go on breathing, he wasn't even charging for them. Fitting of the armor and weapons would begin as soon as the Fae Forces were assembled, some three hundred volunteers in all.

General Eugene was seeing to the screening of volunteers even now with the assistance of several former JSDF soldiers who had stepped forward after the transition to lend their expertise and experience. The most skilled and suited to fight would be quietly contacted in order of candidacy and would be gradually brought up to speed before traveling to Tristania for final briefing.

Alden of the Cait Syth, acting with the approval of Alicia, had estimated that he could gather a dozen Dragon Knights as well as two dozen of the Cait Syth's best skirmishers.

Thinker and his Lieutenant Yulier were already gathering up volunteer medics as well as medical supplies and seeing to the preparation of accommodations for the two thousand displaced refugees that would soon be arriving from Newcastle.

Zia and Rucks had each departed to their respective home cities to convene with their interim councils, both had promised that regardless, they would forward any trustworthy volunteers amongst the Gnomes and Puca.

Argo the Rat, at special request of the Fae, was working closely with the Manticore Knights and several carefully vetted Griffin Knights to gather intelligence from Tristain's modest network of contacts. Particularly she had been asked to track down and intercept a certain ship's Captain with a special letter to be delivered.

That had left only Sakuya. Despite her misgivings, she had sworn to gather at least fifty qualified Sylphs to supplement the main salamander force. But before that, she needed to speak with the man who had forced her to make that promise.

"Mortimer!" Sakuya barely raised her voice, but the sound still echoed down the tiled hall of the Palace's Western Wing. Outside, the sun was shinning down on gardens of beautiful white flowers, another perfect day going by without notice. Proving once more that the world didn't much care for people and their petty lives.

The Lord of the Salamanders, no, that egotistical jackass hiding behind a false face and identity, turned to face her, Morgiana at his side. Sakuya looked around, there was no one else in earshot, good.

"Can I help you, Sakuya?" Mortimer asked as if there was nothing at all out of the ordinary.

"What the hell was that?!" Sakuya hissed dangerously.

Mortimer blinked and did that annoying little trick where he leaned his head back ever so slightly, despite them being roughly the same height, it gave the impression that he was looking down on her. "You really must be more specific, Lady Sakuya."

Sakuya felt a vein beginning to throb. "I am not a Lady, and you are not a Lord, and you know exactly what I'm talking about. This plan, it needs our people to succeed."

"Naturally, the Moonlight Mirror is essent . . ."

"Not just that." Sakuya spoke over him. She could agreed with that, she could agree with the operation in general terms, she could agree with doing everything they could to help the Tristanian's. But this was more then they could do, it was too much to ask of people. "To neutralize the ships in port? To hold off the Dragon Knights? It needs us to fight, now, on the front lines." She felt her breathing growing short and rapid. Sakuya might be brave, and confident, and noble, but Yamada Sakura knew this wasn't a game anymore.

"The volunteers have already been doing an exceptional job at mob clearing. Between the safety margins, the size of the clearing forces, and the lessons that Kirito-kun and others provided, their have been less than a hundred casualties and only half were fatalities. At the same time, the volunteers have gained experience in real combat and working in concert with Tristain's armed forces. I fail to see the problem."

"The problem?" Sakuya asked in disbelief. "The problem is that they aren't soldiers . . . and you aren't a general!"

"Oy Sakuya, you might want to relax a little." Morgiana said. The Spriggan had retrieved her Jotun's Spear after leaving the Throne Room, the weapon now hung easily over both shoulders. "You're going to get gray hairs if you don't calm down a bit. Mortimer is just doing what he thinks is best for everyone."

"I don't want to hear that from you . . . you . . . over powered piece of fan service!" Honestly, who power leveled a _Spriggan _build? Well, exempting Kirito. "You of all people, aren't you the one who's always saying how well she takes care of her guild?"

Morgiana quirked an eyebrow as the attempted insult washed over her, looking almost amused. "Hey! I'll have you know I paid top yen for this body! I'd be pretty pissed if guys _weren't _checking out the goods behind my back. And besides, aren't you one to talk? Seems someone here as forgotten she's wearing a mask too."

Sakuya recoiled slightly. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"The fancy Kimono, the ceremonies, all the formal bowing and lunch with Queens and Dukes. You're like a real noble woman, you must be loving this whole thing," Morgiana grinned, "Maybe a little too much."

Sakuya was left aghast, face reddening. "And do you think for one moment you'd have been able to get us this far? Trying to keep our people safe?"

"Our people?" Morgiana snorted. "Real regal of you Sakuya-chan. Or did you forget, nobody elected you, not really, you're just running things by chance, like the rest of us." Sakuya bit her lip, furious with herself, she hadn't forgotten that, how could she? She was reminded of it every day she looked in the mirror and saw this false face, and was called by a false name. Morgiana's cocky grin faded now that she had Sakuya on the defensive. "It's the same for all of us you know." Morgiana looked away, her expression growing strangely melancholic, "Kurotaka needs Big Sis Morgiana, not . . . not the real me. So I'll keep on pretending for as long as they need me to."

It caught her off guard. Yelling, or joking, she could have said something. But not this. "And what if they don't stop?" Sakuya asked, her voice becoming small. She knew the answer, and it terrified her more than anything.

"Then I won't ever stop pretending until it becomes the truth." Morgiana smiled, but this time it was tired and fragile. "Even if it means I have to be someone else for their sake. That's me, the great pretender. And it's the same with you, you know?" Morgiana chuckled softly. "You're right, by the way. All these negotiations? I couldn't have gotten us half this far. I probably would have strangled one of those Noblemen by now."

The Lady of the Spriggans leaned her spear over her right shoulder, balancing it with practiced ease. "I get where you're coming from Sakuya-chan. But we can't do this alone. There are other people who want to help, and want to make the same sacrifices, so . . . "

"So?" Sakuya asked.

Morgiana leaned forward, her mask came back up, the cocky grin returned. "So, let them. Like I said, Mortimer's just doing what he thinks is best, and I just happen to agree with him. Tristain needs our help if they're going to pull this off, and we need Tristain as a safe haven if we're ever going to find a way to get back home. Anything that improves Tristain's odds of survival improves the odds for all of us." Her eyes narrowed. "Oh, and by the way, if you ever question my commitment to Kurotaka, or anyone else ever again, I promise I'll challenge you to a duel, split that fake body of yours in half, and feed you and your shiny sword to whatever passes for a shark in this crazy place. We good?"

Sakuya mulled over what had just been said. Morgiana at least, was doing this for the right reasons. Even if she didn't agree with how Morgiana was going about it, the Spriggan genuinely believed that the volunteers were needed and despite her persona, could probably be trusted not to act recklessly. Mortimer, however, had remained silent.

"And what about you, Mortimer?" Sakuya asked suspiciously.

"I share some of Morgiana's opinions. We differ on others." The Salamander said neutrally. Sakuya declined to ask which opinions those were. She knew by now that she wouldn't get an answer.

"Swear to me Mortimer. Swear to me on your life that you aren't playing General. That you understand this isn't a game."

Cold, red eyes blinked. "I so swear." Mortimer answered, watching as Sakuya deflated slightly.

She didn't know if she believed him, but it didn't matter. If he was lying, that was all the justification she would need to hunt him down for it. "Then I have business to attend to. I can probably get up to a hundred Sylphs without raising any suspicion, I'll have Novair forward them to Eugene for screening."

"That would be appreciated." Mortimer said as she began to walk away. "For someone who proposed a grand alliance, and someone who chooses to negotiate, I never though you would be so difficult to work with."

"Oh yeah?" Sakuya snapped back as she stormed down the hall. "You should just Ask Alicia. Sometimes I can be a real _pain in the ass_!"


	61. Chapter 14 Part 5

Halkegenina Online - Chapter 14 - Part 5

Today was supposed to be a good day, supposed to be. The Spriggan thought as he walked briskly across the grounds of the Champ de Mars training fields. He'd checked his horoscope and everything. It had said he would have excellent luck. 'Excellent luck my foot', he thought. In any case the source of his current displeasure wasn't much further now. In fact, she'd just set down amongst a crowd of her fellow Spriggans.

"Hey, Morgiana!" The man shouted as he got within spitting distance.

"Oh, that's fine, just put them over there." Morgiana called to a group of earth mages using golems to deliver pallets of large, iron cylinders.

He felt his blood pressure rising, she wasn't listening. What was worse, he knew she was doing it intentionally. He reached out and snapped his fingers in front of his Guild Leader's eyes.

The off again on again Lady of the Spriggans turned, blinking once, she grinned. "Oh, hi Drake."

"Don't you 'hi' me! You know, I read my horoscope when I got up today, it said good day, very lucky. Then Shirishi drops a moonlight mirror in front of me while I'm shaving and tells me that Tristain's at war with Albion and that the Kurotaka's gotten itself volunteered to do some dirty work. So tell me, if this is a good day, what's a bad day supposed to look like?"

Morgiana planted her spear, leaning heavily against it as she looked thoughtful. "Well, you could have woken up dead. Of course, that could end up happening to a lot of people soon if Albion wins this thing. And that's what Big Sis intends to stop. So, you with me?"

Drake stopped in his tracks. He'd only known her for a little less than a year in ALfheim. They'd goofed around, had fun, she'd been a hell of a Guild Leader, more concerned with everyone having a good time than trying to lord it over them. She seemed . . . unjaded. He got the distinct vibe that ALfheim had been her first MMO.

Under their eccentric leader, Kurotaka had grown from a half dozen members to almost five hundred, encompassing both hardcore and casual players looking to belong to a group that would have their back in a jam but otherwise let them do as they pleased. Around a hundred and forty of those members had been logged in at the time of the transition.

The damned transition, Drake couldn't help but curse every time he thought about it. He'd been about to log off for the night when it had all happened. Just ten more seconds and he wouldn't even be here. When they'd all woken up in this crazy place, he remembered the way people had begun to panic when they realized and started to accept that it was all real. Muisca had almost turned into a powder keg, and then, and then . . .

And then Morgiana had really come into her own. He'd always thought the 'Big Sis' thing was an act, part of her role, but the Spriggan woman seemed to really buy into it. He'd met a few romantics who claimed that even in an RPG, strength was more than game stats. He'd never believed it, but now, he eyed his boss as she smiled confidently, he wasn't so sure. While everyone else had been cowering within the safety of Muiska's walls, afraid to even go out and fight the weakest mobs for fear of injury or death, Morgiana had dragged her guild out of their collective stupor and gotten to work.

The Kurotakas had gone out and exterminated the local mobs, sent out messengers to the Leprechauns and Undines, gotten in contact with Arrun. The Spriggan's had always been the race for mercenary players, free spirits who did as they pleased. They didn't have the big in game institutions that the Sylphs and Salamanders had built up, or even the Cait Syth's collection of skilled organizers. Morgiana had made due with what she had, grabbing anyone who seemed to be doing a good job of holding things together and setting them up as a provisional council with the Kurotakas acting as muscle. The crazy thing was, she hadn't forced anyone to do anything, she'd just . . . brought out the best in them.

If someone couldn't fight, she told them to find something else to do and not to sweat the small stuff. If they thought they could fight but were scarred, she gave them words of encouragement and put them on guard duty to build their confidence. If they sulked and bitched about the situation, she kicked their assess into gear.

Drake could say this much, she beat his asshole IRL boss hands down. And with that in mind, he let himself cool off before he continued. "Right, so this thing . . ."

"Operation Dunkirk, Mortimer is very particular about the name." Morgiana advised.

"Whatever." Drake grunted, he could name it after a sea mammal for all her cared. "Fine, this Operation Dunkirk, we're getting ourselves involved in a war here boss."

Morgiana laughed shortly as if happy that he'd finally figured it out. "Good to know you're taking it seriously. So, are you in or not?"

He started to make a retort, then paused as he thought about it some more, finally, he sighed in resignation, yanking off his cap to run hands through pale blonde hair. He remembered thinking it would be funny to be a blonde Spriggan.

"Yeah, I'm in." He could almost swear that Morgiana stood a little taller after hearing that.

"Good. Then gather round Kids!" Morgiana called at the top of her lungs, drawing the attention of the two dozen odd Spriggans gathered up in the middle of the drill grounds. A few passing Officers and Royal Army soldiers were watching, curious to see how Faeries did things.

Morgiana stood, arms crossed, sizing up her guild. These were the 'Elites', the heart and soul of Kurotaka. The people who could fight even if it was IRL. "So here's the deal, you've all heard the official reports right?"

"Albion is declaring war on Tristain, the Army is preparing to fight in the nation's defense." The answer came from a slender young woman with short cropped black hair, Marina, Kurotaka's leading archer and a master of stealth magic. She could and had hit a man between the eyes at a hundred and fifty meters with that longbow of hers.

Morgiana nodded approvingly. "Right, and what's the slightly less official report?"

"The army is consolidating to meet Albion's air fleet head on. Albion can't send all of its ships or it will risk leaving itself open to attack by Germania or Gallia. So if they only send half of their fleet, Tristain might be able to fight them over their home turf." This time the reply came from Shirishi, a glamorous young woman in the garb of a high tier mage build. She was a bit snooty for Kurotaka's normal atmosphere, and Drake had no idea why she'd ever rolled a Spriggan, but she was master of darkness type magic and the most powerful pure mage in Kurotaka. Her speed chanting was also top notch, letting her do the job of two or three less experienced mages for as long as her mana reserves held out.

"Okay, good." Morgiana said. "And what does the super secret kill yourself before reading report say?"

"That we're about to make Albion's job easier by going to butt heads with their fleet over their home turf." Drake said.

Thirty seven years old, a veteran MMO player, and an early adopter of full dive games, that was him. In ALfheim he'd been a swordsman and self styled soldier of fortune, good with a sword and competent with a crossbow, with a little bit of illusion and fire magic thrown in for balance. Now, he was Morgiana's unofficial second in command, doing whatever his boss needed of him in the day to day running of Kurotaka. That turned out to be a lot with the odd collection of responsible adults, high school kids, and college students that had come through in the transition.

"Excellent," Morgiana purred, "Just remember to keep that last one to yourselves if you walk off this base." She gave a small wink. "We're trying to keep the details a secret. Now then, on to our job."

Walking over to the objects delivered by the earth mages, she placed a hand lightly on a dull black iron surface. Each was around two meters in length, tapering to a blunt tip at one end and a boxlike tail at the other. "Our contractor for this job is the Kingdom of Tristain. We're being hired on to help conduct a surprise attack on the Port City of York, located in Northern Albion. This place is pretty big by local standards, around twenty thousand people, and well defended too." Morgiana gave them all a serious look, she wanted them to understand that this was dangerous. Well no shit, Drake thought.

"The main target of this attack are the warships in dock, but they won't be alone." Morgiana shook her head. "York is fortified with a full garrison, mages, and lots of Dragon Knights." The serious look faded a little, replaced by a grin. "But we aren't going in alone either." The grin on their Leader's face widened as she began to count off. "A full raid team of Salamanders lead by General Eugene, and a dozen Tristanian Griffin Knights hand picked and lead by some legendary badass Knight Captain they're bringing out of retirement."

There were mutters of approval among the gathered Spriggans. They'd all worked with the Salamanders before, first back in ALfheim, and more recently on mob patrols. One thing could be said for Eugene and his soldiers, they were almost as disciplined as the genuine article. Drake figured that was what you got when you strained out all the people who couldn't handle it and then put the rest in a learn or die situation.

Morgiana continued. "This is a simple smash and dash kids. We're not getting paid for any heroics and I don't want anyone taking any unnecessary risks. But I'm not going to lie, this is going to be real dangerous no matter how careful we are. So anyone who wants out, feel free to get lost now, I'll personally kick the ass of anyone who tries to tease you for it."

There were a lot of heads looking around, but not a single black garbed figure budged an inch. For some of them it was an obligation, despite reveling in their title as 'black sheep', 'crows', or 'You Greedy Bastards!', most of the members of Kurotaka were basically good people. When the chips were put down, a lot of them had found out that they had the strength to protect others. Some just didn't want to disappoint 'Big Sis'.

Drake didn't really fall into either of those camps, nominally he wanted to get paid and keep on living, if he was being remotely honest with himself, he also wanted to see his friends get paid and keep on living too. Which meant he was roped in with the rest of these lunatics, and the chief lunatic who was currently congratulating them all on their courage.

"Now then." Morgiana went on. "On to specifics, here's what we're going to do . . ."

When their Guild Leader finished explaining, Drake could understand why she'd agreed to this job. It was daring, ambitious, and probably a little ill conceived. But it was also about as low risk as they could make it. Their whole part of the mission hinged on doing massive damage very rapidly and then bolting in the confusion. Minimum time, minimum exposure. Once they'd done their part, it would be up to Tristain's air fleet to do the rest. He eyed the metal cylinders behind Morgiana once again. He just hoped the local alchemists knew what they were doing.

Leaning cross armed against a stack of the cylinders, she asked, "So, any questions?"

A young man hefting a spear near the back of the crowd raised his hand. He was one of two newbies to the guild, an official member of Kurotaka who had joined in after the transition. Drake felt a little bad but he couldn't actually remember the kids name at the moment, what he'd do to have his HUD back.

"Yes, Name-kun?" Morgiana pointed to the boy.

"You kept saying we're getting paid . . . are we getting paid?" He looked around questioningly.

"As a matter of fact." Morgiana whistled to a couple of the earth mages still hanging around near the back of the crowd. One stepped forward, hefting a small iron lock box. Setting it firmly before Morgiana, the Spriggan Lord opened the lid and gave an approving nod at the neatly stacked silver coins. "It might not seem like much, but seeing as gold and silver are a lot rarer here than they ever were in ALfheim, our pay for this mission will be equivalent to that received by mages serving in the Royal Army Cavalry. The deals the usual, half up front and half when we get back."

A chorus of appreciative whistles rose from the Spriggans, even Drake was impressed. "Unless there are any other questions, we need to head on out. The Leprechauns and Gnomes have got their smiths setting up shop and we need to get fitted out for the mission. You can't imagine how much I had to twist Rute's arm to get the gear dyed and paint in our colors." Knowing her, she'd probably enjoyed the arm twisting. "Gotta get up bright and early tomorrow to get in our practice with these." She patted one of the cylinders affectionately. "Don't worry, we'll be practicing with ones filled with sand."

"Now that you mention it." Drake raised his right hand. "We've got to get right over the docked ships without being noticed for this to work. Mind telling us how we're going to do that?"

Morgiana smiled mysteriously. "From the sound of it, that's being taken care of right about . . . now."

* * *

"Five hundred and and not a coin more you old pirate!" The man across the table cursed under his breath as he put ink to paper, signing his mark and sliding the receipt back to the man who was the target of his contempt.

"Aye, a pleasure doing business with you as always, Mister Tockler." Captain Duran Thorn tipped his hat to the head of the local trade guild. He watched Tockler go with a feeling of bemusement. The old merchant complained about being bled dry, but Thorn would bet his firstborn's sorry head that he was pleased with the deal. Tockler wouldn't have given in so lightly otherwise given his guild's position.

Captain Thorn returned his attention to the receipt as he finally felt free to take a sip of his beer now that negotiations were finished. In the end he'd turned a profit on this one, though the margins had been threadbare, much as he hated to admit it. It was a sobering thought, despite the alcohol. There was no money in revenge, and he couldn't feed his family or pay his crew on bitterness and hatred.

Which was a shame for that poor lad back in Albion. Prince Wales Tudor was rich in both. It was really a waste, the Prince was a deft hand with the sails, and about as decent as a Royal could be, not that Thorn had much use for that lot at the best of times. Even so, with his talents the boy could have left Albion, fled and made a new life for himself in Germania, lived richly and well to the end of his days. Why did other men insist on dying for needless wars and causes?

But honor and integrity were things that Royals and Churchmen valued more than gold, Churchmen like his own brother, killed by Cromwell's heretic hunters for having the decency to tell the Founder's Truth to a room full of Whale Dragons. "Here's to you brother, may your soul rest in peace, closer to the light of our blessed Founder then I'll ever be." He whispered, drinking down the contents of the flagon and calling for another. He'd never been an overly devout man, he doubted his brother would approve of his method of observance.

He nursed the contents of his next drink, sipping a little more lazily as he looked about the tavern. After leaving Emily among the strange company of the Faeries and departing from Tristain, the _Sabrina_ had returned to her original course, arriving in the city of Hohenheim located on the Germanian side of the border with Tristain. The trading city was as lively as ever, straddling one of the major roadways through the mountains of Northern Tristain and located close to an airship port atop the peak of a nearby mountain.

This was as close to a home as the _Sabrina_ had, it was where she'd been born, constructed by the best ship builders in Germania, and where most of her crew hailed from. They were in between contracts now, and likely would be for the next few days while he put something together. There was work to be done in the mean time. The fire wards had been redone back in Albion, but now the ballasting engine enchantments needed alignment, a simple job, but he didn't want the damned petty mages in the guild to think his purse was quite so fat when he went to talk about it.

Of course, Sophie would never let him hear the end of it, she'd accuse him that the _Sabrina_ was the other woman in his life and press again to let William take over as Captain. He just didn't know, the boy had a good head on his shoulders, it was the other one he was worried about. The elder Thorn had given his son an earful after watching him try to charm a few of the Faerie lasses who'd boarded them on their approach to the island city of Freelia. Of course, they really had been beauties, he'd give his son that, even with the tails and ears, lithe and graceful, and they had a way of dress that seemed designed to accentuate the fact lest you forget it.

But a merchant needed to be able to put those things aside, a trader couldn't get soft headed over women. This was something that the elder Thorn knew all too well. It still got the better of him too often. Maybe in a few more years, maybe if he settled down a little, William would grow out of it. He looked down into the already half empty flagon.

Maybe he should have asked Wales one last time. He could have escaped Albion, taken on a new identity, abandoned all of this foolishness that came with the game of Blood and Royalty. Duran would have been happy to help such an able young sailor. With Wales as first mate of the _Sabrina_, he could have rested easy leaving William in charge, and then in a few years, the former Prince would be well on his way to captaining his own ship. And then . . . well . . . Josephine was almost that age . . .

Bah! What was he thinking?! He always became like this after closing a deal. Always wanted to be alone with his muddled thoughts and indulge in sentimentality. Whatever he might have thought of Wales, chances were slim they would ever meet again now. He took another sip of his beer as he eavesdropped on the conversation at the nearby tables, mostly talk of Albion of course. The price of wind stones, the lifeblood of any ship, remained high, and was likely to stay that way for some time. Then there were the odd snatches of whispered conversation, rumors that the marriage of Princess Henrietta to King Albrecht III was being postponed due to some blunder in negotiations.

He was just about to order a third drink when a voice met his ears. "Should you really be drinking just before business, Captain Thorn?"

Nearly choking on his beer, the Captain turned about to see a face he'd thought he'd parted company with for good. His brows rose. "Countess Windsor, might I say this is a surprise." He coughed. "This is the last place I'd thought I'd be seeing you again. Business already done in Tristain?"

The brown haired young woman smiled in greetings. "Please, Emily is quite alright, I can hardly be called a Countess when my lands are held by others. And given that Faeries are afield, I'd hardly say strange encounters are unexpected these days."

"Aye, but the stranger the encounter, the less I think it be coincidence." The old Captain said as he gestured for the girl to take a seat. "Come along then, I can't imagine you don't intend to explain. You said something about business?"

Looking at Emily, he guessed that it must have been true what they said about Nobles always landing on their feet after catastrophe. The clothing that she wore was certainly a cut above what she had possessed while playing the part of a petty mage, and judging by the rather serious looking man who had taken to standing near the door, very martial in stature and appearance, he could only guess that someone was looking out for her. Someone with a great deal of influence.

"Always a merchant I see." Emily smiled warmly. She really was a lovely girl, shame she was a bit beyond the station of someone like his fool son. Blinking a few times, Captain Thorn decided that she was right, he really shouldn't be drinking right now. "I'll try to be quick, I'm not allowed to say very much until we know if you'll accept."

"Is that so." Captain Thorn asked. Even as he was, he had the good sense to grow alert at that. "I'm sorry Emily, but my policy is never to accept a contract I don't know anything about. You'd have to offer quite a coin for that to change now."

"What about this?" Emily asked, pulling something from her purse and handing it to him.

It took the Captain of the _Sabrina_ several moments to make sense of what he was reading by the flickering candle light. When he did, his eyes shot back up. "This is . . . "

Emily's smile stayed in place. "Someone thought that might be enough to secure your services. The same one who recommended you actually. And of course, you'll also be handsomely compensated."

Eyes falling back to the letter in his hands, he looked back to Emily and then to the man near the door who gave a small nod and lowered the brim of his hat. "Is this authentic?"

"Signed with the authority of the Crown of Tristain itself. With that, you are free to make safe harbor in Tristain as a privateer in the service of the Crown against Albion."

Captain Thorn was usually a cautious man, inclined to view a deal from every angle. It was this that had allowed him to pass information on to Prince Wales while continuing to turn a profit moving cargo for the new Lords of Albion. Little did they know that every shipment of Luxury goods he brought in for their Leaders and Officers cost them three shipments of sulfur, weapons, and other supplies intercepted by the Eagle. This deal, seemed too good to be true. It was suspicious.

"Well, Miss Emily, a thing like this would make me a very happy man." He waved to the letter of marque on the table. "But if I'm understanding you, this is to be part of my payment. Just what does the illustrious Crown of Tristain have in mind for me and the _Sabrina_."

Emily looked over her shoulder to the man at the door who simply nodded again. Captain Thorn notice then that the cane in his hand was pointed in their direction. A blasted mage! He cursed to himself, he'd been listening this whole time. His thoughts on the matter became irrelevant a moment later as Emily continued, face growing very serious for such a young woman.

"Captain Thorn, if I might ask, are you still welcome in the ports of Albion?"

* * *

Klein knew that the Salamanders had a reputation for taking the whole military bent a bit too seriously, but this was getting ridiculous. The quarter of the Training Facility that had been reserved for use by the Faeries had been transformed into a good imitation of a Roman style military encampment.

There wasn't any spare space in the camp barracks to bunk nearly four hundred Faeries, so tents had been neatly laid out and separated by purpose and unit. Guards were stationed near the equipment tents and patrolled the perimeter while the gathering Faeries of every faction were required to report in and take their places in a loose parade formation that was being assembled at the center of the training field.

It all seemed a little bit overboard to Klein, but he guessed it was probably comforting for some people. It helped to keep things organized and gave people a sense of order and control. They'd need that so as not to panic when the fighting started. Mortimer's knack for organization was part of what had sold Klein on helping him. If they'd had someone like him in Aincrad, he was willing to bet they'd have saved a few hundred more lives.

On that note, Klein spotted the familiar, broad shouldered frame of the tank oriented player Schmidt, the former commander of the Divine Dragon Alliance's defense squad, walking among the Lancers. Klein remembered seeing the man before his first boss battle, he had been panicking to scrounge together the money to upgrade his gear just a little bit more. But he'd had the guts to stick it out on the Front Line, and then the courage to jump into ALfheim when Argo had asked. Apparently he and two of his old Guildmates had wanted to pay Kirito and Asuna back for some help they'd given them.

Like Klein, the tank had been scouted by Lord Mortimer after the transition to serve as an adviser and vice squad commander, taking up a position in the main forces where his experience as a heavy combatant could be put to the most use. The two locked eyes for a moment, exchanging nods. It was good to see another front liner in the crowd and especially one who had come as far as Schmidt.

After arriving at the Champs de Mars training facility at the edge of the Capital, Klein had been surprised to find himself meeting up with his old squad once more. It seemed that they'd volunteered as a group, even Enya who was going along to provide support buffs to the front line troops.

"It would be a disgrace to the mob clearing forces if we didn't volunteer." Kindjal explained sternly as they had caught up. "Lord Mortimer stated that he needed qualified skirmishers to support the Lancer squads." The stout Salamander squad leader nodded to a group of the heavily armed and armored Melee troops and assault mages. The Lancers were powerful in combat, but they were also vulnerable if not properly support by mages and more nimble fighters. The tactics that Lord Mortimer had developed had limits in a three dimensional environment.

"Yeah, I'm with Kindjal-kun on this one! But are you sure you want to go ahead with this Enya-chan? Fighting in a real battle can be pretty scary." One of their squad's swordsmen, a slenderly built Salamander named Calcifer half teased the only girl in the group.

Enya rolled her eyes in contempt. "Please, like you know what real combat is like. Besides, if I don't go along, you idiots will all get yourselves killed charging in without any defense buffs."

Klein frowned, it didn't take a genius to see that Enya was young and also a little short tempered. It hadn't been a problem on mob clearing, but it needed to be nipped in the bud now. "Oy, Enya-chan, don't be like that. Calcifer-kun here may not have any real experience, but he's right that a real fight for your life can be pretty scary. You shouldn't go unless you're a hundred percent sure you can keep your head out there."

The girl gave him a disgusted look. "We've been doing 'real combat' for almost a month. I think I can handle myself, Sub Commander."

"But have you fought humans before?" Klein asked sharply, he knew she hadn't, not unless things had gone very wrong in the last week. They'd had a run in with a few bandits once, but the men had surrendered rather than try to fight them. Enya suddenly froze and went pale. "Remember that time with the Troll type mobs? You couldn't eat bacon for a week afterwords." The girl lifted a hand to her mouth, eyes going wide as she remembered.

"Hey, Klein! Don't go reminding her of something like that," Kindjal reprimanded, "You're going to make her throw up!"

"Better she do it now then in the middle of a fight?" Klein retorted as he watched Enya recover her nerve slowly. Yeah, she was definitely tougher than she looked, but was she tough enough?

Honestly, he didn't like the idea of someone like her fighting at all. Kirito and Asuna had done it out of necessity, they were the best in Aincrad, but it had broken them, changed them, made them weaker in some ways and stronger in others, to the point that they could barely function without one another. A kid shouldn't have go through that, especially when there were so many other people who could do the fighting.

"It okay." Enya said quietly to Kindjal. "I won't let it get to me, I promise. Beside, I'll be providing support so I won't be fighting directly."

Klein shook his head. "That's no guarantee, Enya-chan, you really shouldn't do this unless you're absolutely sure you can fight a human." He sighed and placed a hand on her head. "Don't feel any pressure to go just because the rest of us volunteered."

Eyes widening slightly, a delicate blush started to spread across the girl's pale cheeks. Eh, well, she was probably just embarrassed to be showed up, she'd get over it soon enough. Better she have a little time to think about things. "Hey, Klein, I . . ."

"Attention!" A voice barked near the head of the formation.

The Lancers, the most dedicated Salamander fighters who had bought into the hard core fighting style and tactical maneuvers developed by Lord Mortimer, fell in almost instantly, leaving everyone else to follow their example. Compared to the neat lines formed by the heavy troops with their nearly identical weapons and armor, everyone else looked pretty sloppy.

At the head of the formation, General Eugene and Lord Mortimer were climbing the steps of a small platform. Looking at the two brothers side by side, they couldn't have been more different in terms of appearance. Eugene looked like a tank, both kinds, while Mortimer was actually a bit on the short and slim side, younger looking, and almost ghostly pale. It was hard to believe they were really brothers, much less that Mortimer was the elder.

Both men surveyed the gathered Faeries, just over three hundred former players in all. Klein had overheard someone say three hundred and forty. Three hundred and forty really brave people willing to volunteer their lives to protect others. Not for the first time, Klein thought that Aincrad had really brought out the worst in people along with the best.

A lot of the Clearers had been the types to ignore the lower leveled players and disregard their thanks, they had fought for themselves and not really to save anyone else. But here, the danger wasn't so immediate, they might have been trapped in this world, but they didn't need to worry about their bodies rotting away atop a hospital bed, and the thought of Albion coming to invade them was still a pretty abstract idea for people who had grown up in modern Japan, Klein still couldn't quite get his head around it himself.

"Good afternoon to you all." Lord Mortimer spoke first, voice loud and clear.

"There is much to be done, so I will keep this brief." The Salamander Lord paused as if gathering his thoughts. "Today, we, along with our allies will embark on one of the most daring military operations in Tristain's history. We do so in order to set the stage for a war that is coming to Halkegenia, to make that stage as favorable for us and our allies as we can." Mortimer gazed across the crowd. "I will not lie to you, we are badly outmatched by Albions forces. For every warship Tristain has, Albion has at least two. For every soldier, Albion has at least four. For every mage, Albion has at least three. They are well motivated and well equipped. This operation may be our best chance to secure victory in the future."

Mortimer took a breath, allowing his statement to sink in before following up. "A month ago, every person here was an ordinary resident of Japan, were salary men, clerks, students. ALfheim was a game, our shared fantasy. That changed one month ago when we opened our eyes for the first time in this world. Now we are Faeries, Salamanders, Sylphs, Cait Syth, Puca, Gnomes, Leprechauns, Spriggans, Undines, and Imps. Now I ask every one of you to become one more thing. I ask you to be our soldiers in this battle. I ask you to fight, because if we do not, who will?"

"You have all fought in the mob patrols, some of you have done more. Some of the people here have fought and killed bandits attempting to take advantage of the situation caused by the transition." A group of Spriggans off to one side stood a little straighter. "For others, this is not the first time trapped in a Fantasy made real." Klein swallowed as he felt like Mortimer was looking right at him. If his perception ability had been good enough he just might be. "There are SAO survivors among us, men who fought on the Front Lines and survived a madman's death game. They have beaten longer odds than anything we will face."

"Remember that they are also ordinary people." Mortimer said. "Remember that as frightening as this will be, as terrifying as this will be, we have a plan, we have a goal, and we have a reason to fight." Closing his eyes at last. Mortimer said only one more thing. "Now, commence preparations."

Turning sharply, Mortimer departed from the platform as General Eugene stepped forward and began barking off orders. The squads were divided up into two forces based on operational area, either part of the strike force that would be hitting York, or the forces being sent to relieve Newcastle. Klein's squad was assigned to the latter where they were further designated to provide screening for the Lancers and support the Castles defenders during the retreat. If everything went right, they would be among the first ones in and the last ones out.

The sun was already setting by the time that Klein and the others were released and sent to wait in line to have their armor fitted. Everyone was getting top tier equipment for this battle and would be allowed to keep it as part of their standard equipment if they chose to stay on with the defense forces. Klein had already gotten his hands on a replacement sword, for the time being, he found himself issued with a high grade Katana to replace the one he had lost at Tarbes.

He winced as he recalled the run in with Lhamthanc and the aftermath. The mages and Fae that had been sent to dismantle the gigantic mob's carcass had found his sword, what was left of it anyways. After over three days in the stomach of the rotting beast, it wasn't even remotely salvageable. It was a testament to the workmanship that it was still vaguely sword shaped given that the serpent's digestive juices had melted several of the Golems being used for the dangerous task.

Tapping his foot impatiently as he waited for the smiths to finish up with Kindjal he heard a voice that was not entirely unfamiliar.

"Look, I said I have a special delivery, okay."

"I'm sorry but nobody is allowed beyond this point without being authorized." A Salamander replied.

"You've gotta be kidding me. I came all the way from Goibniu just to deal with you idiots? Look, I'm looking for someone named Kirito, if there's anywhere he'll be, it's here."

"Is he on the list?" The Salamander asked.

"Checking . . . No, sorry, he's not on the force force list." The man's sylph partner replied.

"What? There's no way he'd miss this! Look, just . . . check again."

Klein craned his neck around and finally spotted the source of the commotion. "Oy, Lisbeth!" He shouted to the pinket Leprechaun trying to push her way past a pair of Guards.

"Klein?" Liz blinked an then shook her head. "Klein! Where the hell is Kirito?!"

The Salamander felt himself going very quickly pale as something occurred to him. There was a thing, a thing he'd meant to do on Kirito's behalf. Kirito hadn't had time to do it, he'd told Argo he'd do it because she was too busy with her work, and Leafa wouldn't have known to do it. Well, her stats were lower now, and she didn't have a hammer anywhere in sight.

'Come on Klein, time to take it like a Samurai!'

'Again, the Samurai class were often quite mercenary and . . .'

'Oy! Shut up brain!'

...

"HE DID WHAT?!" Fortunately, Lisbeth was too busy channeling all of her anger at the currently not present Kirito to have any left over for Klein. "That . . . that . . . idiot!" She palmed her face in dismay and mumbled something that sounded vaguely like, "What exactly do I see in him?"

"Eh? What was that?" Klein asked.

"N-nothing! It was nothing!" Liz said swiftly. "So . . . He's in Albion," She shook her head and then whispered, "It figures."

Klein laughed a little as he waved away the Guards who were still standing off at a distance. The Sylph still had a hand on his sword as if unsure if the Leprechaun girl was going to make a fight of it. "Well, he definitely is a handful sometimes. But you know what happened, the second he heard about Asuna . . . And then there was no time." Klein waved vaguely. "It's my fault for not telling you sooner. Thanks for not being pissed."

"Oh, I'm plenty pissed alright." Liz shot him a death glare. "My pain in the ass boss sent me all the way here to deliver this to Kirito. And instead I find out he's not only not here, he's already in Albion. Damn it, my pride as a smith won't let this stand!"

Klein backed away a little, not good, he had no idea how to deal with a woman scorned. Really, he had no idea how to deal with a woman who wasn't scorned, or a woman experiencing any other form of status effect. It sort of put a crimp in his whole plan to find a girlfriend some day. "Well, my squad is being sent to Newcastle, that's where Kirito will be once the fighting starts so . . ."

Liz's head snapped around and she fixed him with a dangerous stare. "So?" Her eyes narrowed. "You want me to hand this over to you for delivery? You know, my boss will never let me here the end of it if these are lost." Liz somehow managed to loom over him as she hissed in a way that made Lhamthanc seem cute and cuddly. "She's insufferable, Klein."

Sometimes you just had to go on the offensive. Klein thought, taking a breath he stood straight, slamming a fist against his chest as if to dedicate his heart to the cause. "I, Klein, Sub Commander of the 19th Independent Skirmisher Squadron of the Salamander Forces due humbly accept the mission of delivering this parcel to the Black Swordsman Kirito!" He held the salute, breaking out in a cold sweat as he waited to see how Liz would reply.

For a moment, the smith simply starred, then her lips began to thin and she started to tremble. "Phht! Klein? Are you for real or something?"

"Most of the time." He sighed as he waited Liz to stop laughing.

Wiping a tear from her eye, Liz sized him up like a gambler deciding which dog to put money on at the races. "Just a heads up, if anything happens to this delivery before it gets to Kirito, Kofu is going to take it out of my ass, which means I'll be taking it out of your ass!" It was said as a joke, except Klein was pretty sure it wasn't.

"So." He asked timidly. "Just what's in there?" He pointed to the wrapped parcel that Liz had set down.

She gave him a smug little grin. "Wanna see?" With practiced ease, Liz undid the canvas, revealing the contents in the dim lamp light.

Klein whistled softly as his eyes adjusted. "You know what, I think Kirito's going to like these."

"Damn straight." Liz said.

There were two of them, simple, straight edged blades, Kirito's favored weapon. Removed from their sheaths, they were perfectly matched, perfectly identical save for their color. The first was a glossy black, the light eaten up and reflected only weakly by its surface. The other was a pearl white that seemed to almost amplify the light it reflected.

"Kofu say's she out did herself with these, and I don't think she's kidding." Liz said, eyes glinting with the light reflected from both blades. "Back in SAO, forging a sword was just a matter of stats no matter how you look at it. Maybe Cardinal fudged the numbers if it thought you were really dedicated. But now its a lot harder. I really feel like Kofu put a piece of herself into these swords, and I did too." She pointed to the dark blade. "Onyx Arbiter." And then to the pearl blade. "Ivory Maven. These are Kofu's masterpieces. Dual Deciders."

* * *

How quickly things changed. Louise thought as she sat at her bedroom window. The early evening sky was stained a pale violet and the sweet sent of the flower gardens drifted in on the cool night breeze.

Two month's ago she would have laughed in the face of anyone who had try to tell her that Faeries were real. Now, not only did they inhabit Tristain alongside commoners and Nobles, she had grown acquainted with several. Louise looked over her shoulder and saw Leafa carefully braiding her nieces hair in front of a vanity mirror. Yui fidgeted impatiently as she waited for her aunt to finish. Both dressed for bed, despite their exotic features and Leafa's distinctly elvish ears, Louise could only characterize the atmosphere between them as warm.

A month ago she would have said that the Zerbst was an insufferable harlot who loved nothing more than to torment her and thought of noting more than who would filled her bed each night. Now, Kirche was giving pointers to Leafa about how to get Yui's braid right, acting every bit as if she were an elder sibling.

A week ago she would have naturally assumed that the mobs, the monsters brought to Tristain from ALfheim, were nothing more than mindless beasts. But now she knew that some of them were gifted with reason, loyalty, and compassion, and that it was essential that they obtain protection as Subjects of the Crown. Standing atop the windowsill, the miniscule Pixie Knight named Botan was carefully grooming her companion, a black feathered dragon many times her size but that was himself no larger than a house cat.

Just two days ago, if asked, Louise would have said that Jean Jacques Francis de Wardes was a fine and loyal Knight in service to the Kingdom of Tristain and perhaps even have shyly mentioned that he was her betrothed. Now . . . now she was ashamed to even speak his name, much less make any mention of her families past association with him.

When her mother had told her just two days ago, it seemed like a lifetime ago now, at first Louise hadn't understood. She was certain that her mother would tell her that she had misheard or was simply confused. But her mother had not told her those things, in fact, the Duchess had looked more unsure than Louise could ever remember. And that frightened her more than any Quetzalcoatl ever could.

Louise had always taken comfort in the quiet certainty that her mother and father would always know what to do and that she need only obey and live up to their expectations. From as far back as she could remember, Louise had been promised as the Viscount's, the former Viscount's, bride. The arrangement had been made by their parents, and made anew after the death of Wardes' father at the insistence of her Mother.

Though she'd never mention it to anyone, Louise thought that her mother had been quite impressed with the young nobleman and had likely used her connections to recommend him for the Griffin Knights. Somehow, he hadn't just fooled the Knights and the Crown, he had fooled her mother. The idea that the Vallieres might ever associate with a criminal, a traitor to the crown, was inconceivable! And yet, and yet, they had done just that . . . And now, that criminal had sold Tristain to Albion. Bitterly, Louise hoped it had fetched him a good price.

"Louise-sama."

Louise was stirred from her thoughts by the small voice at the windowsill. It was Botan, the pixie girl was still grooming her dragon, quietly, methodically, like she was trying to forget all of her troubles in the simple task. So small, she was like a doll that had been brought to life by earth magic, moving about for the entertainment of children. But she wasn't a doll, she was a person, and she sounded almost upset.

"Oh, yes?" Louise stumbled. That had been rude of her, especially given how cooperative the Pixies had been.

"This place . . . it's huge." Botan said without looking up at her. "This nest, this city, is bigger than any thing I could ever have imagined."

Louise tried to think of something to say. "Well, yeah, everything must look big to you, you're tiny."

The Knight looked up, a thin lipped expression on her face. "What I mean is, that everything you beings, you humans and Faeries do is always big. Yourselves, your homes, your nests . . . Your wars are like that too, aren't they."

Louise was left speechless, what could she say? Yes, there was going to be a war, there was no stopping that now. And if it reached Tristain, the resulting loss of life and property would be astronomical. To a Pixie like Botan, who had only her own small struggles to compare it too, it probably sounded like a battle between gods. Something that would fill up the whole world.

"That's what Princess Henrietta said." Louise agreed.

By now, the noise behind her had quieted down, Yui, Leafa, and Kirche had all heard her speak and were now listening to the conversation. Louise had thought she would be parting with the Faeries after reaching the Capital and delivering her report, instead, Princess Henrietta had invited Leafa and Yui to stay at the Palace as her guests.

Yui's father, Leafa's brother, had been secretly assigned to the Captain's mission to Albion in order to rendezvous with a group of Faeries who had been transported to Albion in the confusion. He had done a great service to the Crown by informing them swiftly of the Captain's betrayal. Henrietta insisted that they stay as her guests until his safe return from Albion.

"Something so big, it'll reach the Garden. And not just mine, it'll touch all of the other Gardens too." Botan shivered softly. "These humans . . . these Albionian's don't like anyone who isn't human. They'll be like Fernand, they'll see me and my sisters as . . . as things." Looking up at Louise, soft brown eyes boring into her own, Botan asked. "If Tristain loses, what will happen to us?"

Louise shook her head slowly. "I don't know." She admitted. And she really didn't want to know.

After spending time with them, Louise had found that she admired the Pixies. Even though they were small, they were also determined, loyal, and incredibly courageous. It didn't matter to them that they were small, or that they were weak, if a task was impossible or dangerous, they would simply chip away at it until it was done. But all the courage in the world wouldn't help them against an army.

The Albion Rebels were going to use the Faeries as pretense for an invasion of Tristain, even though the Church had already ruled that dealings with the Fae were not heretical. That hardly mattered to a movement that had slain their Kingdom's Royalty and placed a usurper upon the throne. The Pixies would probably be lumped in with the rest of the Fae, and Mages would come again to burn their Gardens, this time in numbers that they could never hope to fight.

"That's not going to happen, Botan-chan!" Yui said, as she came lean over the windowsill. Already dressed for bed in a borrowed nightgown, bare feet just poking out from beneath the hem, Yui projected a childish insistence that it would be just as she said. "Tristain won't lose."

"Well, I definitely like Yui-chan's confidence." Kirche said, smirking as she sat cross legged at the edge of Louise's bed, chin held in the palm of her hand.

Louise couldn't help but twitch at the very deliberate addition of the Fae affectation the Germanian had started to use. When asked, Kirche claimed that she thought it was _cute_. But, annoying as Louise found it, for once, Kirche had a point.

"Of course! We have every reason to be confident. Tristain has spared only its best mages for this mission . . ." Louise trailed off, Mages like the Griffin Knights and her mother.

Mother.

Just hours ago Louise had stood with the others at the docks outside the Capital, watching as the ships prepared to depart. Over a dozen battleships had hung in the skies over head with numerous smaller vessels already beginning to ascend to meet with the rest of the fleet. Tristain was committing slightly more than half of its navy to the so called Operation Dunkirk.

Her mother had stood before her, tall, stern, clad in her meticulously maintained chevaliers uniform and armor. And now, for the first time in almost two decades, the Heavy Wind was going to war. For the first time in her life, Louise hadn't been afraid to see her mother in that armor. Instead, she'd been strangely sad, and she didn't quite know why. She'd tried to hide her feelings, to not let her mother see any weakness. But the Duchess had seen through her, and then, placed her hands on Louise's slender shoulders, pressed down firmly but with perfect restraint.

"Daughter . . . These are difficult times. No matter what happens after today, remember to show your strength as a Valliere." Her mother had fallen silent, but had continued to study her for several moments longer as if trying to remember every detail of her face.

They'd hardly talked since Louise had returned from Tarbes. Louise had wanted to say something, to wish her mother luck.

But then, the faint moment of connection had ended as a Griffin Knight, one of the men her mother would lead into battle, whistled from the deck of a grounded ship nearby. The vessel was much too graceful to be a warship, Louise thought it had to be a Germanian Clipper. The Duchess had looked up, and then back to Louise. With a small nod, her mother turned on her heel, and stalked off towards the waiting ship.

Standing nearby with a canvas wrapped parcel slung over his shoulder, Klein had been saying his farewells to Yui and Leafa while an ever present Kirche hovered off to the side.

"Klein-san." Yui had tugged at the man's hand to get his attention. "Aunt Sugu and I will be relying on you to take care of Mama and Papa. Please bring them home safely."

Squatting down so that his eyes were Level with Yui's own, the Salamander grinned. "Oy, your Mama and Papa don't need me to get home safe. Don't you know those two are unbeatable together?" Grinning he stood back up. "I bet it'll be them who has to rescue me if worse comes to worse."

"Just stay safe, Klein-kun." Leafa said. "You, Onii-chan, and Asuna, all of you need to come back alive. Okay?"

And then, for the briefest of instants, the mangy lizard had stopped playing the fool. His eyes had grown hard, his expression serious, his stance just a little straighter. It was like he was a completely different person. Louise realized, maybe for the first time, that she had never seen Klein when he was being completely serious before, even against Lhamthanc.

"When it comes to having Kirito's back, you can count on me. I might not be much good for anything else. But we'll all definitely come back alive." Then the normal buffoonish grin had returned and he'd added loudly. "Besides, as if anything the Rebels have got could kill the three of us!"

Leafa's cheeks had reddened faintly before she shook herself and smiled back confidently. "Yeah? You're probably right."

"Only probably?" Klein asked. "Hey, I rate myself a little higher than that!"

"I don't want to jinx it." Leafa said. "Good luck, Klein." With a small gesture of acknowledgment, the Salamander had turned and vanished into the crowds on the dock.

They had returned a short while later to the Palace, eating an early dinner before retreating to Louise's borrowed room on the third floor of the Western Wing.

Returning to the present, Louise looked at everyone else. They were all anxious, even Kirche, and especially Leafa. They needed to get their minds off of this . . . this Operation Dunkirk. What did a Coastal Hamlet in Gallia had to do with anything? Bah! That wasn't important right now. What did she always do when she got frustrated with failing at magic? She channeled it into something productive.

Standing up suddenly, "We should all try to turn in early tonight so we can start early tomorrow," Louise declared loudly.

"Valliere?" Kirche asked, mystified by the sudden burst of energy.

"Louise-chan is right." Yui said. "Our mission isn't finished yet. Tomorrow we should meet back up with Silica-chan and the others and start investigating the markets here in Tristania for any information about the missing Pixies." At the mention of her missing sisters, Botan came alive, flitting up onto Yui's shoulder.

"We need to start before the trail goes cold." Leafa agreed. "All right, we'll do that."

Louise felt relieved. There was something they could do, no matter how small and unimportant it might seem. All they needed to do was focus on their own mission. She turned back to the window and the now black sky, one way or the other, they would know Tristain's fate soon enough.


	62. Chapter 15 Part 1 Dunkirk

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 15 - Part 1

Standing atop the deck of the merchant ship _Sabrina_, Drake peered over the hand rails and saw nothing but black beneath him. Even with his night vision, it was like the rest of the world just didn't exist.

They'd left Tristain behind as the sun had set, catching the trade winds to make the short journey to Albion, keeping ahead of the main fleet the whole way. The ship's Captain had said that they were lucky that these winds were so reliable. They would have no trouble arriving on time.

Leaning back from the railing, Drake looked around the deck. There were crew on watch, and also some of his fellow Faeries, but most were below decks. It was quiet, really quiet. He'd been wandering what it would be like before a real military operation, but he never thought it would be like this. A few Kurotaka were standing around, sharing smokes with some of the sailors. They were careful to stand well clear of the tarp covered objects that had been lashed down mid ship.

It wouldn't be much longer now. He thought. The operation was set to begin just before sun rise. That was when there job would start. By mid morning, he'd either be running for his life, or already dead. Shit, no time to think like that!

"Having second thoughts Darling?"

Drake nearly jumped at the sound of the voice and then bristled as he recognized the owner. "Shirishi." He grunted irritably.

Kurotaka's 'Dark Magic Enchantress' smiled in bemusement as she took a place beside him. He didn't like it. As Morgiana's second in command, he prided himself on having a good bead on everyone. But of all the Kurotaka, Shirishi was still a closed book to him. Snooty, glamorous, and a bit on the condescending side. He was willing to bet she'd been some spoiled rich girl. Now she was one of the most powerful mages in Kurotaka, and as much a soldier of fortune as the rest of them.

Tonight, she'd exchanged her elaborate black gown for a set of lightweight, master crafted body armor, and a cloak that aided in her mana regeneration. The staff held in her left hand, she was a southpaw Drake noted, was called Gambanteinn, a unique item drop that had been scored by Morgiana a month before the transition and given to Shirishi as a gift.

"It's a bit late to be doubting." Drake answered. They were all committed now, for better, or probably for worse. "Who am I kidding, I'm already all in, and I'm still scared senseless." The funny thing was that he hadn't thought of running away even once.

"Good." Shirishi said in a tone so final it left Drake without answer. The Spriggan Mage simply shrugged her shoulders. "If you weren't scarred, it'd mean our second in command was an idiot, then I would be really worried."

Drake snorted. "Maybe you should give that treatment to Morgiana." Their leader was either fearless, or oblivious to danger, at least when it came to herself.

A whistle came from the bow of the ship, short, and sharp, and repeated three times. The signal that land had been spotted. It wouldn't be long now before they were hailed by one of the patrols guarding York, but the Captain of the _Sabrina_ knew how to answer their challenges and keep them from growing suspicious. Hopefully they wouldn't be singled out for inspection, but if it came to that, there were a few illusion spells that would help.

"Well, I'm going to go wake everyone else." Shirishi said casually, boots sounding across the wooden deck.

"Hey, Shirishi?" Drake turned around, and waited for the woman to look back at him. "Are you scared?"

"Scared?" Shirishi asked, dark eyes reflecting the light from the twin moons. In the pale light, her ashen skin seemed to glow, and the gloss of her hair was like a halo of stars around her face. "Why, that's what we have you for Darling. I'm not scared at all."

The frightening thing was, Drake wasn't sure if it was the truth or not. Yeah, he didn't have a bead on her at all.

* * *

How many years had it been since she'd last done this? Karin Desiree de la Valliere wondered as she squeezed through the narrow space left at the center of the _Sabrina_'s hold.

Not since she'd found herself Pregnant with Eleanor. She hadn't really missed it, but nor did it bother her now. It was simply what was needed of her. If Tristain was to have a future, if her daughters were to have a future given their connection to Tristain's Royal line, then this mission had to succeed. There was simply nobody else that she could trust this with.

"Easy there, easy girl." Sir Bjorn grunted as he stroked his mount's beak. The Griffin cocked it's head as he offered it a piece of raw meat, before consuming it greedily. Griffins were temperamental beasts at the best of times. Being kept confined, tied down, and surrounded by strangers had not improved their moods.

The Griffin Knights. Once, their loyalty would have been without question, but now it was stained, their honor tarnished. The men here were eager to prove themselves anew, and possibly even hoped to avenge themselves against their traitorous Captain. They would be disappointed, if the Viscount was met on the field of battle, Karin intended to take his head first.

A whistle came from above, the report that land had been spotted. They would be over the Port very soon now. Karin took the opportunity to check her own gear and mount one last time.

Her armor was of a dated design, heavier than what was favored by the Knight's today, but well crafted and expertly maintained. It's scratches and pitting were the from battle and not neglect.

The Faerie's had offered her armor of their own making for use during the raid, a jacket of mithril mail so finely crafted that its links were almost like cloth, but she had politely declined.

She did not doubt Lord Mortimer's claims of the armor's superiority to her own magically reinforced plate and leather gear. But without time to train and grow accustomed to its weight and how it would hinder her movements, she had decided against it.

Her sword wand hung at her side, the blade, like her armor, like her own body, bore the scars of its years of service to the crown, but also like her armor and herself, was still ready for battle. She had not wielded it in anger for many years, not since Louise had been an infant, but she had trained with it almost every day. Not far from the Valliere Manor, there were several large clearings completely denuded of trees. She would alternate while she waited for the grass to grow back so that she didn't kick up too much dust.

Finally, at the back of the hold, she came face to face with her own mount.

It was said by many that Manticores were among the fiercest beasts to ever inhabit the lands. Possessing the head and body of a lion, featherless, leathery wings, and a tail akin to that of a scorpion. There was no doubt that they were powerful creatures, what was more, like the Legendary Rhyme Dragons, they only grew stronger and more intelligent with age. The eldest were even able to communicate in human tongues and cast magic of their own.

Her own d'Artagnan was not so old as that, but between her familiar bond and their years together, he was much more than a mere mount. He was her close ally, and a trusted friend.

The Manticore looked up curiously as she neared. Though tied down like the other mounts, d'Artagnan made no effort to test his restraints. Like his master, he was controlled and unafraid. A small huff escaped his lips as he watched Karin. He was smart enough to know what being on a ship with his saddle meant. Through the familiar bond, she could sense that he was not eager, but like herself, was accepting. In so much as his thoughts could be given human meaning, he was almost amused that it had come to this once again. Always it came around to battle.

She stroked her familiar's mane as she checked and rechecked all of the straps on her saddle and the harness that ran around d'Artagnan's chest. Mantincore 's and Griffin's were both smaller than Dragons, though arguably much more vicious, care was needed to make sure that their saddle was both secure and did not interfere with breathing for the physically strenuous activity of flight.

Finishing with that, she checked that her spare foci, a pair of cane wands sheathed on the right side of her saddle were both secure. Finally, she examined the contents of the pouches at the front of the saddle.

Though she had declined the Fae offer of armor, she had reluctantly accepted several of the Faerie potions. Though the effects on humans were dangerously potent, even damaging, if she needed them, it was better to have them. She had been given two small green bottles Small Heal, a violet vial Haste, and a very small blue bottle Mana DX. She had been told the effects of each and warned to use no more than two of the four and preferably not to use any of them at all.

Another series of short, rapid fire whistles came from above. The_ Sabrina_ had been challenged and its reply accepted. They were through. Dropping down from the saddle, she began to undo the restraints. d'Artagnan looking up curiously. He was impatient to be done with this place. As was she.

The powerful beast followed Karin like a kitten after it's master, she hardly needed to lead with the reigns. The other Knights waited for her to pass, bowing heads deferentially. Most had been in awe to learn that they would be aided in battle by the Heavy Wind. All had been shocked to learn that the legendary Knight Captain was a woman.

Karin had oft warn an iron mask to conceal her true identity while serving as the Commander of the Manticore Knights. But after achieving that rank, she had not believed it right to lead men into battle without allowing them to know who it was who might order them to their deaths.

It was no different now. These men who had thought they were dishonored had the privilege to know that the Heavy Wind and the Duchess de la Valliere were one and the same.

The other Knights fell in behind her, one after another. Climbing out of the claustrophobic heat and darkness of the hold, d'Artagnan sinking claws into the stairs for purchase, Karin tugged her collar closed as she stepped out into the chill night air.

"Captain." Karin nodded to the Captain and master of the _Sabrina_.

"Aye, we're just about to pass over the Port." Despite the cold, Captain Thorn seemed to be sweating, well, they were certainly about to stir up a hornets nest. Though with even the slightest bit of luck, the forces at York would be much too occupied to chase down a single fleeing clipper. "You've got about ten minutes. Then . . . I hope those black haired lads can see as well in the dark as they say." The Captain glanced to the Spriggans standing all around.

"For all our sakes, they better be." Karin growled beneath her breath as she searched the deck for a very particular Faerie. She found her soon enough, and felt her displeasure rising.

Morgiana of the Spriggans was, in Karin's qualified opinion, a woman wholly unsuited to lead. Her attitude was carefree, her discipline lax where she did not openly discourage it. Her subordinates were more a rabble, instructed to do as they pleased on the battlefield. Karin could think of only one reason that General Eugene was so tolerant of her. A suspicion that was born out every time she saw the way that the huge man's eyes fall on the Lady of the Spriggans.

No matter, she thought, the Spriggan's had but one task in this battle. They need only perform as requested. The rest would be in the hands of the more disciplined Salamanders and elite Griffin Knights that were now filling the deck.

"General Eugene." Karin greeted as she neared the Salamander General and Spriggan Lord. Tonight, both were clad in full body armor. General Eugene clad in red, Lady Morgiana in black, a helmet in a shape reminiscent of a hawk's head slung in the crook of her arm.

"Duchess de la Valliere." The Salamander greeted.

"Karin will do." She waved a hand. Her eyes tracked to the Spriggan Lord who looked as relaxed as ever leaning casually against a capstan. "Lady Morgiana."

"Karin-chan!" Morgiana replied in a chipper voice. "I see your guys are ready to go. Let's get this done fast, go home, and get paid." A damned mercenary, such a person would never change, and now considered a Noble Woman!

Morgiana turned and shouted over her shoulder. "Hey, Name-kun! How's it looking over there?" On the far side of the deck, a short haired Spriggan looked up. "York spotted below."

"Sir Weltall, soundings now." Karin instructed one of the Griffin Knights. The man leaned over the side of the ship and a sudden high pitched clicking signaled the use of a sounding spell.

"Six hundred mails." Sir Weltall reported.

"We're at altitude." Karine decided, good, the Spriggans had trained to launch for a very specific height. There hadn't been time for anything else.

Captain Thorn harrumphed in disdain. "Begging your pardon Miss, but the _Sabrina_'s not some pieces of driftwood tied round a Ballasting Engine. My lads and I know these skies, our instruments, and the coast of Albion."

"My apologies." Karin gestured respectfully, she had no reason to doubt the Captain and his crew. "But this mission hinges on its first step." If they couldn't damage the ships and prevent them from launching, then Tristain's main battle fleet would be forced to fight much less decisively. Every ship they sank here, now, was one more that Albion wouldn't be able to amass against Tristain. "Sir Bjorn, are the men ready?"

The Griffin Knight placed a fist over his heart. "All preparations have been made."

"Kagemune, Carmond?" General Eugene nodded to his own subordinate.

"Lancer teams are ready." The first man, Kagemune, reported dutifully. "We won't disappoint this time."

"Support teams are standing by, Sir." Carmond said. The man's calm answer in the face of battle was all Karin needed to determine that he was likely one of the Fae's few trained soldiers.

"Then that just leaves you and your Spriggans." Eugene said to Morgiana.

Instead of calling to her second in command like Eugene and Karin, the Spriggan stuck a hand to her mouth and let out a shrill whistle. "Hey, Kids. Sound off!" A chorus of shouts filled the air, Morgiana's pointed ears twitching thoughtfully. "Hey, where's Marina-chan?"

"Airsick." A blonde Spriggan said.

"Airsick?" Karin mouthed softly.

"Airsick?" Morgiana asked, she looked like she didn't believe it. "How the heck is she airsick? She can fly?"

"Eh?" The blonde Spriggan shrugged. "Being able to swim doesn't stop people from getting seasick."

Morgiana looked suddenly unhappy at this revelation. She turned to the master of the _Sabrina_. "Hey Captain-kun, you wouldn't mind taking Marina-chan back with you, would you? She can't fight if she's sick."

"No." A voice answered, but not the Captain's. A short haired Spriggan shouldering an impressive looking longbow was making her way towards the others, hands resting on the guard rail for balance. "I can still fight. Just need to fly with my own wings for a bit."

"You sure?" Morgiana asked, eyes narrowing as she waited for an answer.

The archer nodded vigorously, licking her lips, she hiccuped unwholesomely, but managed to keep down the contents of her stomach.

"Okay then." The Lady of the Spriggans crossed her arms. "Let's go take a look at what we've got."

Standing near the bow of the ship, Karin could just make out the dim lights of a city far below. From six hundred mails in the air, it was barely recognizable in the predawn blackness. Looking down at the darkness below, Karin couldn't fathom how the Spriggan spotters could see anything at all.

"Allow me, Darling." A voice followed by soft Faerie chanting came from Karin's side.

She blinked rapidly as the stars above her grew brighter and the moons suddenly shown like twin suns. It was as if the world had suddenly gone to midday. Intriguing, so this was Fae 'buff' magic in effect. She thanked the Spriggan sorceress, a much more refined woman than the rest of her kin, if she hadn't known better, Karin would have thought she was a fallen Noble of some sort.

Turning back to the vista before her, Karin strained her eyes as she examined York. The port followed the curve of the coast, docking facilities built along the cliffs. From a distance it would be difficult to tell a merchantman apart from a warship. But Albionese ship builders had a tendency to build their warships solely for battle in the sky. It gave them a distinctive profile that made them possible to spot even at a distance.

"Looks like, tak, tak, tak . . . seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven? Eleven ships of the line docked?" The Spriggan looked over to his leader. "That's one more than we were expecting."

"Then it's one more ship Reconquista won't have tomorrow." Morgiana replied.

"Possibly a ship on patrol, or sent to reinforce the squadron." Karin observed, in either case, it would not change their plans on its own. "Captain, please make your course thirty degrees south and maintain slow speed above the docks.

"Aye." Captain Thorn grunted, calling orders to his crew. Keen eyed sailors along the side of the ship began to relay instructions to the helm as deck hands tore the tarps free from the cargo stored along the sides of the ship. Six wooden frames, each containing four of the devilish iron cylinders devised by Lord Mortimer and quickly fabricated by Tristain's earth mages. Crude, ugly, ungainly things, but beautifully simple in design, no wonder Belgen had loved the idea.

With help from the Salamanders, the crew began to angle the frames upwards so that they leaned over the edge of the ship, the metal cylinders each held in place by nothing more than piece of rope tied about their tails. A Spriggan and two Salamanders climbed up onto one of the frames, grabbing hold of the handles attached to the side of the first cylinder.

"Looks like we're coming up on the military sections of the docks. About three minutes, more or less." The Spriggan spotter reported. "Hey helm, turn, uhm, starboard by about ten degrees and then keep straight."

"Make ready to unfurl the sails lads. We'll be on the run from here to Newcastle if we don't want to be sunk!" Captain Thorn barked.

"So." Morgiana turned to General Eugene, smiling confidently in the clear light of the moon. "This is it. Gonna be dangerous, might have to kill, might get killed . . ." She wagged her eyebrows enticingly " . . . Wanna kiss me?"

The General snorted in amusement. "Sorry, but now's not the time for romance."

Karin discovered at that moment that the Faeries had found a new and unique way to make her blood boil. But as the General had said, now was not the time for that. The battle was about to begin.

"Everyone." General Eugene rumbled, demanding the attention of every Salamander and Spriggan on the deck. "You know that I and my brother are not men for speeches, but here it is. You are to a man, the very bravest fighters I could hope to lead. Today, you have volunteered to place yourselves in danger to act as a noble shield for our friends and family in Tristain. To protect others in the hope that we can go home one day. Our enemies lay beneath us now, each of them a trained soldier with more experience than all of us combined." The heavily armored Faeries listened carefully, some bowing their heads, or even shaking in fear.

"They may have experience. But where they are unaware, we know what is about to happen, while they are asleep, we are awake, while they think themselves safe in their Port, we stand ready to tear out their throats. Salamanders! To battle!"

One of the Salamander fighters, a Lancer raised a clenched fist and let out a shout of "Banzai!" that was quickly carried by the others. General Eugene and Carmond both looked on approvingly.

When the shout died down, Morgiana added. "Just remember Kids, we're not getting paid to be heroes out there, and we don't get your cut if you die. That's in the contract. So no matter what, do your jobs, and stay safe, and we'll all share a drink back in Arrun."

"Hell yeah!" A Spriggan laughed, a number of confident shouts and calls spreading among the other black armored fighters.

"One minute!" The spotter called.

The Faeries already standing up on the frames crouched down, holding onto their cylinder tightly as a crewman approached with an ax. When the signal was given, the man would chop through the supporting rope and send the iron cylinder plummeting towards the ships far below.

Climbing atop d'Artagan, Karin raised her sword-wand over her head. She, like General Eugene, was not a person for grand speeches, but still there was something to be said. "Knights of the Griffin Corps, you stand today, your honor tarnished by the treachery of your former Captain." Whether man or beast, all members of the Griffin Corps grew deathly silent at mention of their great shame. "But you stand here now because your loyalty was not doubted. You stand here now because your services are needed. You stand here now in the name of our Kingdom, our Queen Marianne, and our Princess Henrietta. Now. Let us regain our pride. Let us regain our honor. For Tristain!"

"For Tristain!"

"Now!" The spotter shouted.

The ax fell. There was a sharp -twang- as the first cylinder fell free with its three Faerie passengers. The battle had begun.

* * *

Night watch. Always bloody night watch. Airman 2nd Class Miller grumbled as he climbed to his station at the bow of the 3rd Rate ship of the line _Audacious_ and settled in for another, cold, lonely watch.

"Shouldn't even be here. Wouldn't even be here if not that bloody Lieutenant walking in. Discipline my arse!" Really, he should have been down below decks in his bunk along with the others after whoring it up in the brothels that lined the edge of the dock district.

He knew aplace nearby that had a disgraced water mage as its madame. The girls were clean, the establishment was well kept, a damn sight better quality than where most of his fellow sailors found themselves. But that was the problem now wasn't it? He'd gone a bit above his station and caught the Lieutenant whoring around too.

Yes, their fine, Noble, married Lieutenant. Oh, the Officers liked to say how they were above all that and upheld a higher code of chivalry then the lowly ship hands. Ha! What a load of good rubbish that was.

Blowing on his hands and rubbing them together to drive away the chill. Miller looked up into the night sky, letting his eyes adjust to the starlight. Well. It might have been cold, and it might have been lonely, but you couldn't beat the view as you looked out over the edge of the world. It stirred something in him, Dah would have called it his 'Poet's Soul'. Not that he'd ever been much for Poetry.

But Dah had been happy with it, said that thinking on 'exalted things' dulled the pain of an empty stomach when there wasn't enough bread to go around and he and his sisters got to eat while Dah went without.

Maybe the old man had had a point. Poetry and such sounded kind of nice after all the sounds of cannons for months on end. Miller reached out towards the sky, maybe something to attract a pretty girl. They liked that sort of thing, didn't they? Pretty flowers, pretty music, pretty words . . . Yeah.

After all, things were looking up for the common man with Lord Cromwell in charge. At least, they couldn't get any worse. And once they'd finished off the stinking King James and his Royalists, they'd finally have some breathing room to start putting the country back together. Man could start a family in a time like that and know his children would have enough to eat and enough money put aside to hire a water mage for the child births. Not like his own mother . . . He shook his head.

Pull his wages and settle down once the fighting was finished. They said new nobility were usually a softer hand than the old families, more in tune with the problems of the commoners and petty mages. Things wouldn't be so bad, he'd settle down, he was a fair hand with a carpenter's tools, almost a journeyman when he'd been conscripted for the war. Needed carpenters, even on ships at sail.

Yeah, and then, and then poetry like all the stars in the sky. Something he wrote himself, or even something he just read. Find one he liked, and try to get her to like him in turn. He took another swig of the not entirely regulation contents of his canteen, courtesy of their bastard Lieutenant, though he didn't know it yet.

Miller blinked as he noticed a trio of funny looking stars, two deep red, and one a faint . . . purple? Funny colors, and getting bigger, fast. 'Aye now, I'm not that drunk.' Even so, he rubbed at his eyes as he first saw double, and then triple. "Now what's this?" He grunted, reaching for the handle of ship's bell. His orders were very clear, and very simple, sound the alert at anything suspicious. Well this was suspicious right enough.

He was just about to start ringing the bell as the first trio of fast growing stars broke off, scattering like embers from a fire. He didn't have time to think about it before an ear splitting crash emanated at his back, the deck of the ship trembled as if struck. He twisted around and saw the dust rising up near the middle of the deck. The sudden noise had already shaken the rest of the watch crew alert and shouts of surprise were coming from below decks. Had something fallen from a passing ship?!

He started ringing the bell desperately, even though it was like locking the pen after the sheep had already run off, it was his only chance to avoid another reprimand. The shouts and calls behind him grew louder as the first Officers arrived, including the chief Bastard himself, Lieutenant Lesby.

Miller just new the Lieutenant was going to blame him for this, somehow, someway. Never mind that the Lieutenant should also have been on watch up here at the bow.

Looking back at it afterwords, perhaps some good luck had come with the bad that early morning before dawn as Airman 2nd Class Miller stood at the bow of the 3rd rater_ Audacious_, partially shielded by the thick forward bulkheads, and most definitely not below decks in his bunk like he should have been.

He'd learned about it later as he was recovering at a Church converted into an Army hospital. The Priest's daughter, working as a nurse, had told him all about it. Pretty brown hair, pretty brown eyes, pretty voice too. She kept telling him he was concussed, but he bet she'd like poetry.

Just as the Lieutenant had turned, glaring daggers across the deck at where Miller sat, below decks, a fuse finally ran out, and five hundred pounds of gunpowder detonated. The first decisive shot of the War of the Faeries.


	63. Chapter 15 Part 2 Battleship Alley

Halkegenia Online Chapter 15 - Part 2

"Alright Kids, move it!" Morgiana shouted loud and clear as the rest of the Spriggan's started to take their places atop the remaining bombs.

Twenty three now, twenty four in total. Each one packing five hundred pounds of gunpowder along with a couple hundred pounds of lamp oil, musket balls, nails, broken glass, and whatever else they could find to use as shrapnel. A month ago, just thinking about using something like this would have seemed like a war crime. Now, Drake was climbing up on top of one of the bombs, along with two Salamander lancers, intent on steering it into one of the docked ships, because . . . because if he didn't, someone else would have to.

Lying flat, head pointed downwards over the nose of the bomb, he could see his target, one of three Reconquista battleships clustered together near the southern end of the docks. They were here to sink or cripple as many of these ships as they could in order to pave the way for the fleet's arrival at dawn. All they had to do was make sure the bombs fell on target. Drake's eyes narrowed as he tried to concentrate on just the ship, and tried not to think about how many men must have been on board at that very moment.

"Go!" The Spriggan newbie directing the bomb drops shouted and a sailor chopped through the rope holding Drake's bomb in place. Drake had to hang on for dear life as the bomb shot out from underneath him like a lead weight.

Then his ears were filled with the rushing of wind as he found himself plummeting towards the docks far below. No, not far at all, not really, just four hundred meters. When they'd timed it during practice, that was a mere nine seconds to impact. That was all the time he and his two Salamander wingmen had to push this thing onto course and bale.

One thousand one.

The ship was just a speck below them, one dot among dozens lined up all along the cliffs like the fake ducks at a shooting gallery.

One thousand two.

A little bigger now. Off to his left he could see three shooting stars, two red and one violet as they split away from their deadly payload, gravity would do the rest.

One thousand three.

He could see the ship below him more clearly now, really get a sense of the scale. Damn was it big, and sleek like a zeppelin, or a rocket out of some old black and white sci-fi flick.

One thousand four.

They were veering a bit to the right. Drake extended his wings and pushed at his handholds.

One thousand five.

The two salamanders had been trained to follow his lead, spreading their wings, they nudge gradually leftward just enough to bring them back on track over the ship's deck.

One thousand six.

It was time to bail. At the front of the bomb, just ahead of the nose, a smoldering lighter was held in a lever arm over an ignition hole. He tapped it down and saw a short jet of sparks escape as the fuse was lit. The bomb was primed.

One thousand seven.

Drake let go, spreading his wings and shooting away as fast as he could.

One thousand eight.

He had no direction in mind except _away_. Away from what was about to happen next as he skirted over shabby looking rooftops and dimly lit streets.

One thousand nine. One thousand ten.

He felt it more than anything else, sort of like when you leaned into a wave and the water slapped back, only instead of cool, he felt heat spreading across the back of his neck. Only as the sound started to fade did he realize that he'd been hearing the thunder of the first explosion, now his ears were ringing.

Then, a moment later, it came again, slightly muted this time. 'That one was mine . . . ' He looked back over his shoulder now and surveyed the carnage.

The bombs had worked as advertised. The docks were painted orange by the light of flames as fire blossomed up through the deck of the first ship, hull splintering from forces it had never been designed to contain. The entire front of the vessel, Drake thought it was a third rater, had been bent forward slightly, and now leaned dangerously over the abyss as it burned. Drake didn't know an iota about ships, but he knew one thing for sure, that one wasn't going to be setting sail ever again.

Drake next looked to his own handiwork and whistled faintly. They'd veered off course, not by much, but by enough to make it a near miss rather than a glancing hit. At a guess, the bomb had crashed into the dock, wedging itself close to the hull before detonating.

The blast had caused the grounded ship to list in its cradle. The entire port side of their target vessel was a wreck of wood splinters, snapped masts, and warped brass fittings. What wasn't already on fire was starting to smolder in the heat. 'Fire wards my ass.' He thought as a groaning -pop- emanated from the hull and an anchor plummeted free over the cliffs, trailing its chain as it went.

A third bomb detonated near the prow of one of the ships, blowing the front third of the warship apart in a shower of sparks and flame and shattering three of the forwards masts. The hull was mostly intact, but with damage like that, it wouldn't be sailing any time too soon.

Eleven targets and they'd already knocked three out of the fight in under a minute. Naturally, that's when things started to go not so smoothly.

Flares were launched from the ships, mundane fireworks and mage conjured lights silhouetting the _Sabrina_. The bombs had proven a bit too much for even three Faeries to carry, so the Clipper ship had to maneuver carefully to remain directly over the docks.

It took time for the _Sabrina_ to line up on her next target, a nasty looking third rater bristling with readied guns. The next bomb was cut free, plummeting towards the target with its three Fae bombardiers. They made it about halfway down before suddenly scattering, the bomb beginning to tumble as if struck.

"What the hell are they doing?" Drake grunted to himself. The bomb fell unguided and unlit, crashing into the cliffs before falling to the sea, far, far below.

He saw the cause as he was watching the next group parting ways with their bomb. They didn't let go, they were blasted loose as a ball of compressed air burst into a miniature windstorm. Someone on the docks was on the ball, a wind mage by the looks of it, more likely several. Go figure that someone would actually be on the lookout.

"Looks like they're not going to make this easy for us Darling." The disturbingly calm voice of Shirishi drifted down from above as the dark magic user came to hover beside him. He couldn't see her face beneath her helmet, but she'd dropped the high class tone of voice now that they were stuck in it. Beneath them, in the streets and towers, alarms were beginning to sound. Bells rang, chasing one another across the city.

"Yeah." Drake looked around quickly, thankful once again for his superhumanly acute night vision.

The sky was almost empty. Only a handful of ships and what might or might not be dragons in the distance. That's why they had chosen to attack well before dawn. For now, he and Shirishi were just two dots floating off at the edge of nothing. Nobody had noticed them, yet, but that wasn't going to last much longer.

"We always knew something like this was going to happen." Drake grunted. "The Rebels can't be complete idiots if they got this far.' They'd gotten lucky with the first three ships. But every extra minutes was one more minute for the Rebels to wake up, figure out what was happening, and throw together some sort of defense. "Time to go collect our skull cracking pay."

"How vulgarly put." Shirishi frowned, but at least she wasn't joking or calling him 'Darling' anymore like she was prone to do when things were less serious. Damn straight it was serious, and it was about to get a lot more serious, deadly serious.

To the East, Drake caught sight of dark silhouettes passing in front of the moonlit clouds. The air patrols were turning to investigate, and it wouldn't be long before the patrolling frigates and small coastal ships started to respond.

Drake tried to stay calm, they'd planned for this. They had the element of Surprise but there were always a few hero units on the other side to deal with. Kurotaka's job was to put the bombs on target, no matter what. The Salamanders and Knights could handle the Dragons.

"We're heading back to the docks." Drake grunted before folding his wings and dropping a bit lower over the rooftops. Hopefully, if they kept low, the air patrols wouldn't notice them.

Closer to the ground, the alarm bells were louder and the shouts of the people in the streets below filled the air, night watchmen, and residents shaken from their slumber by the noise. This city wasn't just a military base, if they weren't careful, a lot of people could end up getting hurt. All it would take was one errant bomb, lit and blasted off course by a mage, or one of their own artillery mages getting too loose with their spells . . . Drake tried not to think about that.

Skimming over the rooftops, they left the panicked shouts behind them, heading towards the explosions and the opening sounds of battle. The first explosion had been the cue for the Knights to take flight, the horse sized Halkegenian flying mounts diving from the deck of the _Sabrina_ to join the fray.

The twelve Griffins and lone Manticore spread their wings and banked wide, sweeping outward to meet the approaching Dragons. Drake wished them luck, they were going to need it. Tristain's Knights were going to be outnumbered in the air until the Salamanders could gather up and join them.

The military sections of the docks were in complete chaos. Fire was consuming the damaged ships and the light cast by the flames was shrouded in a haze of smoke. Men, sailors and soldiers, ran about like ants, desperately fighting fire before they spread to the other ships or the wood shingled buildings of the Port.

The shouts of Officers mixed with the cries of pain and fear from the wounded. Drake thought he would be sick. This was war, real war. But it wasn't his problem.

Somehow, despite the element of surprise, a few isolated Rebel soldiers were struggling to fight back.

It started with the watch officers who had responded after the first bombs had fallen. Bombing was not an unheard of tactic in Halkegenian warfare and sailors trained to respond to the possibility almost reflexively.

Wind barriers had been erected by the on duty Mages and flares were launched, illuminating the docks, revealing the bombers and their bombs, and inadvertently dazzling the Spriggan bombardiers. Now, others were joining the fight.

Here, a group of armsmen had managed to grab their muskets, volleying blindly into the air to try and shoot down some of the Faeries. Their efforts weren't met with much success, but they did drive away a few Salamander Mages with the daring to try and get in close to finish one of the damaged ships.

There, the crew of a patrolling gunship got one of the swivel guns loaded and turned it on a hapless Salamander Lancer. Disoriented in the fighting and trying to rejoin with his squad, the blast of grape went wide, but two shots hit home, one striking the man in the chest and other slamming into his shoulder. The armored Faery was sent staggering, clipping a sail mast before crashing into the docks in a cloud of dust and debris.

Drake tried not to think about it, tried not to think of the danger even though he was scared out of his mind. The job, they had a job to do. Looking about. Now how to do it? The musket and cannon fire was distracting, but sporadic, and ultimately inconsequential. But there was at least one mage out their who was fighting back too well.

There. Beneath the eave of a port building, a quartet of mages had taken cover and were lending their power to reinforce the wind shield protecting the next ship in dock.

As he watched, their combined wind spells formed a dome that knocked the next bomb aside, sending it spinning off across the docks. The bomb, already lit, crashed into and through the deck of a gunboat attempting to take off before detonating in a blast that blew the whole boat to kindling.

These guys were a problem. They'd have to be quick about this or the _Sabrina _would overshoot. With the Dragon Knights arriving and the smaller patrol ships and frigates launching from the docks, Captain Thorn couldn't linger long. Especially not with tons of gunpowder sitting exposed on his ship's deck.

Drake nodded to Shirishi and pointed to the mages.

Moving across the roof tops ahead, a slender figure was silhouetted by the flames. Though fully obscured in lightweight body armor, the powerful longbow in her hands left no doubt in Drake's mind that it was Kurotaka's elite archer, Marina. Presently she was hoofing it across the roofs, probably to save her flight energy for when it was really needed. 'Clever girl.' Well, they were going to need that arm and Breaker's Bow of hers soon enough.

* * *

Airman 3rd class Samuels clutched desperately at the loaded musket that had been thrust into his hands and tried to keep his head down as the mages chanted at a feverish pace.

Minutes, just minutes ago, he had been asleep in his hammock, dreaming of home, the farm, and his mum's meat pies. He'd been shaken awake by a sound like the Founder's own judgement that had rocked the _Fearless _like a child's rattle.

Alarms bells ringing in the darkness chimed in one of the familiar patterns that they had all been trained to memorize. An attack!

Falling from his hammock, he had pulled on his shoes while running to his action station above deck. Their First Officer was as meticulous as ever about drill, especially with the recent sabotage. Months of stand to arms had hammered home what he should be doing. But it hadn't prepared him for this.

The docks were on fire. There had been fires before, even accidents with gunpowder, but nothing like this. It looked like the entire southern quarter was going up in flames. Had a ship's magazine gone up? The shock alone was enough to leave a man senseless. For most, it had.

A few heads were kept here and there, Mage Officers who had seen the worst of the fighting and old sailors who'd been through countless battles. But most of the sailors stumbled about as if lost or dunk, only to be knocked to the deck as the earth shook with another -BOOM- like God's thunder being tossed about right over their heads.

The Chief Armsmen saw Samuels as he looked listlessly about and grabbed hold of him, forcing a musket into his waiting hands and a fistful of cartridges into his pocket. It was only as he realized what he was holding that Samuels understood that it must have been an attack. They were under attack!

"But it can't be!" Samuels stammered as the armsmn rammed home the shot of a second musket and tossed it to one of his fellows. "It's just a powder explosion, isn't it?" Some fool must walked past a ship's magazine with a lit lantern and set off some stray powder.

The senior armsman barked a curse at Samuels. He was a veteran of when the 'Glorious Navy of the Holy Movement of the Reconquistadors' had simply been the Royal Navy of Albion and didn't take well to here any words but 'Yes' and 'Sir' from the lips of a lowly airman 3rd class.

"One maybe. But two and three like that?" The scared and grizzled solider waved a hand to the pillars of flame visible even a quarter league away. "This is an attack! Now go lad, gather up the sailors on the docks and try to find the Captain if you can." That was all that was said before Samuels was pushed onto the gangplank, nearly taking a spill off the side of the ship's docking cradle.

It wasn't much to go on, but it was at least an order, something that he could follow. The rest had worked itself out as he ran through the alternating light and shadow of the buildings alongside the docks, nearly colliding with a quartet of officers racing back to the docks from some undisclosed location.

These men were all officers from the newly upgraded ships that had been sent to supplement the squadron. They didn't panic or run, except straight into the danger, dragging Samuels along with them like a stray pup.

Flares launched overhead illuminated the smoke filled skies and revealed a dark shape, a ship, high overhead as a trio of stars plummeted free from its side. The mages had raised their wands and staves, throwing magic like a man would a javelin. Spells of air and water spreading out to batter aside the falling stars.

Now things were burning and exploding about him, and officers were screaming orders or for order. It seemed like most of his fellow sailors didn't even understand that they were under attack. He didn't believe it himself. He rather suspected he was still sleeping and that this was a nightmare.

Yes, it had to be a nightmare. Samuels had no idea what was happening or who was attacking them. He'd seen . . . seen shapes. Snatched glimpses of winged people in the skies above. Not humans. Demi humans? Firstborns? Maybe even the Faeries that he'd been hearing about from the older men. That was the only thing that made sense. Who else would be mad enough to attack the fleet of Holy Albion in its own Port?

All Samuels knew for sure was that they had to protect the ships. And for him, that meant protecting the mages while they cast their spells, the mages at least seemed to know what to do.

The chanting at his back reached its climax as one of the mage officers raised his staff to the sky. He tried to spot what the mage was aiming for. All Samuels could see was three bright stars, like fireflies, braking away from another one of those oblongs. He felt a sense of grim satisfaction as the devilish device was deflected. Surprise or not, these demi humans were no match for the mages and soldiers of Albion.

His confidence welled up and then turned to alarm as the next magic chant turned to gargling. Spinning around, his face went pale as he saw one of the Lieutenant's clutching at his throat. A dark shaft protruding through his neck. The man's eyes widened, nearly popping from his skull as he drowned in his own blood.

Samuels, might not have known what was happening, but as a sailor, he knew what to do when someone was shooting at him. He threw himself to the ground and pressed his body as best he could against a pile of ropes, head peering about for the source of the arrow.

The trained battle mages, alerted by the death of one of their own, responded immediately. All three closed ranks, facing outwards, their chanting changing as they prepared to defend themselves. Another arrow glinted in the fire light, speeding straight, and true, and fast, almost too fast for Samuel's to see if it had not passed in front of a flare. One of the mages raised his staff, catching the arrow with a gale of wind that batted it aside a dozen mails from its target.

Samuels followed the arrow's nearly flat path back up to a nearby rooftop where a lone figure crouched, already notching another arrow. He wasn't going to give them the chance. Shouldering his musket, it was one of the long barreled patterns favored by armsmen, Samuels took careful aim as his Dah had taught him. His finger squeezed at the trigger, but before he could fire, the world went black.

What was this? Not just smoke, but complete blackness. He couldn't even see his own hands in front of him. Was . . . was this magic?! It had to be.

"Damnation! I'm blind." One of the mage officers shouted.

"Use soundings!" Another called back. Samuels heard a high pitched clicking from somewhere nearby.

"Hiding in shadows! Show yourselves you cowards!"

Then, Samuels heard a sound like . . . well . . . it sounded almost like rain fall, hissing and splattering against stone. It left as soon as it came leaving only silence and three ominous -thuds-. He blinked, and suddenly the blackness was replaced by spots, and past the spots, blurs of light, then shapes. When his vision was finally restored, Samuel's wished he could have stayed blind.

They were dead, all of them. The three thuds had been the sound of the three mage officers striking the ground. The cause of their death was hideously obvious. Each man had been riddled with tiny holes, each smaller than a musket ball, and leaving barely any mark of their passage, through their skin, through their robes. Their bodies wept blood like tears.

"Damn it Shirishi." A voice growled and Samuels trembled.

"That's darkness magic Darling." A second, feminine voice answered softly.

Holding perfectly still, the young sailor watched, he could see them now. They stood, towering over him, both shrouded in all black. Black cloth, black plate, fine black mail, and black hawk-like helmets. The only part of them that was not black was a symbol shared on their right shoulder, the silhouette of a hawk in flight, inscribed in purest white.

The larger of the two figures kicked the body of the mage captain with the toe of his boot. They were checking the bodies he thought fearfully. Hands trembling Samuels began to fumble for his musket, moving slowly, praying that he wouldn't draw their attention.

A helmeted head turned to face him and he was frozen in terror. The man, the monster, the demon, approached and desperately, Samuels swung the musket up and pulled the trigger. A loud -crack- filled his ears as the powder ignited. The armored figure staggered and let out a grunt of surprise, a hand reaching for his shoulder.

"Drake!" The smaller one cried.

"It's alright, didn't even nick the armor."

A gauntlet closed around the barrel of Samuel's musket and the weapon was torn from his grasp. Swiftly, almost casually, the heavy armsmen's weapon was brought across the armor clad figure's knee. Wood splintered and iron bent as it was broke in two and cast aside. The helmet gazed down at him, where there should be eyes, he saw only shadows.

'Please, Founder preserve me!' The young sailor thought, closing his eyes and waiting for the mortal blow.

Nothing happened.

"Are you sure, Drake? He did try to kill you."

Samuel's opened his eyes to see the figure turning away.

"Don't make me change my mind." The taller grunted. "Besides, he can't be more than fifteen, we're here to sink ships, not kill kids." As they spoke, four long, thin, black wings formed from the backs of each figure, glowing softly with black light. "Now, let's go join up with Marina and Lark."

The two stood, armor glinting in the fire light and vanishing into the shadows. Apparitions whose bodies glowed with supernatural power. Samuel's lips moved in silent prayer for Albion as both spread their wings and vanished into the predawn sky.

* * *

The wind pressing against her upper body, d'Artagnan bucking beneath her, Karin de la Valliere twisted in her saddle, readying her sword-wand to cast. Behind her, three Albionian Dragon Knights were in pursuit, two favoring fire and the third using wind based spells. They were well trained, she noted, coordinating their attacks in an attempt to bracket d'Artagnan with their fire.

But the Manticore was smart and had seen this tactic before. Through their familiar link he seemed almost bored. Without any prompting from Karin, he folded his wings and spun downwards, only spreading them again just above the roof tops of York's warehouse district.

The Dragon Knights followed, but with difficulty. Dragons were a great deal larger than either Griffins or Manticores and trained to use their breath weapon in support of their rider, allowing a trained Dragon-Knight pair to attack in multiple directions at the same time. But what they gained in power and endurance, they lost in speed and maneuverability.

Karin began to grow impatient with her pursuers, but was loath to fight back just yet. Her 'Heavy Wind' deserved a better target than just three Dragon Knights, and once these Knights saw what they were facing, they would respond accordingly and not give her a second chance to catch them as a group.

A fireball grazed past her followed by a wind spear thrown by the lead mage. Turning about, she answered the attack with a hail of her own vacuum blades, peppering the lead mage and his mount. The mage attempted to parry the spells, deconstruct them, and turn them back on Karin. But between the power of the individual blades, and their numbers, he was overwhelmed. The magically conjured air constructs sliced through flesh and muscle and chipped at bone, barely slowing as they slammed into, stacked up against, and overwhelmed the Knight's wind shield.

They severed the dragon's left wing cleanly at the wing stem and took off the Knight's wand arm. The Dragon roared in pain, but was silenced as a vacuum blade severed its throat. The Knight also roared out, and was silenced as another blade severed his head. Sharing the same fate to the end, Dragon and Knight dropped from the sky, colliding with the cliff face, bouncing once and plunging into the mists.

The sudden loss of their leader did nothing to deter the remaining two Knights who instead of retreating, raised their wands in unison, signaling for more of their comrades. Three more Knights answered the call, two approaching from the front and one chasing up from the rear for a total of five. Good, Karin thought, satisfied, this would be an adequate number.

She spurred d'Artagnan forward, batting aside the fireballs and wind arrows launched by the two mages to her front shooting past them.

The third mage to her rear hung back for a moment to complete a longer chant, then, channeled a rippling vortex of air forward. The spell took shape in midair, wings, claws, and beak of wind magic, and glowing eyes of ball lightning. A wind construct in the shape of a bird, how very original.

To be able to form and control such a thing, Karin guessed the man to be at least a triangle of wind. For shame it would do him no good. Reaching out with its claws, intent at tearing out Karin's throat, the Tristanian Mantircore Knight simply extended her wand and pushed.

Parrying, the art of deconstructing an opponent's magic and turning it back against them, adding some of ones own for greater effect. Karin had never been particularly good at it. Not because she lacked power, but because she did not, that was rather the problem.

For Karin de la Valliere, the spells of lesser mages were fragile indeed in the steel grip of her will. A normal mage would have had a great deal of trouble overwhelming the enchantments holding the wind construct together, a normal mage would most likely have chosen to disrupt the spell by physical means with their own wind spell. Karin was not a normal mage.

The powerful wind construct struck the tip of her sword and began to come apart as if it were nothing but mundane vapors, dying as quickly as it had been born. The caster began to pull further back, skilled and smart, they were beginning to realize what they faced.

Now was as good a time as any, she supposed as she eased d'Artagnan into a sharp turn and raised her wand-sword high, racing to meet the pursuing Knights.

The air around her began to swirl faster and faster, forming a vortex before splitting and then splitting again. One became two, and two became four. In terms of raw power and complexity, each of the vortexes would have been a square spell in its own right. Combined, they transcended the power of all buy the greatest elemental magics. It was the ultimate embodiment of the mechanics of the holy system of magic that Brimir had passed down to his chosen people. A four fold square spell, the Heavy Wind.

The Mage Knights saw what was coming, but they were as powerless to stop it as they were to stop a volcanic eruption or a thunder storm. It was less a spell and more a natural disaster given malicious purpose. They tried even so, attempting to shield themselves or to escape. It was too little, too late.

The Heavy Wind blossomed outwards, four counter rotating vortexes spreading in a cone of complete destruction. The Knights and their mounts were caught in the gale force winds, slashed by vacuum blades, whipped and battered by debris, and dragged inwards to where the rotating constructs made contact. There, things became much more . . . gruesome.

Flesh, even dragon flesh, was simply not up to the task of surviving in a environment so fundamentally inimical to its continued integrity.

By the time that the Heavy Wind dissipated, the spell had erupted over the cliffs of Albion, carrying with it, stones, roofing shingles, and the bloodied and dismembered remains of five of Albion's elite Dragon Knights. Karin surveyed her accomplishment. An inefficient use of the Heavy Wind, but expedient, and overall acceptable.

Now her attention was turned back to the skies over York where the Griffin Knights were locked in battle along with the Salamanders and a handful of their Spriggan allies.

The Rebels forces at York consisted of more than just ships. Two full squadrons of Dragon Knights, almost forty in all, had also been stationed here and were among the first to respond to the surprise attack. Even now the dragons and their riders were still rising from the stables spread along the cliffs.

The Dragons posed a unique threat, and one that had to be kept away from the _Sabrina_ and her explosive payload at all costs until the Clipper had finished its slow bombing run and fled the area. It was a challenging task for a mere twelve Griffin Knights. Their mounts were less than a third the size of the more powerful dragons and lacked the constitution to endure serious injury and continue fighting. These were weaknesses that the Griffin Knight Corps had long ago learned to account for, but not on this day.

Today, the Griffin Knights were not only fearless, they were foolhardy, eager to avenge their betrayal and regain their honor. As Karin watched, one of her subordinates abandoned his wing mate and dove down recklessly to attack a group of soldiers manning a hastily re-purposed cannon. The Knight lashed out with fire and wind spells, igniting charges of gunpowder and driving off the cannon crew, but as he rose back into the sky, he was born down upon by a Dragon Knight and his mount.

There was no time for Karin or anyone else to do anything as both were dispatched, torn from the skies and slammed into the side of one of the damaged ships. The Heavy Wind felt anger boiling up within her, kept in check only because she found herself on the battlefield. That man had heard her orders, to take no chances and see only to his assigned task. He had heard and he had disobeyed!

The remainder of the Griffin Knights were following her orders, concentrating their efforts against the Dragon Knights and leaving the docks for the smaller and more nimble Spriggans to deal with. But even the most obedient, such as Sir Bjorn, were taking needless risks, and indulging in unnecessary bravado.

She waved down the partner of the fallen Griffin, falling into formation beside him. "Sir Weltall, what is this?!" She demanded.

Raising the visor of his helmet, the tall Griffin Knight looked over to his superior. "Goslin struck out on his own My Lady, I couldn't stop him." The man sounded shocked, and perhaps even as surprised as Karin at the undisciplined act.

"That was your duty as his wing mate!" She shouted back. "No matter, there is no time for this now. If you are without a wing mate you'll be vulnerable in the air. Stick close to me and guard my back while I see to my own targets."

"My Lady?" Sir Weltall stuttered.

"The Spriggans have the ships, the Salamanders and your fellow Griffin Knights have the Dragons, we will take the Fortresses." Karin instructed before lowering the visor of her own helmet and spurring d'Artagnan to climb. Shocked, Sir Weltall nevertheless follow her lead.

It was simple really, the chances of the bombs alone managing to destroy the fleet at York had always been slim. Their simply wasn't enough gunpowder available on short notice, nor enough time to train the Spriggans for better accuracy. The first bomb, punching straight through the top deck of a third rater had been as much a fluke as skill.

Between a handful of bombs intercepted by luck and skill, poor aim on the part of the unskilled bombardiers, and faulty fuses among the bombs, the following strikes had met with more mixed success.

As Karin swept out over the cliffs to begin her approach on the Northernmost fortress, she was able to survey the military docks, lit by flames and flares. In total, the _Sabrina _had expended sixteen of her twenty four bombs against the the eleven docked ships of the line.

Two of those ships of the line, the first and second, had been completely destroyed.

Two, the third and sixth, were so badly damaged as to be barely airworthy and would need weeks if not months to be repaired assuming their crews even managed to rescue them from the fires that licked at their hulls even now.

Two more had suffered light to moderate damage from missed bomb, their hulls were intact, and their keels sound, but attached masts and rigging had been badly damaged, or in one case completely stripped from the hull. These vessel, while fully airworthy, had no means other than prodigious amounts of wind magic to propel themselves and would be unable to travel fast or far.

In addition, two of the seven frigates stationed at York and three of the small coastal gunships and post ships were now nothing but wrecks burning in their docks or blown to splinters. Bombs that had heavily damaged the sturdier ships of the line had completely annihilated their smaller brethren.

The damage was devastating, all the more for having been inflicted by a single ship and less than a hundred soldiers, but it was not complete.

For every ships of the line that had been badly damaged, one had weathered the attack in fighting condition. The time needed to along the length of the military docks had given the Rebels a chance to rally in defense of the Northern most vessels. At least three more of the large battleships had suffered some damage to their rigging but no more than might be expected in a minor engagement, and the remaining two vessel were all but unscathed.

The Royal Sovereign in particular had been shielded by her large compliment of mage officers, resisting several bombing attempts and would no doubt soon be readying to enter the fray.

No, the bombs had always been essential to cripple the squadron, winnow down its numbers, and damage the remaining ships so that they could be run to ground, but they could not be expected to carry the day alone. For that, twelve ships of the battle line and a squadron of Dragon Knights had been committed.

A Salamander mage aboard the _Sabrina _had used the Fae Moonlight Mirror spell to report the beginning of the attack to the Fleet standing off beyond the limits of Albion's airspace. They were expected to arrive some time after dawn.

In the mean time, the strike force had the task of paving the way. Crippling the remaining ships so that they could not run, thinning the Albionian Dragon Knight Squadrons, and destroying the coastal forts that defended the cliffs.

Forts such as the one that Karin and her hastily acquired wing mate were approaching now.

The fort had been built with the help of earth mages, carved directly into the cliff, its sullen walls bristling with firing ports for dozens of cannons. The Fort's thick smooth, stone walls granted no purchase, even Karin would have had trouble breaching them. Which was why the _Sabrina_ had reserved no less than four of her bombs to brake open the fortress walls and expose the insides for a full powered Heavy Wind.

But first, a path needed to be cleared for the bombers to strike from above. There would be dozens of mages within the fortress, along with hundreds of foot soldiers. Without help, the bombs would never reach their target.

The _Sabrina_ was nearly overhead now, they would be launching any second.

Karin waved for Sir Weltall to follow her lead. Gathering up her willpower once more, her namesake spell took shape and was channeled forward to wash over the fort. Wind barriers, constantly reinforced by their casting mages, were battered aside in an instant. The gale force winds tore at the walls, sucking up unfortunate watchmen and fixtures such as light cannons and the roof of the fortress headquarters. But no matter how strong, the Heavy Wind failed to find purchase against the walls. No matter, there would be plenty of purchases soon enough.

Climbing clear, Sir Weltall at her side shielding them both from light blasts of shot from the fortress cannons, Karin watched as the _Sabrina _commenced her bombing. Four more tapered cylinders fell free one after the other, along with their accompanying Faerie operators. Once again, despite their limitations, Karin had to marvel at the effectiveness of the new bombs, delivering destructive force that was only otherwise possible with powerful magic.

And Lord Mortimer said that in the Fae's home land, such weapons were directed by enchantments and given their own means of propulsion so as to strike against armies and fortifications that could not even be seen from their place of launch. Karin had been intrigued. Even if such a weapon proved unfeasible to replicate in Halkegenia, the idea merited study.

Of course, there were weaknesses to these weapons as well. The fact that they could be intercepted by even a relatively weak mage. It appeared that her Heavy Wind had not been as devastating as she could have hoped. Several mages had managed to find refuge in a dugout along the fortress parapet and were now swatting the first bomb away.

Gesturing to Sir Weltall, Karin and d'Artagnan plunged into the fray once more, their wingmate and his Griffin following close behind. Vacuum blades showered down on the dugout from above, unprepared mages were caught in the act of casting, the trench became a channel for their blood.

The first bomb plunged narrowly past her, indignant shouts briefly erupting from the Fae handlers before they parted ways with their deadly payload and fled clear. Burying itself in the rubble left by Karin's previous Heavy Wind, the bomb detonated with enough force to shatter the upper floors of the fort, causing a minor cave in down into the levels housing the cannons.

The next bomb had a similar but even more devastating effect. Though not a direct hit, the explosion landed almost directly above a fault in the wall. Perhaps this had been a result of the first bombs detonation, or perhaps the Mage Engineers had been less than conscientious in designing their monolithic walls, but the end effect was the violent calving of one facing of the fortress. Nearly three levels worth of three mail thick stone wall slid free from the cliffs in a miniature avalanche.

Karin couldn't have been more satisfied with the results. Her next full powered Heavy Wind would have ample debris and weak points to exploit.

A jet of flame washed past her and she felt d'Artagnan buck in surprise. She cursed, silently at least, as she realized that she'd missed a mage. But where was he? And why did she suddenly feel so anxious? No, not her, it was d'Artagnan, something had him riled, something that she only realized almost before it was too late.

Looking up, she saw the fireball's real target, and that it had been aimed true as it struck the third bomb and its handlers a mere twenty mails over head.


	64. Chapter 15 Part 3 The Phantom Queen

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 15 Part 3

"Quit your prancing about and fight me you witch!" Sir Godard, Captain of the 10th Dragon Knight Squadron roared as he pursued his prey through the skies of York.

It had been not more than ten minutes since he had been roused from his bed by the sounds of alarm bells and distant thunder. He had taken to the skies along with half of his squadron, hastily dragged from their own beds or the beds of whores, not knowing if this was an accident, an attack, or sabotage rendered by some blasted agent of the Royalists.

He'd learned soon enough that it was his second guess that was right. A cavalry raid, Griffins, descending on the first Dragons to respond. But it had to be more than just that. The military docks were alight along their whole length, ships burning at their moorings as crews desperately fought the fires, or in one extreme case, began to cut a burning frigate loose so that it could be cast over cliffs before its gunpowder magazines were lit.

His squadron had broken into wing mate pairs and spread out to offer support to the beleaguered and confused defenders, meanwhile, Sir Godard had turned to the docks, intent on reaching the Flagship.

He had seen them then for the first time, winged forms flitting through the smoke, or jumping from rooftop to rooftop, illuminated by the flames and their own black light. Even as he watched, one raised a bow and loosed a deadly precise arrow against a mage officer roaring orders atop the deck of one of the third raters.

On the docks, a group of armsmen leveled their muskets only to suddenly stagger and turn on one another, screaming in terror and confusion. As many of the men opened fire on their allies as volleyed against their attackers. In the shadow of a nearby building a solitary winged form held a staff high while encircled in glowing runes.

Sir Godard sucked in a breath. Heathen magics. Abomination!

He circled once, approaching the building that the witch was using for cover from the south and loosed a volley of wind arrows. The magically conjured constructs traced a thin line of destruction across the cobblestones of the docks before bursting against the corner of the building.

Snorting, his strike had narrowly missed, the heathen magic user had stumbled from the cloud of pulverized mortar and stonework, struggling to take to the skies with the wings upon their back. He would skewer them!

That was when he had been confronted by this bane of his existence, slashing past him with that accursed spear, forcing him to guard, loosing phantasms to obscure his sight and draw his fire.

This apparition was insufferable, darting about to and fro, always tantalizingly beyond his reach. While his subordinates occupied themselves fighting the Griffin mounted warriors and their winged allies in honorable combat, he was taken for a buffoon! He was Godard the Squall, this demi human abomination should be fleeing before him. But instead, he was being toyed with.

'FEAR ME, DAMN YOU!'

Spurring his Wind Dragon into a dive, he chased the four winged, black clad figure as it raced just below roof level along the streets paralleling the docks. He raised his sword-wand, conjuring a wind spear, hurling the construct into the street below and clicking his tongue with disgust when the apparition evaded. But could it evade this?

Sir Godard leaned forward in his saddle, taking aim ahead of the apparition. A vicious smile spread across his lips as the air collected and compressed down into a point no larger than a musket ball before being released. His wind shell overtook the winged figure and then burst, a storm of compressed air exploding outward in all directions. Windows shattered and shingles peeled away from rooftops in the path of his prey, there was nowhere to run now!

With no place to escape to, and no time to evade, the apparition crashed into the confined bubble of compressed air . . . And dissolved into smoke.

What?! Sir Godard looked about desperately, though he knew not what they were with any certainty, he refused to believe he faced something so insubstantial as a phantom. Darkness flashed across the pale blue of the slowly lightening sky and Sir Godard shielded himself purely by reflex. A blade, the tip of a massive spear slammed into a barrier of wind, the apparition converted the momentum, vaulting into a flip that sent it tumbling past him, evading his countering dervish.

"I'll tear you limb from limb you witch!" Godard raged as he broke back into the chase.

Ahead, another dragon Knight from the 10th Squadron had acquired the same prey and was intent on heading it off. Good, they would take it in their crossfire. The apparition looked to the front, and then back to Godard. 'Yes you witch, this time you die.' A shower of lights and strange glyphs circled the figure before coming to a stop one after another. Some demi human magic? But too slow. Obviously inferior to that possessed by the Founder's blessed people.

A volley of wind arrows formed around Sir Godard and launched themselves forth. At the same time the Dragon Knight to the front mirrored his motions perfectly.

The last Glyph froze, his prey glowed and then began to come apart, braking into dozens of dark winged shapes. Sir Godard raised a hand to shield himself, his spell dissipating as he crashed into the cloud of ravens, feathered wings and clawed talons beating past him.

A rage filled swing of his sword caused the birds to burst into smoke just like the false apparition before them, and then . . . and then . . . The last thing Sir Godard ever saw was a tall stone church tower that had taken the place of the clear skies.

* * *

Whistling softly, Morgiana, Lady of the Spriggans surveyed her handiwork, her Jotun's Spear propped against her shoulder as she hovered in midair. And that was why you didn't mess with the Phantom Queen of the Spriggans. A little bit of stunt flying, some shadow clones, a mirror surface spell, and you had a recipe for pancaked dragon. Admittedly, it was going to be a pain for the locals to dig the carcass out of that church tower.

Strangely, she didn't feel much remorse for her actions. Maybe because of the way the enraged Knight had died. She hadn't killed him, she'd self defensed him. It just happened that with his temperament, it turned out to be fatal.

Though . . . didn't these guys usually fly in pairs . . .

The shadow that suddenly swept over her was her only warning as several tons of lizard and its rider somehow managed to get the drop on her. Impressive all things considered. Spinning about, Jotun's Spear twirled over her head like a baton, coming to block the fire dragon just as its beak like jaws snapped shut.

The Dragon roared as the tip of the spear sank into the roof of its mouth and up through the nasal cavity, wedging its mouth firmly open. The mounted Knight shouted and tried to dislodge her with some sort of wind whip that battered against the shoulder of her Legendary Dark Amalgam Armor and not much else.

"Take a bite out of me will ya?" Morgiana grunted as she leveraged her considerable strength to sink the spear tip further upwards.

Alas, it could be fatal to forget that when dealing with a dragon, the jaws were just as dangerous left open as they were snapped shut. A noxious chemical odor carried on fetid breath clued her in and she kicked loose just as the dragon opened its mouth wider to release a point blank fireball.

Morgiana was quick on her feet and good with her wings, but there were some things even she couldn't evade. Luckily, Don Quixote arrived just in time. The Dragon's man sized fireball collided with a the back of Eugene's armor, washing around it as the armor's special ability Flame Shell was activated for the blink of an eye.

Never one to let an opportunity to go on the offensive slip past, the Salamander General spun around, swinging his two handed executioners blade, the demonic sword Gram, firmly into the Dragon's thick skull.

Seeing her opening, Morgiana shot over him, kicking off from Eugene's shoulder and racing up the dragon's neck to confront the Knight.

Not expecting the tables to turn so quickly, the man got off one fast wind needle, the magic spell slightly denting, but not penetrating the shoulder of Morgiana armor before the Lady of the Spriggans swung her spear around and delivered a skull splitting blow with the weighted butt of her weapon.

It was lights out for him, even if he wasn't killed by the impact, the Knight and his dragon were in no condition to continue. Severely injured, the dragon fell from the sky in a barely controlled descent, coming to lay still, wings propped against the sides of the buildings flanking the narrow street.

As the rush of adrenaline faded, and with it, the endorphin high that had numbed her to fear, Morgiana felt her wings give out on her, only to be caught by her rescuer.

"Not being payed for heroics, huh?" Eugene rumbled suspiciously.

She grinned weakly and she tried very carefully not to look at the maybe not carcass and maybe not corpse beneath them. Yeah, now that she had the chance to think about it, it wasn't something she wanted to dwell on. Instead she focused on answering the question.

"Well, you know, I wouldn't call it heroics . . ."

"Oh really?" The big Salamander grunted. "Then what was that?" He nodded a head towards the church tower.

"Self defense?" Morgiana offered, squirming free from Eugene's grip and coming to hover beside him.

"Alone? Without a wing man?" Eugene asked. The big Salamander sounded ever so slightly agitated.

The Lady of the Spriggans smiled slyly as she caught on. "Oh-ho, it couldn't be that you were worried about moi?" The look on his face was pretty damn priceless. She wished she had a recording crystal.

"This isn't a game. You can't cut loose like that anymore." Eugene warned, tapping his own side for emphasis.

She snorted. "Yeah, well, that bastard was about to make Kentucky Fried Spriggan out of my Guild, sorry if I got a little over protective."

Eugene's only answer was an unconvinced nod, gesturing for her to follow to a patch of quiet rooftops where a handful of Salamanders were resting their wing in preparation for rejoining the battle in the skies above. Most were Lancers, but a few were support mages popping mana restore potions or seeing to minor injuries while they waited for their flight magic to recharge.

They were actually doing pretty well right now, Morgiana thought as she tallied up the salamanders. She knew that some had been hurt, a few badly, but so far there had only been one confirmed fatality. Eugene had looked pretty pissed when he'd heard. Well, better to get angry about it then to break down crying.

"Gene-kun." Eugene's second in command bowed his head as his Commander touched down on the rooftop.

"Dragon Knights are being kept back from south east staging point. How is the harassment going?" Eugene asked.

"Two dragon Knights eliminated, but three more retreated towards the docks." Kagemune said, mirroring Eugene's clinical look of satisfaction at a job well done.

It wasn't like she had been keeping count, but the Dragon Knights that had originally sallied from throughout the city had taken over a dozen casualties so far. Some were fatalities, others were just knocked out of the fighting. Between the element of surprise, the zeal of the Griffin Knights, and the prowess of a full raid force of Salamander Lancers, the Albionian Knights hadn't stood much chance in the skies above the city.

"Morgiana-sama!" Turning around, the Lady of the Spriggans was met by a panting young Spriggan dispelling his wings to land on the roof. He sounded a quad familiar but definitely wasn't one of the long standing members of Kurotaka.

"Oh, Name-kun!" She answered cheerfully as she nodded to the young spear and magic user whose real handle was Shime. But until he managed to prove his worth and rise above gopher status, he would be addressed as 'Name-kun'. "You alright? Catch your breath Kid."

Name-kun nodded his head quickly. "Morgiana-sama, the _Sabrina_ is making her pass on the Northern Fort now."

"That's our cue to move the mage teams up to support." Eugene commented.

Morgiana sighed as she stretched her spear arm lazily. This Dark Amalgam Armor was great, but it sure as hell was a pain to wear for more than a couple of hours at a stretch. Well in any case, things were still going _roughly_ according to plan. No matter how the operation at Newcastle went, the surprise attack here had succeeded at applying a ten pound sledgehammer to the knees of the Rebel fleet.

Now it was just a race to see how much insult they could add to injury before the battle line arrived to deliver the finishing blow. The forts guarding the port were another key target, and after the pinket finished them off, the Spriggans had been instructed to indulge in a bit of looting, securing any intact cannons for retrieval.

"Anything else, Kiddo?" Morgiana asked Name-kun as the boy finally caught his breath.

The young Spriggan nodded. "Yes, Morgiana-sama, word from Drake. The Dragon Knight squadrons have begun to consolidate around the docks. We've had to pull back."

Eugene cursed softly under his breath. "They're probably using the ship cannons for cover while the Dragons fly over watch."

"Commander?" Kagemune asked.

"There's not much we can do about them until the fleet arrives." Eugene said. "Morgiana, the docks are becoming a very dangerous place to be for anyone who doesn't pledge allegiance to Lord Cromwell."

"Right, right. Well, not much else we can do to earn our pay." Morgiana nodded back to Name-kun. "Oy, scram and tell Drake to get everyone together and head for the Northern fortress. We're going to help the Salamanders storm in after the 'Wonder Wind' . . ."

"Heavy Wind." Kagemune corrected softly.

"Whatever." Morgiana rolled her eyes. "Anyways, after she cracks open the fortress walls, we're going to help out."

Name-kun placed a closed hand over his heart. "Yes, Morgiana-sama."

"Eh?!" Morgiana chided, wagging her spear idly.

The young Spriggan fumbled. "I mean . . . Big Sis."

"There ya'go Kiddo, now get lost." She watched as Name-kun stepped off the side of the roof and took back to the skies to find Drake and the others. Morgiana wasn't particularly worried, the Kurotakas were smart enough to stay out of the worst of the danger and to gather up once they'd finished causing hell.

"Kagemune, go find Carmond and tell him the same." Eugene instructed. "I want his platoon to rest their wings before advancing on the Fort. We'll do this carefully so that we can retreat if the defenses are too strong."

"Yes, Gene-kun." Kagemune saluted and conjured his wings to do as instructed. He'd barely risen from the roof when a sound like thunder peeled across the Port.

"Sounds like they've started the fort bombing." Morgiana commented casually as she turned her head Northward to observe the trios of falling stars.

Was it wrong that she was proud of her guild?

They were killing people tonight, lots of people. But they were protecting lots of people too. How could she not be proud of them? They were strong, very strong, the strongest among the Spriggans, some of the strongest among the Fae. Not just in body, that was just a fluke of game stats, they were strong in other ways. They'd stepped forward unflinchingly to protect others. And she'd protect them in turn.

The third bomb exploded with a flash of flame and light that briefly dazzled Morgiana's darkness adjusted eyes. When the thunder came, it sounded different, less muted than before. It took her a second to understand why. The bomb had exploded in midair.

Morgiana's heart stopped for a single beat, she felt the blood draining from her face, her visions blurring. Her mind rewound the last handful of seconds and played it over again. Three little points of light, two red and one deep violet, and then they'd vanished in a flower of orange and yellow . . . They'd let go right? They had to have let go!

"Morgiana!" Eugene shouted.

She didn't know when she'd taken to the sky, she didn't even realize she was flying until she heard Eugene chasing after her, the rest of his men close on his heels, carrying their heavy shields and lances at the ready. She'd just reacted, her wings bursting from her back, kicking off with all her might and cutting straight across the Port towards the dissipating cloud of smoke and flames.

"Morgiana slow down!" Eugene was falling further behind, he'd never been as fast in a straight sprint.

"I can't." Morgiana shouted back. 'I can't, I can't, I can't!' She felt something burning against her cheeks and she wasn't sure if it was the cold wind or tears. One of her Kids had been in that blast, she wasn't going to leave them!

* * *

Pain was not a new experience for Karin de la Valliere. Whether beneath her armor or her noble attire, her body had long ago become a patchwork of scars, some hearkening back to wounds too serious even for water magic to fully erase. Pain was her oldest companion, pain meant she was still alive. That did not mean that pain was welcome.

Groaning under her breath, Karin opened her eyes and blinked away the spots as she began to scroll down a mental check list.

Arms, right arm good, left arm . . . there was a faint grinding at the wrist and flaring of red hot agony, most likely sprain or possibly broken. Head, aching and she could feel blood trickling down her face, but probing with her good hand suggested that it was just a scalp wound. Chest, it hurt to breath but not so much that she could not take deep breaths, most likely bruised ribs. Prodding with her good arm she corrected, the bottom left floating rib was likely broken. Legs, pinned, but she till had feeling in both so she could likely stand if she got free.

She appeared to be laying in what remained of the courtyard atop the Fort. All around her, pillars of dust and ash rose from cracks and holes in the walls and cobblestones, carried upwards by convection currents driven by fires within. Karin found herself propped against a pile of dirt fill from one of the wrecked walls. Her helmet lay ten mails away, a new collection of dents and scratches marring its surface, her sword-wand was nowhere in sight.

Slumping against her lower torso was the body of her familiar. d'Artagnan was still alive, anything that hadn't killed her certainly wouldn't finish him, but through their familiar bond she could sense that he was in pain, barely conscious.

The exact series of events came back to her slowly. She had been preparing for her next attack run, and then, the fireball . . . and the bomb! What had happened next?

Sir Weltall had been between her and the blast, he must have been able to cast a wind barrier, that was the only way she could be alive now. Head spinning about dizzily, she spotted the Griffin Knight's mount, dead. A wooden support beam had impaled the beast through the chest and one wing had been torn completely free from its body. Sir Weltall lay a dozen paces away, his armor half destroy and covered in his own blood. Whether he was alive or not, Karin could not say.

Trying to free herself from beneath d'Artagnan, her side welled up with pain. Feeling at it, she found that she'd been grazed by a wood splinter nearly a mail long. The wound oozed blood and without a wand, she had nothing to staunch it with.

Cursing again to herself, there was nothing else to do, she couldn't stay like this. Pushing through the pain, Karin reached up into her saddle for one of the small potion bottles. She wanted . . . she wanted the green one she recalled. One small green bulb fell into her hand, she fumbled, nearly dropping it, but managed to bring the potion to her lips. Biting off the silver cap, she wondered briefly if this was wise before swallowing the faintly bitter concoction.

No, it hadn't been wise it all. She nearly gagged as the light green liquid tried to force its way back up, coating and then numbing her throat, spreading like ice into her lungs and fire into her belly. That pain was like nothing compared to what happened as the burning sensation reached her wounds. Karin's vision went briefly white as she endured the indescribable sensation of concentrated magic churning about her insides. And this was a simple healing potion?!

When pain passed, she was overcome by a wave of nausea and then a blessedly cool numbness that at last left her able to act. She was about to try again to free herself as d'Artagnan shifted feebly, attempting to rise on mangled legs. Karin felt his second hand alarm and then her own very real first hand pain as boots cluttered beside her and a fist took hold of her hair.

"This one's still alive!" The sound was faintly muted, difficult to make out.

"Look at it, a Matincore! She's the one." A second voice answered and Karin felt herself being pulled free from beneath d'Artagnan. She struggled feebly, but between the crash and the potency of the Fae potion she hadn't the strength to fight back.

Karin was thrown to the ground, her landing followed by a kick to the stomach that was only partially blunted by her heavy armor. The blow had been delivered by a dismounted dragon knight, pacing as he stood above her. "Come on you bitch! Come on, stand and fight. Or can't you?" Karin glared up at the man forcing herself to rise only to be kicked down again.

"She's worth more to us as a prisoner, tie her up and leave her to the garrison." The man who had spoken first was in the disheveled uniform of a Mage Officer, probably the commander of the Fortress Troops. Behind him, a whole squad of equally battered looking men had assembled while a dragon flew a patrol pattern in the skies above.

The Knight swept an arm around. "What garrison? Half the garrison is gone and so is half the bloody Fort!" The man's laugh was almost hysterical. "Besides that, I watched her kill six of my squadron, tore them to shreds without mercy." Kneeling down the Knight pressed a knee hard into Karin's shoulder and drew a knife from his belt. "I'll make you suffer for every one of them!"

The foolishness of many Mages, even Mage Knights, was the assumption that an opponent without a wand was without magic, and that without magic they were helpless. This was naturally incorrect. An opponent was not helpless until they were dead.

Karin's right hand closed around the man's wrist, thumb finding the pressure point and squeezing down until her nail drew blood. Shifting her grip, she pushed upwards, turning the knife towards its wielder and up into his throat. The man gurgled.

"Then that's seven of your squadron I've killed." Karin bit out before rolling free, wincing as she bumped her cracked ribs. She was weak, shaky on her feet, and her vision wasn't at all clear at present, probably blood loss, but training filled in for conscious thought.

The Mage Officer who had urged leniency fumbled for his wand. Karin stepped forward, bringing her left arm around the man's wand arm, turning to place herself behind him with her captured knife to his throat. "Yield!"

To Karin's mild surprise, the portly officer simply chuckled. "And what do you expect them to do Madame? Let you go?" The foot soldiers and two remaining mages looked to one another and back to Karin. "Keep your weapons up men!" The Officer shouted. "And if she makes a move towards that saddle, you have my permission to fire through me if you must!"

The foot soldiers still looked doubtful, but the mages each gave a solemn nod. "Now then Madame, I must beg pardon for the late Lieutenant's brashness, he was grieving fallen comrades as he said. Why don't you put that knife down and come along peacefully. We'll have your wounds seen to and treat you as a captured Officer."

Karin pretended to listen, but she was really just buying time. One good spell, that was all she needed, she could cast a gale that would throw the occupants of the courtyard about like rag dolls. But only if she had a focus. Her saddle was a mere stones throw away along with its two spare cane-wands. Her blasted sword was still nowhere to be seen.

There were about twenty commoners, hastily armed with half pikes and a few muskets. The vulgar commoner weapons were inaccurate and not very effective against a trained mage, but they would do well enough to kill her at this range. And if the muskets did not, the two mage officers or the lone circling Dragon Knight would do her in before she could cast.

Except . . . The Dragon Knight wasn't circling any more, he was plunging. Dragons were large creatures, but deceptively light for their size, hollow boned, with sinewy builds and membranous wings. So when the out of control dragon crashed head first into the courtyard, the effect was not quite as impressive as one might expect. It was still enough to lightly shake the earth and kick up a cloud of dust.

Half of the soldiers spun to take aim at this sudden, mystifying phenomenon, the rest spared it only a nervous glance but kept their aim on Karin. Then the dust settled and Karin tightened her grip on her stolen knife.

An armored Spriggan was crouched atop the dragon's neck, spear thrust through the crest of the skull. The armor gave only vague hints as to the gender of the person underneath, but the thick braid that fell down from the back of the helmet was clue enough.

The courtyard was silent. Even the Dragon's Knight seemed dazed. He sat upright, holding the reigns as if not quite comprehending that his mount had been killed underneath him.

"Now then, the way I see it, there's two types of people in this fort right now." A voice rang out loud and clear from shadows of the hawk like helm. "There are badass warrior babes who kill dragons. And there are scared little girls who just pissed their panties. So . . . care to guess which ones you are?"

The soldiers were unsure of how to handle this new development. One of the mages had turned to face Morgiana while the other kept his wand leveled on Karin. The Mage Knight finally began to respond, groping for his sword-wand.

An arrow sank into the ground between Morgiana and Karin. Up on the walls, a Spriggan archer was readying her next shot.

One musketeer turned to face her and then dropped his musket, howling in pain as a crossbow bolt sank into his hand.

Emerging from the cover of a shadow that was cast by nothing, a second Spriggan wielding a crossbow and sword had appeared. The shadow shrank back to the walls of the fortress revealing a third and a forth Spriggan with staffs. A fifth Spriggan materialized behind one of the Mage Officers and put a dagger to his throat while still more appeared on the surrounding walls, accompanied by Salamander Mages and Lancers.

"I repeat." Morgiana said, turning her head to the mage who was still pointing his wand at her. "Which are you?"

The young Mage seemed to give the question careful consideration. "W-we're scared little girls?"

"Who?"

"P-pissed our panties." He stammered, tossing aside his wand and raising his hands in surrender.

"Good Girl!" Morgiana said with false cheer before grabbing the Mage Knight she had been ignoring and hauling him from his saddle.

The commoners followed the lead of their commanders, leaving only the befuddled Mage Officer struggling in Karin's grasp. The man spluttered as Karin left him to the Spriggans to tie up.

A Salamander mage set down beside her, offering to check her wounds and urging for her to sit down.

"Not until I know Sir Weltall's condition." Karin said, shrugging the slight Mage aside.

More Salamanders were landing nearby, one sweeping his hands over the stricken Griffin Knight, carefully removing the man's helmet and placing a hand to his throat. It was hard to see how badly injured Sir Weltall was beneath all of the blood, but the Salamander Healer said that he was still alive and went about applying healing magic to staunch the bleeding and stabilize Sir Weltall's condition.

"General Eugene." Karin nodded as she saw the familiar, massive frame of the Salamander Commander.

"Karin." Eugene replied. "We were preparing to secure the fort after your attack run. Morgiana and rest of the Kurotaka came when they saw the midair explosion."

"I see." Karin supposed she need give thanks to Morgiana for that much at least, much as it might gall her to admit it.

But that was the problem. Morgiana wasn't anywhere nearby. Having removed her helmet, the Lady of the Spriggans was looking all about the rubble filled courtyard. At last she stopped and starred at one particular pile of rubble. Falling to hands and knees she began to tear away debris, digging something loose from the shattered masonry.

Body language was always difficult to read in armor, but Karin could guess. Standing, Morgiana clutched something close to herself. It was small and black, no longer than a forearm. That was because that was exactly what it was. Still encased in its gauntlet, the lower half of the left limb of one of the Spriggan bombardiers.

The other Spriggans stopped in their work and watched as she returned, face neutral, eyes dark. "Duchess de la Valliere." Morgiana asked, coolly, formally. Karin wouldn't have thought it was the voice of the care free Lady of the Spriggans at all. "Did you . . . see what happened? Did the bomb misfire? Was the fuse lit too early?"

"Morgiana." General Eugene whispered.

Karin paused in answering. This talk of bombs, there was another one standing right in front of her, and potentially a good deal more dangerous. "It was struck by a fire spell." Karin said truthfully. "That caused it to prematurely detonate . . . I don't believe any of the bombardiers could have survived."

Eugene lowered his head solemnly. It was the expected and proper response of an officer whose soldiers had made the ultimate sacrifice.

Morgiana gave a small nod of thanks offering the remains to a young Spriggan who carefully wrapped them in his cloak. She made her way straight to the Mage Officer who Karin had briefly held hostage. In one easy motion, the Lady of the Spriggan lifted the man off of his feet by the collar of his jacket.

"Who was it? Who shot down that bomb?!" Morgiana roared. Her voice echoed against the walls of the courtyard.

The man kicked clumsily, eyes going wide with fear. "I-I don't know, we saw the ship . . . and . . . and the bombs . . ."

"It was one of the Dragon Knights." One of the other Mages said quickly. "I saw Sir Michaelson fire as the bomb fell!"

Karin didn't know any of their names, and neither did Morgiana, but the look of terror on the face of the surviving Dragon Knight told the story all too well. The man fell backwards, trying to crawl away from the Spriggan Lord, his every step met with a distance eating stride of Morgiana's own. Finally, he stopped and looked up, whimpering. It was a pathetic state for a Knight.

Morgiana stared down at him, her face a neutral mask. Brown eyes caught the light of the red moon staining them the color of blood. "Hex-kun was terrified." She said. "But he said he couldn't back down either. So he asked me what to do. I told him I would keep him safe just like the rest of the Kurotaka."

Morgiana's spear flicked out, grazing the Knight's left cheek and burying itself in the earth beside him. "Why did you have to make me break my promise?"

A burly, improbably blonde haired Spriggan spoke up. "Morgiana . . . "

"Not. Now. Drake."

"That's enough." Eugene growled, taking a step past the Spriggan soldier. "He's a soldier Morgiana. This is a battle. That's the way things go."

"You think I don't know that?" Morgiana whispered. "Damn." She withdrew her spear from the earth raising it to thrust casually. "Damn!"

"Please, Founder no! Please!" The Knight whimpered. The spear came down and planted itself just below his crotch. The Knight fainted.

"Fucking unsatisfying." Blowing out a breath, Morgiana let out an inarticulate shout."Marina, take some guys and see if you can find the rest of Hex's body. We're all going home when this is finished, all of us. Drake, Shirishi, Karma, Lark, you're all with me."

"Darling?" The Spriggan woman who had struck Karin as more proper than the rest of her ilk queried.

"There's bound to be more idiots inside and the Lancers are worthless in confined quarters." Morgiana replied as she planted her spear in the earth and drew the wicked looking knife she carried with her at all times. "Big Sis is going mole hunting, come along kids."

The other Spriggans fell in behind her, Drake departing last with a shake of his head. Karin stopped the Spriggan soldier briefly to give her to Morgiana for their timely arrival.

"Eh? It's not like we were ordered to. We just saw the explosion and came running. It only made sense Morgiana would be here." Drake shrugged and left a dismayed Karin in the company of the healers.

Clearing the fortress didn't take long after that. The small fires that had been ignited by the bombs drove the surviving soldiers to the surface. Most surrendered immediately, the rest did so after a show of force.

By the time the Griffin Knights were circling in the lightening sky, coming in to land, the last of the Fortress garrison had been marched into the courtyard and tied up. The loss of one of her soldiers had left Morgiana restless, but her blood had cooled by dawn and she had found a wall to lean against and watch the proceedings.

Sir Bjorn and another two mages busied themselves conjuring Golems to help wrestle the surviving fortress cannons up into the courtyard for retrieval while the other Knights saw to their Griffins and manned the the fort's intact land facing walls along with the Salamander Mages and Spriggans.

Karin went about seeing to her own d'Artagnan's wounds while listening to reports from the Spriggan scouts.

It appeared that at least some of the city Garrison units were now aware of their presence and were keeping away from the crippled fortress lest they be attacked. But a counterattack was still hours off at least. Much of the Garrison was now at the docks, seeing to their dead and wounded, fighting fires, and making emergency repairs. The lull in the fighting gave the Mages and their Faerie allies a chance to regroup, plan, and prepare for the fleet's arrival.

The sun rising over the eastern mist banks silhouetted sixteen sleek third and second raters of the Tristanian navy. Summoned just before the attack had begun, they had sailed close to the Isle under the cover of Darkness while the patrolling frigates were distracted by the surprise attacks.

The alarm bells that had sounded earlier were raised again, this time chiming in a different pattern to report a naval formation approaching the port.

"With this, we take the first step to securing Tristain's future." Karin said as she watched the Fleet arrive, the _Mercator_ at the lead.

La Ramee's flagship hoisted a signal demanding the surrender of the ships at the docks, but the Rebel forces seemed intent on fighting. Only five of the eleven battleships were fit to maneuver, but two more managed to take to the skies despite their broken sails, letting out their moorings and laying down additional lines so that the ships could be turned using capstans located on the docks. It seemed they intended to fight from the harbor where they would enjoy the support of the mage garrison and a few scattered coastal batteries.

It would be their funeral. Between the lost ships and the lost and crippled crew, they couldn't hope to win a fight against the numerically superior Tristanian force. Even the Royal Sovereign would be dragged down by numbers.

What had Lord Mortimer called it? Karin thought back. Local air superiority? It seemed a fitting description. The Albionian fleet outnumbered the fleet of Tristain over two to one in ships of the line. But here and now, Tristain had a decisive advantage.

She was thinking this even as the first salvos were fired from the Rebel ships. The naval battle had begun.

"Hey, Gene-kun." Morgiana asked tensely. "I'm not super up to speed on ships and all that. But shouldn't La Ramee be firing back by now?"

Karin looked quickly between the two fleets and realized that Morgiana was right. Using one of her spare wands retrieved from her saddle, she conjured up an air lens to observe the approaching Tristanian fleet. The Albionian squadrons first shots had struck the lead ships but La Ramee still wasn't firing back. Then she realized what was wrong.

"The distance." Karin whispered. "That range is much too far. It should be half again the effective range of cannons!"  
_


	65. Chapter 15 Part 4

Well, people may take exception to the fact that the situation in York isn't resolved until after the Newcastle Battle is completed. That's just how this was originally written. I've also heard a lot of complaints about cliff hangers (Which I'll admit is a serious problem with my writing style that I keep trying and failing to correct.) But the whole thing is already written -shrugs- and I do this for fun in any case.

As for the long range Cannons and people complaining about them. They were something Albion had in the LNs, provided by Lady Sheffield, and they came as just as much a surprise then as they did here. Remember, I use the LN cannon rather than the anime.

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 15 - Part 4

'This is it.' Klein thought.

The sun had risen jut a while ago, and every direction he looked, the sky was filled with white. He could see a few of the other ships of the task force, frigates, transports, and four mean looking ships of the line, but most of the fleet was lost in the clouds, hopefully still invisible to the blockade forces.

To his left, Kindjal was checking everyone's gear one last time and to his right, Enya was furiously flipping through the pages of a small, handwritten notebook of spells that she had started to keep just after Klein had joined the squad.

The deck of the Tristanian Third Rater _Vrijheid _was jam packed with people doing the same thing. Tightening knots, rechecking the fasteners and seams of their armor, examining weapons. Even Klein had felt the urge, and indulged in it, inspecting the blade of his Katana carefully for any nicks or scratches.

"Feeling nervous Enya-chan?" Calcifer asked as he took a few practice swings with his broadsword.

"Cal, if you make one more rib, so help me . . ." Kindjal warned. Enya had grown gradually more sober since setting out, and the shift in her normally spiteful demeanor had the whole squad a little on edge. Everyone except Klein.

Klein still got the shakes before a fight too. The trick was not letting anyone else see it. You had to keep your cool on the outside even while you were freaking out on the inside. If you could do that, the calm would be contagious and spread to everyone else. But it was harder today then it ever had been before. Even during the extermination of the Murderers's Guild Laughing Coffin.

Enya didn't seem to have heard the comment. She was too busy mouthing the invocations of her spells. She'd turned out to be good with her magic, really good, to the point that she'd even gotten offers to transfer to one of the mage support units during the mob extermination missions.

Klein guessed it was because she was bilingual. Enya had once explained to him that the Words of Power used to invoke spells were deliberately made difficult for native Japanese speakers to pronounce properly.

A loud whistle split across the deck and everyone stopped in their preparations, turning heads to the helm at the front of the ship. The _Vrijheid's _First Officer conferred with the Captain before turning to the gathered Fae and airmen. "Attention all hands." The First mate's voice thundered out loud and clear, amplified by his wand. "We have just been given the order to commence the operation along with the following flag message from the lead ship _Rosenkrans_. 'Tristain confides that every man will do his duty.'"

The heads of the sailors, Noble Officers, and armsmen bowed solemnly. Even the Faeries gave in to a moment of silence. They weren't doing this for Tristain, far from it. But they did have their own reasons to fight to reflect on.

'You better still be alive when I get there Kirito.' Klein thought as he hefted the still wrapped package that he had received from Liz. Dual Deciders were a reassuring weight on his back as he re-sheathed his Katana and gave Enya a small pat on the shoulder.

Having given the crew a moment to themselves, the Captain of the _Vrijheid_ called out clearly. "Rigging Officer, are preparations complete?"

Standing below the elevated helm, overseeing the masts and their attendant riggers, another Noble Officer saluted. "Aye, preparations are complete Captain!"

Nodding, the Captain turned and took firm hold of the railing. "Very well then. All hands, prepare for Cloudburst!"

"All hands, prepare for Cloudburst!" The First Officer repeated and an explosion of activity swept across the deck.

"Prepare for Cloudburst!"

"Aye! Tie down those lines and get yourselves tethered lads!"

"Cannons?"

"Secure!"

"Sails?"

"Secure!"

"Crew?

"Secure!"

Klein took a handhold beside Enya and held on tightly. Unlike the Tristanian crew, the Faeries didn't need safety lines. But from the sound of it, a Cloudburst could be a pretty rough maneuver if you weren't tied down.

Having approached under the clouds and the cover of darkness. The first the Albionian ships would know of the rather large Tristanian fleet was when their picket ships received their first soundings. The second they would know of the rather large Tristanian fleet was when those same pickets were blown from the skies.

"Finally." Enya whispered reluctantly. "Here we go."

"Ready for Cloudburst!"

Turning to a brass voice tube that was connected to the lower decks. The Captain shouted. "Chief Engineer, set the Ballasting Engine for maximum elevation. Commence Cloudburst!"

* * *

"Are you ready?" Prince Wales Tudor asked Kirito.

The Prince was still a long way from fully recovered from his brush with death. Though he was slowly regaining his strength, he now walked with the assistance of a cane to steady himself and had been urged to avoid strenuous activity by his physicians. Of course, any suggestion that he should rest or delegate some of his duties to men like Paris and Lucane was met by contempt or simply ignored outright.

"Of course not." Kirito answered as Kirito rather than 'Midori'. Thankfully, there would be no reason to keep up his disguise once the battle had begun. He was currently outfitted in a black jacket and pants with a pair of borrowed swords slung across his back. "What about you?"

Wales closed his eyes contemplatively. "I feel . . . Anxious. Like this battle has been too long in coming."

Taking a breath of the cold morning air, Kirito willed his hands to stop opening and closing. He just wanted it to be over.

For two years, Kirito had spent almost every day fighting for his life and for his freedom. Any one of those days could have been his last, a misstep, a miscalculation, or even just bad luck could have done him in despite keeping a healthy safety margin. That was simply the risk run by a solo player. He had coped by first growing numb and then accepting of the reality. Most nights he'd had no difficulty returning to his home in Aincrad, going to bed, and waking up the next morning to repeat the whole process.

The exception had been the nights before Boss raids. Those were always different, ever since the first floor. He'd never been able to stop wondering what might go wrong. On those nights, Kirito had dozed more than slept.

On the eve of battle, it had been no different. The atmosphere had been too much like the one on the 75th floor. Too much uncertainty, too many unknowns. Too many things to lose.

That night, he had lain awake with Asuna, holding her close, more than a little afraid to let go despite her assurance. He wasn't really sure whether he had fallen asleep or had only dozen into the morning hours but he had come fully alert when Lucane had roused them from bed well before dawn to prepare.

Kirito watched the Prince from the corner of his eye. They currently stood at the top of one of the citadel towers, alone save for the readying cannon crews. Asuna was making final preparations with the rest of the Knights of Blood before joining them.

"You shouldn't say it like that. You make it sound like you want to die." Kirito said.

Wales snorted. "What I want doesn't matter, only what my Kingdom needs."

Kirito sighed. He really did have a death wish. "Maybe they need their Prince."

Before Wales could answer, the tower door opened, Asuna arriving to join them, the sword Split Moon resting easily on her hip.

Maki had really done miracles. Asuna's previous coat had been damaged beyond repair, but the seamstress had managed to cannibalize most of the fabric, hemming and redesigning to make the new garment serviceable in flight.

"Sorry if I've kept you waiting. The defense squads have their orders, and Nishida and Baku have all of the civilians organized." She took a small breath. "We're as ready as we'll ever be."

"Good." Wales muttered. "It won't be long now."

Kirito reached out and took Asuna's hand gently in his own. Neither of them knew what was going to happen today. But one thing was for certain. There was going to be a battle for Newcastle. The Rebels could not tolerate the loss of face that the evacuation would cost them, and if pressed, they might attempt to storm the Fortress.

There were tens of thousands of soldiers on the siege line. Over thirty thousand commoner troops alone, and they were supported by everything from cannons and Mage Knights, to Orc shock troops bought or coerced into serving under the Rebel flag.

The defenses of Newcastle would make an assault hideously costly, which was why the Rebels had resorted to siege works, but they would not be able to withstand a committed assault. Preparations had already been made to hold the walls during the evacuation and to ensure that when the Fortress did fall, there would be nothing left for the Rebels to claim.

The trio stood in silence beneath the slowly lightening sky. The mists that spread out beneath the cliffs of Albion became tinged with a haze of gold. A few of the blockade frigates were visible, floating just above the clouds like ships at sea.

"Wales. I want to thank you again for everything." Asuna said quietly as she watched the horizon.

The Prince smiled. "It was hardly anything at all. In fact, I am the one who should be thanking you." He shook his head. "May the Founder grant us fortitude and victory today."

A sound like distant thunder peeled across the sky, once, then twice, then again and again in rapid succession. The sound of cannons. That was their signal.

Kirito and Asuna exchanged a small nod. Both Faeries spread their wings wide, Kirito summoning his own as Asuna's split into their six winged flight configuration. Without another word, they took to the skies.

* * *

Admiral Robert Blake was an old sailor. He'd fought in more than one war and had survived countless battles. He'd lead frigate squadrons and battle lines. He'd organized aerial assaults and their repulse, and conducted numerous blockades and anti-piracy missions. There were was little left in this world that could surprise him.

And so. As his officers shouted to one another, demanding explanations and calling out orders to equally at a loss airmen, Admiral Robert Blake walked down the deck of the HMS _Thunderchild_ like a madman taking a stroll while the world ended all about him.

"Four more frigates spotted south, range six leagues!" A mage watchman shouted down from the observation mast that commanded a view over the immense forward sails of the Second Rater.

"Signal flags from the _Viper_ she has engaged in battle with three frigates. Heavy damage reported in the initial broadsides." Another watchman reported from his station on the starboard side of the ship.

"Report from the lower watch nest!" The Senior watch officer called. "Eight more ships, cloud bursting from below, frigates and transports."

"Admiral, what are your orders?" Captain Stayner pressed as he chased after his Admiral, alternating between begging further instruction and shouting commands to the rest of the crew. "Bring the ship about on a North Eastern heading and signal the frigates to form into the battle line behind us."

Blake sighed inwardly. He didn't yet know who their attacker was, but rushing into the unknown would not help them. "Belay that order." He instructed.

"Sir?" Stayner asked.

"Our fleet is too spread out to properly form up, we'll only lose more ships in the confusion." Blake gestured vaguely to the East where the attacking ships had first been spotted, rising from the clouds.

The blockade's first warning had been the signal flares launched by one of the picket ships. The initial warning had been followed soon after by signals of 'ship lost'. The unknown fleet had emerged from the mists soon after, cloud bursting into sight one after the other.

After taking command of the Rebel ships, the Squadron of the Holy Navy of the Glorious Movement of the Reconquistadors, he rolled his eyes, Blake had arrayed his fleet in a standard blockade formation. This consisted of three concentric circles of ships designed to prevent a breakout, catch ships attempting a blockade run, and keep watch for approaching blockade runners and relief forces.

While suitable for isolating a port and preventing the running of supplies, the blockade formation was ill suited to the purpose of guarding against a concentrated attack by a force of equal or even smaller size. The spread out formation invited defeat in detail by a consolidated battle line. Indeed, part of the task of the pickets was to provide advanced warning so that the main force could array itself for battle in the event that a relief fleet was spotted. A task that they had performed admirably even as the first three picket ships were sunk by surprise.

The problem was, there shouldn't even have been a relief fleet. The Royalists were alone and isolated without an ally in this world. Who would come to their aid?

Certainly not Gallia. From as much as his contacts had been able to determine, Reconquista's main foreign financier had ties to powerful interests within that country. Romalia possessed a relatively advanced but small war fleet and would never risk their ships so far from home. That only realistically left Germania. Reconquista agents had confirmed that the far Northern Kingdom had been lavishing treasure on its army and navy in preparation for war.

"Flag Officer. Signal to all picket ship Captains!" Blake commanded. "You have permission to break formation to preserve your ships and the lives of your crews. All picketing ships are instructed to scatter and reform with the rest of the fleet while denying battle to the enemy." The pickets had already done their jobs and the attackers showed no inclination to chase them. There was no point in wasting good ships. "To all other ships. Captains are to make best speed directly North West or South West around Newcastle and gather above the siege encampment."

The instructions were met by silence from Captain Stayner.

Blake turned to his second in command. "Are you going to relay my orders, Captain?"

The Captain shook his head as if clearing his mind. "Sir, these orders, the blockade will be broken . . ."

"The blockade is already broken." Blake answered. "Just look again at their formations."

From their vantage on the top deck of the _Thunderchild_, they could see the bows of the enemy vessels beginning to point towards new castle as the two and half dozen ships formed into three columns, intent on forcing their way through before the blockade fleet could reform to counter attack.

"Their objective isn't primarily to engage us." Blake explained calmly. "Rather, this attack appears to be aimed solely at breaking through the blockade. We've identified transport ships, correct?"

"Aye sir, six vessels of transport draft." Captain Stayner agreed before his eyes suddenly went wide. "Six ships, that's more than enough to evacuate all of Newcastle! Admiral, our orders forbid us to allow King James or Prince Wales to slip us by. You must order an immediate attack." Stayner advised gravely.

Blake shook his head head. "No, that I will not do."

As he spoke, a frigate, the _Swiftwing _came about, caught in the path of the southernmost echelon of the attacking fleet. The frigate managed a single broadside salvo against a ship of similar size and armament before being answered by the batteries of six of her sister ships in turn. The light Albionian frigate was blasted into a wreck by the multiple salvos, two of the three foresails along her port flank splintering and falling free along with splinter nets and any airmen too slow or unlucky to cut their safety lines free in time.

"We haven't the time to form a battle line. Even if we did, we would only be able to engage one of those formations before they reach the cover of the Fortress cannons. We will withdraw for now to minimize losses and plan to catch them when they attempt to retreat." Blake informed the Captain.

Stayner was a competent hand at captaining a ship, but his selection to command the _Thunderchild_ had more to do with his stoic loyalty to the cause rather than his tactical acumen. Blake rather suspected that the Captain had been set as his watcher. Still, the advantage of an intelligent watcher was that they could be reasoned with and made to understand necessity. Stayner was torn by Blakes frank assessment. But could offer no alternatives.

"Relay orders to that effect to all ships and ready a messenger to request reinforcements from the battle line squadron at York. We will hold the attackers here until they can arrive." Blake instructed.

"Yes, Sir."

"Admiral, Captain, you should see this Sirs!" The port side watch officer beckoned them over to where he stood before an air lens aimed at the center line of ships.

Blake tried to blink away the black dots that surrounded the leading vessels and then paused as he realized that what he was seeing was not a trick of the eyes. Leaping free from the decks of the ships before taking to the skies themselves, Blake was left to wonder who could gather so many wind mages able to use flight spells.

Placing a hand on the watch officer's shoulder, he urged for the man to further resolve the image and then was surprised once more to see the shimmering wings that had been blurred out in the morning fog.

"By the founder!" Captain Stayner declared.

"Well then." Blake decided. "I suppose we can at least say who is attacking." And he found it a strange relief.

If it had been Romalia, or even Germania, the political and military implications would have been far reaching. Now at least he could rest easy knowing that Tristain was simply choosing to start the war early. Though their new allies brought their own complications.

Still at a loss for what he was seeing, Stayner turned to the Admiral for an explanation. "Sir?"

"There's no use hiding it." The word would spread soon enough to the men and the other ships. "Send signals at once to the fleet. Faeries are afield."

* * *

Setting down his razor. Sir Terrance Dunwell examined his reflection in the Mirror. There was more gray now than black in his hair and beard, and much of the black was more of a dark gray really rather than his original hair color. Perhaps Viscount Blake was right, he was indeed getting too old for this sort of of work. Fighting from atop an airborne mount was a young man's business and he hadn't been a young man for many years. His recent injury certainly was reminding him of his age.

"Let me get that for you." Scirroco offered as he fumbled at the collar of his shirt.

His familiar had scavenged a modest but flattering dress from somewhere and currently had her hair done up in a neat and professional looking bun. After sending his 'mount' off to convalesce at his home outside Londinium, he'd arranged for his 'secretary' to be sent for to assist him with light office duties while Sir Wells took up direct command of the 4th Dragon Knight Squadron. What was left of it.

He grimaced, partly from pain and partly from recollection as he thought of his run ins with the Faerie Girl and her accursed troop. Between her, her soldiers, and that monster she had summoned, the 4th Squadron had been whittled down by almost a half. They were being sent fresh recruits to restore them to full strength, but that would hardly replace the lost experience and talent that he had spent years cultivating. The formerly elite unit's cohesion was wrecked if not destroyed completely and would take months of training to fully recover.

"That dour expression. It doesn't suit you." Scirroco muttered as she finished with his shirt.

"I don't know what you mean." Dunwell answered. "My expressions are always dour. Or so you've said."

Scirroco shrugged casually, adjusting the false spectacles that she wore as an affectation. "Mmm. concentrated dour, or content dour, sometimes even happy dour."

"I didn't know there were so many kinds." He snorted. "Don't some of those contradict?"

"Only in the inferior minds of males." Scirroco said, helping him into his jacket before stepping back to look him over. "Passable." She decided. "So . . . what were you thinking about?"

"That . . . I may be getting to old for this." He admitted, watching Scirroco closely for any hint of response. She was either as apathetic to the human condition as she claimed or a marvelous actor. He wasn't sure if she hesitated or if he simply imagined it.

His father had kept a watchdog, a loyal mutt that he'd raised from a pup. The dog had lived a full and happy life and died at the grand old age of ten. His father had been sad to see it die, even a little tearful. But that was the expected order of things and before long he was back to his old self. Dunwell recalled this as he wondered if Scirroco viewed him the same way as his father had seen that dog.

"You're certainly qualified to train cavalry, and the war is going to create a demand to expand the army. It's an opportunity to mentor more people who share your ideals. Or," she observed, "I suppose you could take a less strenuous post. Garrison duty . . ."

Dunwell rolled his eyes in mortification. "Where children are sat, incompetence are stored, and real soldiers go to die. I am not that old yet." He frowned. "Actually, I'm strongly taking Viscount Blake's suggestion under advisement."

Green eyes blinked once. "The post in Londinium."

"It may be the best of leads." Dunwell confessed. "I would be working directly under Lord Cromwell and Lady Sheffield."

In all honesty he had exhausted his other options, and he wasn't the only one. Blake was at his whits end as well, as were their other contacts. The money and resources lead back to Gallia, and then nothing. There was no logic or reason by which Reconquista's benefactor could be singled out. But they had to either be an alliance of nobles or else an incredibly powerful individual to provide the resources and expertise that they did. Perhaps an Archduke or one of the Royal Family. It only made sense and was yet more proof that the Mad King's control was slipping over his own Kingdom.

"Beside, I may be able to do some more good their. I can be a another voice of reason beside Blake and Sir Bowood."

"In that Viper's nest?" Scirocco asked. "Do you perhaps have a death wish?"

He chuckled softly, starting his ribs to aching. "It is a vipers nest as you say. So fortunate that I'll have a dragon at my side."

Sciroccor opened her mouth to answer.

"Dun-well-sa-ma!" A painfully off key and sing song voice split through the camp.

Dunwell felt his mood plummet further. It was far too early in the morning to have to deal with this. To have to deal with it. To have to deal with _her_.

"Dun-well-sa-ma!" Aki cried as she skidded to a halt at the entrance to Dunwell's tent.

"Yes, what is . . . it." The Dragon Knight paused as he looked the zombie over from head to foot. "Aki, why are you soaking wet?"

The undead Faerie paused and looked down at herself. Her uniform, which had been replaced sometime in the past week, was indeed soaked down to the skin and still dripping as she stood before him.

"Oh." Aki tilted her head as she examined her arms and the way that her coat hung soppily. "Wells-sama told me that the condition of my uniform was 'disgraceful' and to go wash it right away. I didn't have any other clothes so I had to wash it myself in the river."

"I see . . . " Dunwell trailed off, staring hard at Aki.

Scirroco clicked her tongue in distaste. Remaining in her human form had given her ample time to examine Aki and the other Zombies more closely and come to a final conclusion. Something more than a mindless spell inhabited these undead. But it certainly was not the power of the Void.

Spirit magic, and very powerful at that. It was the only thing that she could think of.

Not a spell, but a lesser water spirit, a shapeless, purposeless figment of nature magic, less than a living creature, less even than a thing. Such a thing had been instilled into Aki and the other undead. Seeping into the bodies and their tissues, saturating them completely and instilling a sort of pseudo life to their flesh.

The corpses gave these lesser spirits faculty. Minds with which to think, eyes and ears to sense the world, and hands and feet in with which to touch it. All that they lacked was will. In its place they possessed unflinching Loyalty to the holder of their shared focal point.

When pressed on what this meant for combating them if the need arose, Scirroco had admitted to being at the limits of her knowledge.

Like normal zombies, fire would destroy them well enough. As an element, the intent of fire was fundamentally inimical to a water spirit and the lesser spirits inhabiting the zombies lacked the power of their elder brethren to resist. But the immolation would have to be complete lest the spirit take refuge within any remaining fluids.

A more permanent solution would be the destruction of their focus, in other words, destroying the ring worn by Lord Cromwell. Without the ring, the spirits would lose their purpose and dissipate back into shapeless nature magic.

In any case it was useful to know in the event that Lord Cromwell needed to be . . . marginalized. He found it ghoulishly amusing that having conspired to commit regicide once already, he found it all too easy to contemplate doing so again. His younger self would have been appalled.

More worrying was how Cromwell had come to possess such an artifact and what that meant about the people supporting his regime.

Dunwell was distracted from this train of thought as he heard shouts beginning to spread outside. "What's going on . . . ?" Alarm bells began to ring steadily in the distance, chiming out a pattern that started his adrenaline flowing. An attack.

"That's what I came to tell you!" Aki said brightly. "Tristain has launched a massive attack to breach the blockade of Newcastle."

Dunwell was an experienced man. There were few things that could shake him. This was one of them. "What?!"

For the first time in decades, his familiar and partner was treated to the sight of seeing him splutter in shock. "When did this start . . . how?!" No, foolish question. News must have just arrived, which meant the blockade fleet must already be engaged. He could only wish Amdiral Blake luck.

"Miss Lutece, Aki, follow." He instructed, sweeping from his tent and into the shouting and running crowds of a camp still on edge after the incursion by the demon less than a week ago.

"Aki, did you hear anything of their strength or numbers?" Dunwell asked as he walked as swiftly as his still aching body would allow. Yes, certainly getting too old for this.

Shaking her head cheerfully, her doll like smile never leaving her face, Aki replied. "I'm sorry Dunwell-sama. Wells-sama had just learned and was coming to find everyone as quickly as he could. He told me to come get you ASAP so I used my wings to fly all the way from the river!"

Dragons were already taking flight from the stables, rising and grouping into wing mate pairs before racing off in the direction of the edge of the Isle.

They found Wells and other members of the 4th Knight squadron already preparing themselves at the stables, a new arrival along with them.

"Captain!" Wells saluted smartly before relaxing as Dunwell nodded to a second man standing calmly beside a wind dragon.

"Captain Wardes." Dunwell adressed.

"Sir Dunwell." The traitorous former Viscount of Wardes replied. The man had been placed under his temporary Command after returning to the siege line. An attempt to make up for the deficiencies being felt by the 4th Squadron.

Dunwell wrinkled his nose. Though he detested himself for the hypocrisy, he found himself immediately distrustful of this man. He suspected Wardes' reasons for betraying his Sovereign were a good deal more vulgar than that of he and men like Admiral Blake. However, for the time being, their interests continued to overlap. So long as they were useful to one another, it would not be allowed to become a problem.

"Sir Wells, I've heard only of an attack. From Tristain? What have you to report?" Dunwell asked his second in command.

"Not much more." Sir Wells agreed. "But . . . The latest reports give mention of Faeries traveling with the Tristanian fleet, over a hundred of them so far."

Dunwell breathed a soft curse. Though, if Tristain of all Kingdoms was choosing to launch an attack, than the idea that the would do so with the aid of Faeries seemed hardly any more surprising.

But hundreds! He felt his mouth go dry at the thought. A single, admittedly exceptional Fae was a serious threat without wings or magic. But if these Fae were from the continent, and anything like how they were mentioned in the reports that had been trickling in, they would possess both.

"Admiral Blake is withdrawing his forces to the Siege encampment as we speak and the Dragon Knights are being ordered to sally in defense of the ships." Sir Wells finished. "I . . . took the liberty of assembling the men."

"You did well." Dunwell examined the faces of his soldiers. They were calm, serious, accepting that they might soon die in battle.

Each of them was a professional, a career soldier who he had selected to serve in the 4th squad due to their talent shared ideals. He could trust any one of them with his life. It was telling that when he had turned against Prince Edward, every man under his command had followed willingly. Today marked the end of that 4th Squadron. If the squadron even survived this fight and was not simply parted off due to losses, it would be changed beyond recognition by the new members hastily assembled to fill the gaps in their formation.

Dunwell was at a loss for what to say. For the first time he wouldn't be able to lead them in battle.

"Gentlemen."He began. "You know as much as I about the situation in the skies. More importantly, we know these skies better than any enemy of the White Isle. Sir Wells will take direct command in air and I will remain behind to coordinate our forces with Admiral Blake and the Generals. Follow your training, and you will know victory this day. 4th Squadron dismissed."

It wasn't much as speeches went, but each man gave a small nod as they passed atop their dragons. The mounts spread theirs wings, breaking into a fast lope, building speed before taking to the skies.

Captain Wardes was the last to depart, a strange look of peace spread across his face. He was no friend to Albion or Reconquista, but in this he could be relied on. And if not, the former Viscount might be powerful, but he and Scirroco had come out of more than one fight with mages more powerful than themselves.

Mounts vanishing into the sky. That left one other matter to see to. There was only one reason for Tristain to try and break the blockade around Newcastle. It had to be an effort to rescue the surviving Royalists, including King James and Prince Wales. This could not be allowed and would cost a fortune in men and ships to prevent.

They had a powerful hammer, what they needed was a scalpel. Fortunately, at Lord Cromwell's instruction, Dunwell had been crafting just such a tool since word of the Prince's survival had been received.

Dunwell took a breath and turned back to Aki. "Now then, where are the rest of your kin?"

Aki's smile widened. "Oh? Are you going to ask us to do _that_, Dunwell-sama?"

He nodded soberly and the girl's smile widened.

"Then I'm just like an Angel of God!" The girl chirped with pseudo pleasure and Dunwell shuddered softly.

'No Aki . . . You are _nothing_ like an Angel.'

* * *

Guiche de Gramont, fourth son of the celebrated General Belgen de Gramont, and a loyal agent in service to the crown of his much beloved Tristain, stood solemn and resolute guard at his post. Father himself had directed that he not yield this position until relieved, that he hold the line to the last breath!

"If you're just going to stand around, you could at least help."

Guiche tried to ignore the voice.

"Millia-chan was an earth mage too. She used to use her golems to help me with heavy lifting."

He wasn't listening. The voice wasn't there and it most certainly didn't belong to a giant . . . slug monster.

"I guess you;re just useless." The slug muttered before returning to its tinkering with one of the Eagles deck guns

Guiche deflated helplessly as the casually offered insult hit bitterly home. Useless, it was what his classmates thought of him, it was what his brothers thought of him, it was what father thought of him. That was why he'd been sent here. So that he wouldn't get in the way of the proper soldiers.

Looking around the hidden docks, other than himself and the slug monster named Kimura, there were only a handful of airmen standing about and inspecting the _Eagle_ for departure.

Theoretically, standing guard over the _Eagle_ was an incredible honor. When the time came to abandon the fortress, the last defenders would barricade themselves within the citadel and then retreat down to the hidden docks to flee aboard the frigate. The _Eagle_ was to be their escape ship, hundreds of lives depended on it.

But in fact, it was a duty that was doomed to succeed no matter what happened. There were only two ways to enter the docks, through the massive, hundred mail wide hole that bored from the surface down to the docks themselves and connected to the courtyard of the citadel. Or else via the dock entrance itself.

The top was defended by Newcastle Fortress, and as for the bottom entrance, it was all but unassailable thanks to the tremendous winds that rushed across Albion's underside. Only the most powerful and nimble of flying creatures or the most skilled of Royal Navigators could hope to approach without being battered to pieces.

The docks would be completely safe until Newcastle itself fell. And that was most likely why father had instructed him to stand guard here. Even he couldn't mess it up.

What was worse. He was almost pathetically . . . grateful for that.

Guiche was honest enough with himself most of the time, or so he thought.

He'd convinced himself that he could prove himself a man and earn honor the way that his brothers and father had, as a soldier on the battlefield, laying down his life in service to Tristain.

Now, he wasn't so sure.

He'd watched Captain Wardes nearly kill the Crown Prince of Albion before his very eyes. The _Crown_Prince, a man who had been informed was a competent triangle wind mage. And while he had done so using a wind construct, the nearly fatal blow had been delivered with a single stroke of a sword.

There had been no grand battle of clashing steel or sparking magic. It had been cold, clean, and efficient, just as his father had said it would be. And Guiche had no doubt that if the Wind Construct had not been destroyed then and their, it would have spun about and continued to kill with that same soulless efficiency until it was finally put down.

To hear it was one thing. To see it was another. Two seconds was all the time it took to be killed. Less than that even. His whole life, all seventeen years of it, could be leading up to an anonymous two second death at the point of a sword. Worse than the fear of death, was the fear of being so crushingly insignificant.

Being honest within himself. Guiche realized that he was an utter coward.

Even against mere bandits he had hidden behind the back of a girl. Certainly, Miss Midori was not a frail waif, far from it, but he hadn't known that at the time and yet had been all too willing to let her fight in his stead. What chance did he have of proving himself on a real battlefield?

He was scared out of his mind. The very idea of dying consuming him even as he sat here in the closest thing to safety in all of Newcastle.

He'd even gone so far as to swallow his pride and confide in Miss Midori the night before. She had listened as he stumbled through his explanation and his plea for help. Really, he hadn't expected anything from her. Maybe she would ignore him entirely, or maybe she would shout at him and strike him across the face as girls were want to do when faced with unreasonable demands.

Instead, he had opened his eyes as he felt a palm atop his head.

"M-Miss Midori?" Guiche stuttered.

"Don't worry about dying." She said softly, gently. Her voice was soothing and mellow and had a quality not unlike his own mother's. "You won't die tomorrow, Guiche. Asuna and I will protect everyone that we can, and they'll protect everyone they can. You'll get back to Tristain safely."

He had chuckled weakly. "I must seem pathetic to you. Begging for your help like this."

And then Midori had done something very strange. She had . . . smiled . . . not at him, but certainly for him. At any other time he would have taken it as a flirtatious invitation, but by now he was starting to recognize some of her peculiarities.

"Needing help from other people doesn't make you weaker." She shook her head. "So no, I don't think you're pathetic at all. Besides, you've helped everyone too. You warned Wales just in time, and you payed attention at York. Both of those have helped out a great deal."

Strangely he had believed her, and her words had put him at ease. "Then, thank you, Miss Midori, for . . . for your help." He stumbled out. "That is to say . . ."

Smiling again. "Good night, Guiche."

"Erm. Yes, that is . . . Goodnight . . ."

Guiche had left Midori's company as mystified then as ever before. Just what was it that allowed her to be so strong? Not just physically, he long ago decided that was an absurdity best explained by magic. What was it that made her brave? What was it that made Prince Wales brave? What made father brave? What quality was he missing that would let him face such a casual and meaningless death?

"Hey, you there!"

Guiche looked about.

"Yes you! You're not supposed to be down here. The evacuees are up on the top level."

Guiche finally realized that the shout wasn't aimed at him but at a slight figure standing at very edge of the docks where they stretched out over the tempest winds of Newcastle's underside. One of the sailors had noticed the figure, a girl, a young woman draped in a cloak who was looking about curiously as if lost.

"I'll take care of this!" Guiche shouted to the sailor.

Well, he might not have been much for bravery. But he could at least offer directions to a beautiful young woman . . . Alright, a cute young woman . . . Actually . . . that smile was very disconcerting. And now that he thought about it, how had she gotten all the way down here without him noticing. He had been paying attention, mostly.

"Miss, are you alright?" Guiche asked, noting her peculiarly pointed ears. Ah, one of the Faeries. Well, they were naturally strange, each in their own way, so who was he to say this wasn't normal behavior?

The Fae girl smiled, tilting her head to the side in a way that he thought was supposed to be charming but came off as very subtly wrong. He shook it off and reached out to grab her left wrist. "This is the military dock, you shouldn't be down here right now. Come along, I'll take you to the evacuation transports Miss . . . May I ask your name?"

"My name?" The girl asked, her smile growing wider. Guiche felt a cool, iron grip take hold of his wrist. "I'm Aki!"

"Well then Miss Aki I should . . . " Guiche trailed off as he saw a hand emerge over the edge of the deck, and then another. A pair of Faeries were hauling themselves up from below, and then another, and another. "Erm, excuse me . . . A-are you with the reinforcements?"

No, the couldn't be right. Why would reinforcing troops be arriving by the hidden dock? It was much too dangerous without Royal Navigators. This was . . . this was!

"Attack! The docks are under atta-" That was all that Guiche had a chance to shout before a bone shattering blow layed into his chest with a firm -crunch- and an explosion of pain he had never imagined possible. The noise was repeated a moment later as he bounced, almost ricocheted off the hull of the Eagle before collapsing into a pool of expanding blackness.


	66. Chapter 15 Part 5

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 15 - Part 5

"So then Terrance, what do you think of this business?" Admiral Blake asked as he studied the walls of Newcastle with the aid of an Air Lens. The Fortress was more unassailable now then ever, its walls manned and ready, and supported by an entire fleet of frigates and ships of the line hovering low over head.

Regarding the Fortress to their east, Dunwell simply shrugged. "We haven't the naval forces to contest that Tristanian fleet as well as the Fortress guns." He still couldn't quite believe that Tristain of all Kingdoms had chosen to launch this insane attack. It was an outrageous gamble given their military disposition. Perhaps Lord Cromwell had been too overzealous in backing them into a corner. "I suppose the situation favors pursuit once they break port."

Blake seemed disappointed by this assessment. "We haven't the forces to cut them off as they leave port, and fleet pursuits are always a tricky business."

"I apologize for my novice suggestion." Sir Dunwell offered dryly.

The two men stood atop the deck of the _Thunderchild_ accompanied by the ship's Captain and several other officers and messengers waiting to relay communications to the fleet and the army below.

"In any case, it seems that General Ashborough has decided to preempt us." Blake sighed, gesturing to the camp beneath them where regiments were already forming up for the assault.

As soon as the Army Commander had gotten wind of what was happening he had flown into a tirade over the whole affair. Baron Ashborough had been banking his future status on being the man to lead the final assault on Newcastle. If this siege turned into a farce, he would be humiliated beyond measure.

More importantly, at least to men like Admiral Blake and Sir Dunwell, if Prince Wales or King James were allowed to escape and survive in exile, they would be an ongoing source of instability within Albion. They were the last loose ends that had to put into order before Reconquista could fully claim the White Isle as its own.

"Admiral." Captain Stayner spoke. "I must ask what you do intend to do about this situation. The General will be expecting your support for his assault."

Blake remained silent as he continued to examine the walls. A man less familiar with the Admiral might suspect that it was a sign of senility, the mind wandering. But Dunwell suspected that the Admiral was simply appraising the situation in his own methodical way and would not be rushed.

In the end there was only one possible course of action if he wished to keep his head and prove his Loyalty to the cause of Reconquista. The Fleet would have to support the attack. The Royalists could not be allowed to flee, especially not with the open backing of Tristain. Which meant holding the Tristanian fleet here in defense of the Fortress until their own reinforcements could sally from York.

"Admiral." Captain Stayner repeated with a vague hint of impatience.

"Well, I don't suppose having Ashborough in my debt would be a bad thing." Blake bemused. "Captain Stayner."

"Yes sir!" The Captain stood attentively.

"Relay orders to the fleet. Prepare to make altitude of Forty two hundred and commence port side barrage."

"Sir?" Captain Stayner fumbled. "The fleet . . . at that altitude we won't be able to offer accurate supporting fire to the ground forces."

"Captain Stayner." Admiral Blake asked back. "If General Ashborough must assault the Fortress directly without covering fire, he will take heavy losses, correct?"

"Ah . . . Correct, Sir." Stayner nodded. "That is why we must move the fleet into range to offer support . . . "

"And so long as that Tristanian fleet is in position, what will his losses look like?" Blake pressed.

Stayner grimaced, "They would be . . . significantly heavier, Sir. Horrific."

"Overall, the fleet displacement slightly favors us now that we've consolidated our forces." Admiral Blake continued as if giving a lecture. "But if we move into the range of Newcastle's guns to support the assault directly, our own fleet will be badly mauled. So . . . We'll bring Tristain's fleet to us so that General Ashborough need suffer only heavy losses rather than horrific ones. Now then Captain Stayner, relay my orders to the fleet. We will concentrate our gunnery on the dock area. That should force them to move against us."

Eyes widening, the Captain now understood Blake's orders. "Aye, as you command, elevation to be Forty two hundred and gunnery laid in on the docks." Turning smartly on his heel, Captain Stayner departed to relay the instructions to his crew.

Standing with hands clasped behind him, Admiral Blake continued to observe the preparations below. The heavy siege cannons along the line were being pulled forward and loaded to support the assault. Each threw shot heavy enough to punch clean through the broadside of a Ship of the Line or shatter Fortress walls to powder. Now they would be aimed in hopes of breaching gates or striking Newcastle's own gun crews as they fired from atop the walls.

The objective would be much the same for Newcastle's gunners, to suppress the Siege Line's cannons and kill as many of the besieging troops as possible as they closed the distance under the cover the partially completed siege works. Be it magic or mundane, this would be a battle of thunder.

"And if you do not mind my asking, how do you rate your contingency, Terrance?" Blake asked.

Sir Dunwell frowned. "I do not have perfect faith in its success. If it succeeds in whole or in part, we will know shortly." In either case, nothing of value would be lost.

"Very good." Admiral Blake answered, rocking slightly on his heels as the _Thunderchild _began to ascend.

* * *

"The Rebels have begun their advance." Wales observed as he stood beside his father and Royal Adviser, Paris, atop the battlements of Newcastle's inner walls.

Opposite the Fortress, the cannons of the siege line had begun to fire, their first shots striking short or beaten from the sky by wind magic. That would change as the gunners adjusted their aim and Mages began to tire. In the meantime the bombardment went on, the opening shots of the Rebel assault as gates were opened along the line to allow the army that had taken refuge behind its earthen walls to advance.

It was an impressive force that the Rebels had managed to array against them, well equipped, and supported by a significant reserve of Mages and Mage Knights, along with other, less wholesome beings.

Paris, an Earth affinity Mage and never one to show much interest in the intricacies of wind magic, raised a spyglass to his eye and after a moment of examination cursed softly. "Orcs."

Wales grimaced, that was only to be expected.

Stupid, vicious, and monstrously strong, possessing an inborn ability for combat that made them a match for any five human foot soldiers. Wales couldn't fathom how exactly Lord Cromwell had managed to tame the savage deminhumans, though if the Rebels could obtain the power to direct the dead, then controlling these simple minded brutes would be trivial.

Thousands of the pig like beasts had been gathered from the continent, outfitted, and primed for use as shock troops. Their legendary vitality and the crude but effective weapons and armor issued by their Rebel masters rendered them devastatingly effective if indiscriminate shock troops.

The Orcs pored down the channels and trenches of the siege works that had been dug to close the distance between the Fortress and siege line like a river of flesh, charging eagerly ahead of the more regimented human soldiers, beady red eyes glinting with blood lust.

"It is only to be expected." Wales sighed. "They've no intention of letting this go without a fight."

Tristain has sent forces to help man the walls. Some three hundred Tristanian armsmen equipped with long muskets and enough gun crews to fully man the cannons. And that wasn't all. Perched up on the walls were nearly a hundred Faeries, Mages and melee fighters, and to their back still more Faerie healers and 'support' Mages ready to lend their aid to the battle.

"Relay the word, gunnery crews fire on my order." Wales instructed to Captain Hamilton, commander of the Fort battery.

"Aye Sir." The Captain saluted and turned to lean over the inner wall. "Gunnery Crews! Prepare to Fire on Order!"

Shot was hammered down and fuses were set, Wales waited until the last cannons were in position and then a moment longer for the hoard of pinkish-white skinned, pig-like humanoids to close the distance. "Fire!"

"Cannons Fire!"

Tongues of flame rippled down the walls of Newcastle as the cannons volleyed, sending out a cloud of grape and musket shot. Orc flesh crashed into Royalist iron and for a moment it was like an ocean wave had been struck dumb. The first wave of Orcs less fell and more disintegrated, limbs torn from their bodies, flesh pulped and riddled by ball shot. The ones behind them were less Fortunate, the fury of the attack spent on their fellows, the second wave had time to linger before dying.

The salvo would have broken the front lines of a human assault. Even if the men were well disciplined, the raw force would shatter units and leave them in disarray. But this hardly mattered to Orcs whose understanding of unit cohesion and tactics began and ended at a mob. The third and Forth waves barely slowed as they trampled over their still dying brethren and slipped and slid over the bloody mud that was all the remained of the first wave.

"Now reload the cannons and move the musketeers and Mages to hold." Wales instructed.

"Cannons back!" Captain Hamilton ordered. "Mages and musketeers at the ready!"

The cannons were withdrawn so that their crews could reload. Mages using wind cantrips to sweep away the cannon smoke. In the mean time, a hundred human and fae Mages stepped forward and over five hundred musketeers leveled their weapons over the wall. This time, Wales did not give the order, leaving it to the commanders of each section to decide when and where to shoot.

With calls of 'fire!' Muskets cracked off in groups of twenty. They lacked the visceral power of the cannons, but the effects were no less felt. Most of these men, both Royalists and Tristanians, were armsmen trained to fight from the rigging of ships, taking precise shots with their long barreled muskets in attempts to pick off officers and enemy armsmen during naval battles. Fighting on solid ground, against an enemy that was moving straight towards them, even the famous inaccuracy of the commoner weapons wasn't enough to sway their aim.

Orcs staggered and stumbled, some falling to the ground to be stampeded by the others. Over half the shots must have struck home, but unless something vital was struck, it would be unlikely to deter an Orc for long. The fire cut down many, but hardly slowed the advance as a whole.

As the armsmen were ordered to reload, the Mages stepped forward to fill the gap. Most of these men were seasoned veterans, officers of line rank or above and more than capable in using their magic to lethal effect with a minimum of efFort. Wands and staffs were readied and magic chants began to fill the air.

The effects of the spells were as varied as the Mages, but they were_ invariably_ effective. Orcs screamed as fire burst their eyes, or simply seared them to the bone, or clutched at arms as they were caught in jets of icy air, turning slowly blue and hard as the water within their flesh was frozen.

Earth turned to quicksand, or swallowed them whole, forcing the front lines to wade forward, only to fall victim to well aimed wind spears and air bullets. The magic was wielded to devastating effect, killing over half as many as the initial cannon salvo.

Still it wasn't enough, the Orcs were slowed, but not completely stopped. Even suffering horrific injury, the beasts continued to advance, the blind finding their way by sound and scent, the burned crawling forward, their charred flesh oozing blood, frozen limbs were ignored, and softened earth was slogged through like water.

Through shear physical Fortitude, the front line had managed to do what would have been impossible for all but the most disciplined and magically supported human formations, they had staggered to within a hundred mails of the outer walls.

That was when the Faeries finally stepped forward. Fae magic was something that Wales had never observed before save for Kirito's transformation spells, but already he could see several weaknesses. It was invariably slower than Halkegenian Magecraft, requiring lengthy chants that could easily be heard and interpreted by an enemy, and what was more, it was accompanied by glowing runes that gave away the caster's position and intent.

In open field battle, Wales suspected that the Fae would have pressing need to keep their casters well back and protected while using their wings to maximum effect to compensate for these flaws. However, here, casting behind the safety of the walls, the results were spectacular.

The majority of the faerie Mages on the wall were Salamanders, Fire Fae whose magic reflected their natural affinities. As the last glow of their magic runes vanished from the air, Salamanders raised their staffs as one and then struck down. The glow returned and redoubled. A wall of fire erupted and flowed outward from the battlements, washing over the Orcs.

Iron armor melted into puddles of slag and flesh was turned to fine ash. Where the persistent beasts had stood, only carbonized skin and bone was left. Every man on the walls stared in awe at the destruction and then looked to the Fae. The Salamanders themselves seemed a little dismayed by their power. The only shortcoming was that it had been obscene overkill for the Orcish dregs.

Wales turned to his father and Paris and saw both men had gone deathly pale upon seeing the destruction.

"By the Founder!" Paris stammered. "That was high line, no, mid triangle magic, at least!" And more importantly, was the unspoken fact that it had been cast by every one of the Fae Mages on the wall. Of course, so it was to be expected, Lord Mortimer had brought the best soldiers he could muster.

Even his father was impressed. "If we'd had soldiers like this before . . . "

"Then the Rebels would now be throwing Faerie warriors at our walls as well." Wales finished for his father. Military power had done them little good in the end, no matter how satisfying it was to wield armies.

"I'm pleased that you find our demonstration to be worth your time." Wales looked up at the sound of a not entirely unfamiliar voice and came face to face with an approaching Salamander and his retinue. He recognized the man almost instantly from their communcations via the Moonlight Mirror.

"Lord Mortimer." Wales' brows rose. "And General Gramont."

The two military leaders answered with a nod and a bow respectively. Behind them, Caramella looked a little embarrassed. "Yeah, so anyways, these two just showed up and said they needed to find you."

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you both in person. I must thank you for your assistance." Wales said turning to give a small bow to both men. "Without your help we would be unable to evacuate all of the injured and noncombatants."

"A trifling my Prince." General Gramont crossed his arms casually. "It is always a pleasure to be of service to the house of Tudor."

Wales nodded. It was just so. Albion and Tristain had a long history as twin Kingdoms and it had been an unexpected blessing to learn that this held true to the very end. "Now then, how may I be of service to you?"

Lord Mortimer and General Gramont exchanged glances. "Actually, it is how we can be of service. Prince Wales, we are here to collect you." Behind the Salamander Lord, Kino and Caramella both perked up noticeably, a shared look of worry crossing their faces.

Wales frowned. "I'm afraid that isn't possible, I can't abandon my men while a battle is in progress." To add emphasis he waved his hand out past the Fortress walls where the remnants of the Orc force had found shelter among the ruins of the city outside of the Fortress walls.

Perhaps two thirds of them had been annihilated in the first salvos, but it had brought the survivors to within a stones throw of the Fortress and occupied the gunnery crews and Mages while the more valuable commoner and Mage formations maneuvered into position down the narrow siege works.

The first human troops were beginning to emerge now under the cover of heavily reinforced wind magic barriers. Sapper troops with grapples and ladders, pikemen blocks issued with half pikes for close combat, sword units, and musketeer companies forming up into narrow lines of advance. Behind them came the supporting Mages and still more sappers pushing mortars into position among the ruins.

The opening shots had been exchanged, but the battle was only just beginning.

"Besides. Someone will need to lead the rearguard and hold off the Rebel forces while the evacuation is completed."

Yes, that was the way it would have to be. He had considered it carefully over the course of the past nights. The ALfheim Fae possessed wings which would allow them to escape Newcastle once the last evacuation ships departed, likewise the _Eagle_ stood ready to evacuate the last of the rearguard. But a handful would have to man the walls to the end to prevent their comrades from being cut down as they fled.

Having faced it once already, Wales found that he really was not so afraid of death anymore.

Yes, this was for the best, his Kingdom was fallen, his throne taken by a usurper, the Nobility of Albion neither wanted nor seemed to need the Royal Line. He was no use to his people, he was no use to Henrietta, it was noble, it was honorable, it was . . .

"You're a moron!"

Wales blinked, Caramella stood less than a half mail from his face, having pushed Lord Mortimer roughly aside and more importantly appeared quite a great deal more angry than usual.

"Watch your tongue when speaking to Royalty!" King James barked. "There's still time for me to have it cut from your foul mouth, girl."

"Beg pardon, King James." Caramella said with mock politeness before glaring back to Wales. "You're a moron, _your highness._ What the hell do you think all of this is?" The Faerie swordswoman threw her arms wide, gesturing to Newcastle, the Tristanians, and the Faeries. "We're getting everyone out that we can, _everyone_."

Wales gently pushed Caramella back. "It's only natural that I stay and . . ."

"What?" Caramella challenged. "Lead?!"

As if to add emphasis to her question, the cannons thundered again with their second salvo, meeting resistance in the form of the wide cast wind barriers of the approaching formations. Here and there, a barrier fell and the soldiers beneath were subjected to withering fire from the musketeers manning the walls. But they were growing closer by the minute. Soon they would be in range of the cannons of the hovering Tristanian fleet and the Rebel metal would truly be tested.

"Or are you going to fight? Because right now I think I could take you on even without this." A hand patted the hilt of her sword. Shaking her head angrily. "There is no reason for you to die here except your stupid ass death wish!"

He blinked, Caramella was shaking, trembling ever so slightly. He knew that she could be open with her feelings, but he'd never thought they would be expressed like this over him.

Caramella was . . . She was his friend, and he wanted to make her understand. There were reasons, good reasons, for why he couldn't flee. How could he explain it to her?

It was hardly a death wish. He simply couldn't run now. So many brave men, good men, had fallen in the name of the the house of Tudor, and now there seemed no chance that it would ever be restored, certainly not if he shamed himself by running. If he had not spent those lives, had in fact wasted them, the least he could do was cast his own along with them.

And besides, even if he did run, without land or title, he would be more a burden than an asset to anyone that dare harbor him. His death now might even open options to Tristain in their coming war with Albion. The Rebels had obtained what they were after here in Newcastle, Henrietta's love letter, and the daMage was already done. But there was still a chance to downplay its effects. His survival would damn Henrietta and Tristain in the eyes of Germania, but his death might absolve them. It was the only thing he could do for Henrietta, his life was the only thing he had to give.

"I've been informed that the house of Tudor is very particular about oaths and repaying debts." Lord Mortimer interrupted, breaking the stalemate between the two.

"It is." Wales agreed.

"Blood ties or not, relations between Kingdoms are always practical affairs." Mortimer mused aloud.

The Prince narrowed his eyes "What are you suggesting?"

"Payment for services rendered, Highness." The Salamander bowed his head. "Specifically, you."

Wales shook his head head, not comprehending. "Beg pardon, Lord Mortimer?"

"It's simple enough Prince Wales." General Gramont stepped in. "Tristain and Albion have a long tradition of alliance, but that doesn't mean that Tristain can do something for Albion and receive nothing in return. That's why your father agreed to give us you."

"Father?" Wales turned about, what was the meaning of this? Though his father was his sovereign and could do with his life what he would, Wales felt ever so slightly betrayed.

"The Royal Family of Albion honors its debts." King James said neutrally. "General Gramont and . . . Lord Mortimer are correct. They claim they have use for you alive and I am inclined to agree."

Wales shook his head. "And what does it make us if we bend the knee and escape? The Line of Air is tied to Albion. This is our Kingdom. To abandon it would be to brand ourselves cowards!" What right would they have to rule the White Isle then?

"You are correct my Son. Albion is _our_ Kingdom and the King must fight for her to his bitter last breath." King James turned to his son, eyes forceful in a way that they had not been in a very long time. Not since before Wales' brother Lionel had died. "But you are not yet King and Albion is not yet your Kingdom. You will obey your Father."

"I . . ." Wales took a step back. This wasn't right, he didn't have the right to do this.

"Prince Wales." Mortimer spoke one last time. "It is understandable. You don't want to send the message that the Crown of Albion will bend the knee to a usurper. But the fact of the matter is that Reconquista . . ."

"The Rebels." Wales corrected.

"_Reconquista_," Mortimer emphasized, "Will see the knee bent whether you like it or not. What sort of message do you think that will send? And what do you think will be said about your family's honor once you are gone." Mortimer snorted in disgust. "The writing of history is a privilege reserved for the living."

Wales fell silent, trying to think of a reply. He could simply refuse, but he would not disobey his father.

"You said I can be of use to you." Wales said quietly. "How?"

Mortimer nodded. "At the moment we've only the nascent beginnings of a plan. This is something that Lady Sakuya suggested, but I am inclined to agree. Our own history has seen many violent popular revolutions and the aftermath are rarely pleasant. A surviving Prince of Albion might seem an appealing alternative to Cromwell's rule in a few years time."

Anger flared up within the Prince, "You want me as your pawn." He growled softly.

"We want you as our _Knight_." Mortimer corrected. "Or if you haven't noticed, Tristain is about to go to war and needs every advantage it can get. Your survival and your reputation will be a propaganda coup that will pay dividends in the times ahead."

"He is right my son." King James added softly. "Our treacherous people might despise the house of Tudor as a whole, but you are still much beloved. If anyone can ever retake our throne, it is you. And if there is a Kingdom that we can trust to aid us, it is Tristain."

Wales bowed his head.

How could deciding to live seem so terrifying? To have his life given back to him. Yes that was it. He had grown used to thinking of the end and it had become a welcome comFort. He had known his fate with certainty. But now the world was stretching out endlessly before him once more and he longed for the confines of 'destiny'. It was ludicrous!

"I accept, Father." Wales said quietly.

The wave of relief that passed over Kino and Caramella and to a lesser extent Lord Mortimer and General Gramont was almost palpable.

"A wise decision." Lord Mortimer breathed. "Then . . ."

"What the devil are they doing?"

The interruption came from Paris who was pointing to the ships above the Rebel Camp. The lead vessel _Thunderchild_ was already lifting away along with the frigates nearest to her.

"Gaining altitude to range their cannons." Wales observed. "They'll have little luck from there." He frowned. "No, the Fortress won't be their target."

Even as he made mention, the Rebel ships were beginning to fire. Solid ball shot rained down, overshooting the walls and coming to crash haphazardly in the midst of the Fortress. Here and there, a stray shot struck one of the hovering Tristanian frigates, much of its energy spent but still splintering wood and tearing through sails. The daMage was minor, but the difference in altitude made it impossible for the Tristanian ships to fight back so long as they stayed low to support the Fortress.

"Damn." General Gramont grunted. "We knew this was likely." A troop of nearby wind Mages had diverted from casting their offensive spells and were now concentrated on deflecting stray shots falling close to the walls.

"Mind explaining for the uninitiated?" Caramella growled.

"Admiral Blake won't dare approach Newcastle and the citadel's heavy cannons." Wales elaborated as he followed his father to seek shelter in a nearby battlement. At that range cannon shot can do little to the walls, but plunging fire can still daMage the ships. The fleet commander will have to engage presently or risk heavy losses." Which meant that Tristain's frigates would not be on hand to aid Newcastle's defenders. If it was so, then they now had even less time to complete the evacuation.

"I dare say things are about to get rather more interesting." General Gramont mused. "I do believe it is best that you take your leave, Prince Wales. It wouldn't do for you to be killed by a stray cannonball of all things."

"It would not be a Princely Fate." King James agreed, one hand coming to lay on his son's shoulder. "Wales, now is your time to depart." The floor trembled as stray shot fell along the length of the wall.

"And who will lead the men? I will do as you ask and depart when it is time but . . ."

His father cut him off, speaking solemnly. "Your life is too valuable to risk at this time. If you must not feel that you are abandoning your men, go to the _Eagle_ and make her ready to depart." Then, doing something that Wales would never have expected, his father turned to Caramella.

"Dame Caramella." It was a rare thing to see his father addressing any of the Fae save for Asuna and even rarer to see him swallow his pride by addressing Caramella as a Knight. "You harbor some affection for my son. Yes?"

Caramella scratched at the back of her head, expression contemplative. "Well, he's kind of an idiot and he's got more bravery than sense. But if you're asking me to keep an eye on him, then you don't have anything to worry about."

King James let out a small breath, lips moving in words of thanks to the Founder. "Then since you seem able enough, see to it that he heads to the _Eagle_ directly and does not step from its deck until it makes port in Tristain."

Caramella gave his father the strangest look of respect as she put a hand on Wales' shoulder. "You finally tell me to do something I agree with."

"As for the walls, I'm still a fair hand as a commander." General Gramont offered. "And Mortimer here knows his Faerie troops better than anyone."

"I'll have the Dragoons and Gnomes directed to the walls." Mortimer said. "The Sylphs and Salamander Skirmishers will support the Dragon Knights in the skies."

Caramella tugged at his shoulder. "Come on Wales, it's time to go."

The Prince ignored the gentle urging, eyes never leaving his father. His father had known, he had known and not told him, why? Did he believe that he would refuse a direct order from his Sovereign? He wanted to ask, he wanted to understand.

Wales never got his answer. Instead, his Father regarded him. The Kings eyes had softened since the war hard started, loss had done that to him. The loss of his wife, the loss of his eldest sons. Placing hands on Wales' shoulders, King James spoke to him as his father rather than his King.

"Wales, this past year has been hard for you. But it has also revealed your character." His father smiled sadly. "You are a courageous man, like your father and eldest brother. But you also have your mother's and Lionel's kindness, and that is a wonderful thing." A soft breath escaped the King's lips. "I wanted your brother Edward to succeed me, but I take comFort that our line will be in good hands. Go, Wales, and one day, become a splendid King."

Gently his father pushed him away into Caramella's waiting arms. That was the last he saw of his father as he was led down from the wall and into the Citadel interior.

The strangest burning came to his eyes as he walked with the aid of his cane and Caramella's shoulder as a crutch, he rubbed at them but to no relief. He had not wept openly since . . . Not since his mother had died. She'd seemed so young, too young. When her body had been lain out in morning, golden hair shinning in the stained light of the chapel. He had been stricken by the unfairness of the world and thought he had grown numb to it. But he had been wrong.

His brothers were dead as well as his mother, and soon his father would join them while he was left behind. And even though he would live, he felt like in doing so he would have to kill a piece of himself.

Their footsteps echoed as they began to descend into the interior of the citadel. Only a handful of servants and Mages remained, gathering valuables or preparing the Fortress for destruction. Down, down, down the hundreds of mails of steps, the sounds of battle becoming lost, muted until even the cannons could not be heard. The _Eagle_ waited below, ready to receive the last defenders and carry them to safety. Wales took heart that he would at least be among the last to leave.

"You okay, Wales?" Caramella asked.

The faintest hint of bitterness touched on him at that moment, but he forced himself to smile. "Yes, of course."

The silence that followed lead him to believe Caramella was satisfied. "You're lucky Wales. Your dad's kind of an asshole, but he loves you."

Wales didn't even feel that he had the strength to grow angry at the comment. "He's thinking about the future of our line." He replied. "That too is the duty of the King of Albion."

"Maybe but . . ."

Caramella's reply was cut off by a faint trembling in the steps at their feet.

"That must have been a big one." Kino mumbled, sounding a little worried. "Hey Wales, how big do those cannons get?"

"No." Wales said softly, he pulled his arm free from Caramella, the trembling came again. "That isn't from above. Its coming from below!" Wales broke into a stumbling run, grabbing at the railing that lined the stairway to steady himself.

"Wales, hey Wales, wait!" Caramella followed after him. "Damnit, what part of 'stay safe' don't you understand?"

"The sound came from the docks. The _Eagle_." He panted.

Had there been an accident? No, his men were too disciplined. An attack! The Rebels had finally found a way through the underside winds that guarded the dock entrance. Had they sent a sacrificial squad or had they come in with Dragons?

His suspicious were born out as the sounds of fighting began to come from below. His men fighting for their lives.

If Rebels were inside the perimeter, able to strike at Newcastle's soft underbelly, the Fortress would be horribly vulnerable. They could destroy the _Eagle_ in dock and strand the last defenders, or worse, seal the citadel and turn it into a Rebel strong point inside of the Royalist lines. He explained as much to Caramella, the dual exertion of speaking and running causing him shortness of breath.

"What? Wales?!" Caramella glanced back to her partner. "Kino, get back upstairs and grab some backup. As many people as you can!"

"Caramella?" Kino stuttered.

"Now!" The Swordswoman shouted.

Kino was frozen for only a moment before spinning around and running at full tilt back up the stairs, almost falling to all fours as he went.

"You aren't going to stop me?" Wales asked.

Caramella scowled. "Stopping you would probably be more dangerous than going along with it." She fixed him with a serious stare. "But we wait for backup okay? And if something pops up, don't try anything fancy, I play tank, you back me up as the squishy caster."

Wales had heard enough of the strange jargon before to understand Caramella's intent if not the exact meaning. "As you wish."

They had just reached the landing above the docks when they found their first evidence of battle. When Wales saw it, saw him, he forgot Caramella's warning, running to the fallen Knight's side.

"Lucane!" Wales shouted as he fell to his knees. "Lucane, speak to me."

The Knight was wounded, mortally, the hand clutched over his stomach did almost nothing to stop his lifeblood from flowing out to pool beneath him as he lay against the wall.

"My Prince." Lucane almost gagged. "You mustn't be here alone. Please . . . Dame Caramella . . . take . . ."

"Silence Lucane." Wales pleaded bringing his cane-wand over the wound. There was little he could do, even a fully trained healer would likely have called it a lost cause. "Save your breath, it's going to be alright." He lied. "What happened here Lucane, who did this?"

Breathing heavily, the Knight's eyes widened. "F-faeries."

The loss of blood must have been causing him to hallucinate. "Lucane, the Fae are our allies." Wales said. "Focus your eyes on my Lucane. Who attacked you? Where are they now?"

"Wales." Caramella said, voice hollow.

"N-no. Not . . . the . . . saw her speared through . . . Faeries . . . the . . ." A hand tugged weakly at Wales' sleeve, eyes wondering off over the Prince's shoulder before finally going blank.

Slowly, Wales followed Lucane's eyes to the last thing they had seen, climbing the final steps to the landing.

"Prince Wales." The man garbed in purest white and blood red nodded solemnly before turning to the fast paling Swordswoman. "Caramella-chan, I would like my sword back."

* * *

"Aye, at the ready lads!" The Captain called from the far end of the of the line, five dragons arraying themselves along the side of the frigate to launch.

Lieutenant Sir Richard Holland gripped anxiously at the reigns as his temperamental drake, Maria, was freed from her shackles and allowed to stretch her long limbs once more. It was a necessary precaution aboard a ship as small as a frigate to keep the drakes from thrashing about while underway.

This was it, he thought, this was to be his first battle, his chance to prove himself worthy of Knighthood. It would be all of their chances, the squadron was mostly unblooded after all. Why they'd been sent here of all places was beyond him, but orders were orders, and a Knight was to consider duty above all else.

"We'll do our best out there, aye girl?" Yes, of course, they'd do their best and teach these dogs and their masters the proper order. He patted the dragon's neck, receiving a hiss of annoyance for his trouble.

Maria was a wind drake and a fine specimen of her species, but she was temperamental, and as mean as a Germnian mule, turning reluctantly when he pulled at the reigns and often deciding her own path. In all truth they were at least a year too early for this.

It only added to his anxiety, a Knight and his mount were supposed to be two parts of one whole in the skies, but he'd never quite got the hang of it. To quote his instructors, his spellwork was solid, his swordsmanship passable, and his riding sub par. Now he would need all three just to survive.

The last call was made, passing down the line.

"Sir Reginald Ready!"

"Sir Billingly Ready"

"Sir Robin Ready!"

"S-sir Holland r-ready!"

"Flight Launch!" The Captain ordered, spurring his own dragon to dive from the deck. The other riders and their drakes followed closely behind, free falling before spreading their wings.

Sir Holland formed up shakily on the wing of his senior, the flight leader, Sir Robin, who lead their two man pair. Sir Robin, two years his senior and a line Mage of respectable talent. He was nothing compared to the captain, but from Holland's perspective he was a hardened veteran.

They fell into formation with the rest of the squadron as the ships of Albion and Tristain began to slowly array themselves, turning ponderously in the winds to bring their broadside batteries to bear. The dragons banked to the side and below, they'd no business in the face of those guns.

Their battle was not to be fought on the battleline, but all around and between it, threading past ships and dodging cannon fire to wreck rigging and assault the ships from their vulnerable angles of approach. Most of all, they were to prevent their opponents from doing the same.

It had all sounded so daring when he was a boy, listening to the stories of his brothers about the great adventure that was faced by the Knights. But now that he was here, a great deal of the shine had worn off.

"Aye, Richard!"

The Young Knight looked off to his side where Sir Jacob Meinhardt grinned roguishly back at him. The sight of the other Knight relieved Holland immensely. Meinhardt had been the senior cadet and the first of their cadre to receive his promotion to Lieutenant, he was also the only reason that Holland hadn't been thrown out in their first year of training.

"Meinhardt!" He waved back. "Lets give'm hell!"

The other Knight gestured back before following after his own flight leader. Above them, the cannons began to boom. Between the noise and the thick smoke, it was not unlike flying in a sky full of thunder. Thunder that was a good deal more malicious than that thrown about by the Lord, and with particular dislike for the sort that flew about ships atop giant lizards.

Sir Robin gestured and Holland followed as they sighted on their first targets. The enemy dragons were arriving, flying their colors from tassels tied about their tails. Having approached as a squadron, they began to break into flight groups, each selecting and chasing after their own opponents. Now would begin the deadly game of attack and parry.

His heart sped and his breathing quickened, this was it, his moment of truth. He prayed, he prayed that his spells would fly true, that his enemy's would err, and that just this once, Maria would obey him without complaint.

A pair of Knights picked them as their opponents, diving from a higher altitude to gain speed.

Sir Robin lead, gathering up a wind lance and thrusting forward, Holland following suit. With a last burst of speed, both Wind Dragon's closed the range, braving the fire and wind arrows thrown by their opposites, forcing the two other Knights to parry or risk being skewered.

This was a common tactic taught to the cadets, a powerful attack to push past an opponent's guard before racing past. A wind Dragon was weakest in a frontal attack, only the very finest breeds could breath fire and not nearly with the intensity of a fire drake, instead this tactic relied on their superior speed and maneuverability to rush through and then quickly turn back, minimizing their exposure to the spells and breath weapons of their enemy while dropping into a favorable pursuit position.

At least that was the theory, Maria had her own ideas, wanting to pick her own opponent and go after Sir Robin's target instead. 'No you stupid brute!' Holland cursed, getting control and redirecting his dragon's attentions towards his own target, a fire drake and its equally incendiary rider.

Fear dropped away as years of training took hold, the skills learned in duels and tireless drill finally paying dividends now.

The less nimble fire dragon rolled and folded its wings to drop altitude, a ploy, Holland's training told him, don't follow directly, a fire dragon's wings were sturdier and could take the wrenching force of a sudden change in flight regime more readily. Instead he coaxed maria into a loop that brought him between two of the overflying ships and then back down, diving towards the ground, the gathering Reconquista army, and his opponent who had been expecting him to follow close and overshoot.

They traded shots, fire and wind crossing, narrowly missing, grazing, or parried at the last instant. Holland lacked experience and raw power, but this was a battle of speed and his youth meant his reflexes were better.

His last snap parry caught a flame whip and splashed the spell back into its caster's face. The man's helmet protected him, mostly, but the flames had come perilously close to his eyes and he was briefly dazzled if not blinded outright.

A detached portion of Holland marveled at how he reacted without thought or hesitation, confidence welling anxiously within him. He would finish this cur and go on to rejoin Sir Robin.

His next blow would finish it. Kill the rider and the dragon would rage a bit and then flee. His wind arrows formed and sped true through the air, and vanished against a translucent marble of blue-green rimmed by clouds of butterflies.

What?!

Training and instinct caused him to kick Maria into a sharp roll, likely the only thing that saved him from the green blur that shot through the air, cleanly overtaking his previous path.

He gaped as he saw it clearly, suspended in the air on four translucent green wings, it couldn't have been much larger than a child, body clad in sleek silver armor and fine mail that smoothly articulated with its slightest motion, more like a second skin than an iron shell.

In fact, that was why he first mistook it for some sort of golem, raising its sword, wings raking back as it thrust towards him again. Then, Holland found himself once more fighting for his life, this time with much less certainty.

He'd thought it nothing but a passing fancy until he'd heard of the attack on the siege line and found himself reading a very real sheet of paper listing the known abilities of the Fae.

Before that, he'd heard rumors of course, stories told by the other cadets, and then retold over and over again with ever greater embellishment. Winged creatures, Faeries, had recently come to inhabit the Kingdom of Tristain.

They were said to be fast.

He spurred Maria forward, carrying through with his dive before spreading wings to convert downward speed into forward motion. The Faerie followed, accompanied by a pair of its fellows.

So light and nimble that they could dance on the clouds.

Hastily cast wind arrows and whips were evaded, the wings of the Fae which provided lift by some magical means, vibrated and sang like the chords of a musical instrument as they moved about independently of one another.

They possessed strange and arcane magics with which they could steal victory from defeat, songs that could drive a man to battle, and enchantments the likes of which only the Elves might match.

One of his wind arrow salvos, aimed for the leader, nearly struck home before the Fae's wing man reached out, a clawed gauntlet glowing. Another barrier of light appeared and swallowed Holland's arrows whole before shooting them back towards him in a scattered cloud that forced him to guard.

Friendly, the Fae were kind to all and had a wonderful senses of humor, that was, unless you slighted them, then they could show great viciousness.

The leader raced forward, sword held in a double handed grip. Holland was overtaken and nearly swatted from his saddle as he met the blade with his own sword-wand. The Faerie sword actually cleaved into his blade, slicing through metal as if it were flesh. He chanted swiftly, his life depending on his wand work, a blast of air, powerful enough to throw a man a hundred mails or shatter stone if focused properly, struck the Faerie bodily and sent it spinning away, miraculously still holding onto its sword.

And there was one more thing, above all else. They were said to be very beautiful.

Long green hair fanned out as wings arrested the Faerie's tumble. Holland almost stopped chanting as he saw the Faerie's face, her face. Young, delicate, pale skinned, with emerald eyes, and thin, peach colored lips. Why did he notice this now?

Because war was ugly and terrible and such a creature had no business here, no business anywhere on a battlefield. But the look of hatred in those eyes was certainly familiar enough.

Soft, thin lips began to move swiftly, sword coming up in a guard before her. Her eyes never left him, even as her head bowed forward as if in prayer. Arcane runes began to glow and surround her, inscribed on the air itself.

Holland didn't know what he was seeing, but it elicited the deepest fear in him. The woman's chanting was joined by his own fevered spell as he pooled all of his strength into one last wind barrier.

The edge of her blade beginning to glow blue, the Fae woman lifted the sword high and swung down towards him. The world filled with light, and then he felt himself tumbling weightlessly through the sky, vision spinning alternately green, and brown, and blue, and then everything was replaced by black.

When Holland opened his eyes again, he was met by faces. Dirty, ill shaven, faces covered in soot and grime. Commoners, commoner soldiers, and judging by their dress, artillerymen.

"E's still alive."

"There's no way he could 'ave . . ."

"Ee is, see! Get the healer over here, quick now lads!"

Holland felt himself being lifted, head lolling back as he was carried. Behind him, he could see a mountain of flesh half buried in the mud, still smoking where skin had blackened and scales had pealed off.

Above, he saw a dragon baring the tassels of Sir Robin being torn from the sky by a trio of green winged shapes. More traveled swiftly overhead, faster than falcons but not caring one wit for the humans below, like arrogant transgressors who had been beaten back into the mud.

The ships above traded fire once more, and the Faeries began to rise, falling into formation with a pair of Tristanian Dragons as they searched for their next prey.

Holland's last thoughts as the pain began to impinge unabated upon his mind, pushing him back into the darkness, was that it was all true . . . The Children of Medb had returned at last.

* * *

Cannons thundered and orders were shouted across decks as ships maneuvered in the skies above Newcastle. The Rebels had opened fire on the Tristanian fleet almost as soon as it had come to hover over the Fortress, and Tristain's ships had risen to answer.

Tristain's battleships were concentrated near the front of the battle line, trading blows directly with Albion's two bigger ships of the line while the smaller frigates tried to stay out of the way. Although Tristain had brought twice as many battleships, the heavier cannons and trained crews of Albion's own ships went a long way towards evening the fight.

Trailing behind the battleships, frigates rose and fell through the air, jockeying for firing positions against one another, their smaller cannon working perfectly well against their own lighter construction.

Broadsides fired again and the space between the two lines of ships was briefly filled with smoke and cannonballs.

Hulls shook and masts were broken like toothpicks. Crewmen ducked low along the decks, seeking shelter from shot and the massive, man killing splinters that knifed murderously through the air. The lucky ones got back up and began reloading the cannons for the next salvo, the less lucky kicked and screamed on the deck, clutching at ruined limbs, when there was any limb left to speak of.

Four third rate ships of the line and twenty frigates against a second rater, a third rater, and the surviving twenty odd frigates of the Rebel fleet. In terms of ships, it was a nearly even match that slightly favored Albion with its larger and more powerful frigates and battleships.

But Tristain had its own secret weapons. In addition to their Dragon Knights, the fleet had a full raid team of Faeries in support.

Green wings filled the skies, darting in and out among the ships, dodging spells and cannon fire while they drove off attacks by Albion's Dragon Knights or flew on the wings of Tristain's own Dragons to guard them from attack.

The Sylphs were inexperienced, their only taste of real battle had been against Mobs and maybe a few dishonored Mages turned bandits, but they were fast learners, using their small size and greater speed and maneuverability to avoid spells that a Dragon Knight would have to parry or shield against.

Above it all, two pairs of Faerie wings, black and white were spread, cruising over the battle in search of where they were needed most.

It was strange, Asuna thought, it was strange how readily she had adapted to flying. For over a month her wings had been lifeless, near useless appendages protruding from her body like some deformity, but now they moved about at her slightest thought, like they had always been a part of her.

Kirito hovered over her, literally, a look of worry crossing his face between sweeps of the battle below. She understood, he was worried for her, seeing how their last battle in Aincrad had gone. But that was all the more reason why she had to fight. The thought of losing Kirito again was just too much. She knew he felt the same way.

Kirito's eyes stopped their tracking, he pointed down. Asuna squinted, perception ability allowing her to see across the distance and through the smoke. A formation of dragons, not just a flight pair but a group of six, had gotten underneath Tristain's fleet while the Dragon Knights and Sylphs were busy elsewhere, braving the fire of the light anti-dragon cannons to strike the exposed undersides of the ships.

The Tristanian ships carried baskets mounted with swivel guns that could hoisted over the sides of the ships to defend their lower hulls, but as Asuna watched the lead dragon belched a well aimed fireball at one of the gun nests, swallowing the basket in flames and igniting its gunpowder. The basket burst like a firecracker, taking its crew with it.

She wanted to look away, but she didn't. If she hesitated, even more people on their side would die. She didn't have that right.

An exchanged glance was all that needed to pass between her and Kirito before they dropped into a powered dive, timing it so that they passed between a pair of frigates just as their broadsides finished and cutting a straight path for the dragons.

Two of the dragons broke off from the formation, clawed forelimbs sinking into the underside of a wooden hull, their Mage riders hanging almost upside down as they began to concentrate spells at a single point near the ship's aft. Magic wards protected ships from fire and to a lesser extent were used to reinforce the hulls against blunt impacts, but that just meant Halkegenia's Mages had devised new ways to overcome their defenses.

One of the Mages directed a jet of high pressure water against the hull while the other conjured up a freezing wind, the tightly packed planks began to groan, swell, and pop. They were were going to break their way inside from underneath and let their dragons turn the ship's lower decks into a crematorium.

"Asuna!" Kirito shouted.

"Right!" Pulling out of their dive, Asuna took the lead.

The Mages were preoccupied but their dragons weren't, the flying lizards alerted their riders with hisses of alarm. Both Mages looked up, responding almost immediately. The first dropped free of the ship, his dragon's wings stretching out and beating at the air to regain altitude, the second stayed with the ship, dragon spitting fire while the Mage whipped up a wall of wind, batting the flames into an expanding dervish of high speed air and fire.

Asuna eyes narrowed as she tracked the incoming flames. It was big and scary, but that was all really, it would be a good deterrent against something the size of a dragon, but a Faerie was another matter. She found her opening and took it, punching through a gap in the wall of flames and catching the dazzled Mage by surprise.

Split Moon licked out, Asuna showered the dragon's head with a series of high speed strikes, aiming for the sensitive eyes and nostrils. The dragon roared in pain, wrenching its claws loose from the ship and falling as its rider struggled with the reigns.

By the time that the Dragon Knight had regained control, Kirito was already on him in a powered dive from above. Twin strokes of his swords bit down, slicing into the dragon's neck and severing the spine. The Dragon went limp almost at once, wings still stretched like an immense glider. It's Mage rider cut himself free of his harness, jumping clear as his partner came around to retrieve him, retreating for now to the safety of their own side of the battle line.

Asuna watched them go with a glare before turning back to Kirito and nodding in the direction of the remaining four Knights who were making their next run on one of Tristain's battleships.

Again, the Knights and their dragons aimed for the exposed anti dragon weapons first, but this time the lead fireball broke against a spherical blue barrier and a shower of butterfly-like lights. A flight of Sylphs overtook Kirito and Asuna.

Sylph Mages chanted buffs while the tanks moved forward, wielding their heavy broadswords as combination swords and Mage staffs. Magic shots were traded, Sylph and Mage barriers rising only to be beaten down by magic or brute physical force. A sylph was winged, a dragon was struck from the sky by the dazzling blue white light of a Faerie Mage's lightning spell.

The Faeries's speed and the power of their spells was balanced by the skill of the Dragons and their Riders. The Knights fired off their fast spells, wind projectiles, fireballs, and water whips conjured from thin air while their dragons were given free reign to chime in with their own breath attacks.

Through it all, Asuna and Kirito took the lead, never hesitating as they clashed with the Knights or pulled the less experienced Sylph fighters from the jaws of death.

The Knights lost one of their number, then two, the remaining two Mages chose to flee rather than press the attack. The Faeries let them go, it was too dangerous to pursue into the Rebel guns.

"Oy! Nice, nice one, we've gott'm on the ropes, eh Kirito-san!" Asuna looked over, one of the Sylphs was flying closer and waving to Kirito.

"Emshael-san." Kirito shouted in greetings. "Good to see you could make it."

The Sylph laughed as if oblivious to the danger all around them, he was either really brave or really stupid. Kirito and Asuna followed after the Sylphs as they made a temporary retreat from the front line to a ship that was standing off behind the Tristanian formation.

The frigate _Zeol _had been designated as a floating rear line base for Faerie squads to land, rest their wings, and restock supplies before returning to the front.

Faeries flitted all about the frigate like giant Wasps tending to their nest as sorties launched and returned

"Hey, the raid forces have to show the flag! Anyways, I'm just glad you're still alright." The man's green eyes flicked to Asuna. "Mind telling me who your partner is? I don't recognize those wings."

Asuna smiled as she noted the suspicious look that crossed Kirito's face. "It's nice to meet you, Emshael-san, I'm Asuna, Kirito-kun's wife."

The look on the Sylph's face was worth it. He looked back and Forth between the two, a sly grin spreading across his face. "Kirito you dog! No girls in the middle of a battle!"

"That's usually my policy." The Black Swordsman answered dryly as they came to touch down on the deck of the of _Zeol_. "But Asuna makes it pretty hard most of the time."

Where the skies around the ships seemed to be filled with giant hornets, the deck was like a beehive. While the Faeries used the frigate as their base, with a dozen Faeries on the deck at any one time, the Tristanian forces continued to utilize it as a relay, sending flag signals and messengers all about to coordinate the fleet as it traded fire with the Rebel forces. Midshipmen ran about everywhere, trying to avoid bumping into the constantly coming and going Faeries.

The steady cycling of Fae squads had given rise to a routine where returning Faeries would set down at the back of the ship and then slowly work their way forward, having cuts and burns tended to and buffs reapplied before launching from the bow.

Asuna sipped at a canteen offered by one of the ship's crew while she waited for Kirito's wings to recharge. Looking over her shoulder, that at least wasn't something she had to worry about.

They'd discovered during Asuna's flight practice that her status as a Maeve conferred its own racial bonus, just like those enjoyed by the other Faeries. Asuna seemed to be the only Fae to possess Unlimited Flight. Or at least, her wings hadn't run out of flight magic even after hovering for two hours, although her back had cramped up pretty badly afterwords.

Seeing as ALfheim had set a flight limit of ten minutes, and even in this real world, the best Fae Fliers could only manage around twenty minutes of level flight, it was an ironic parting gift from her old tormentor.

If they ever made it back home, Asuna would have to remember to thank Sugou right before she beat him to a pulp.

When it came their turn to depart, Emshael gave them both a thumbs up as he stepped from the bow, dropping past the hull and spreading his wings to chase after his squad.

"Ready? Asuna asked.

Kirito nodded and they were both about to follow after the Sylphs when shouts and whistles started to spread across the deck.

Asuna turned, her perception skill focusing her attention on the skies above them. A fracas seemed to have developed over the Tristanian battle line where a whole squadron of Albionian Dragron Knights had massed for a charge.

The dragons broke through the unprepared Faeries and Tristanian Dragon Knights, forcing them aside with wind and fire spells before the lead and flanking parts of the formation peeled back like the petals of a flower, allowing the inner half of the squadron to surge forward while they cut off pursuit.

Free to run amok along the unprotected outside of the Tristanian line, the dragons didn't bank to attack but instead picked up speed as they went into a shallow dive.

Kirito responded a heartbeat faster than her, grabbing Asuna and throwing them both from the deck.

"Incoming strike!" An officer barked. "Make ready!"

Ship's crew ran to their battle stations, turning swivel guns and cannons to face the incoming dragons while Sylphs began to chant their heavy barrier spells.

A pair of Dragon Knights and seven Faeries rose to meet the diving dragons, throwing clouds of razor edged wind shrikes and dragon's breath that was batted aside by the heavy wind barriers of the Albionian Mages. There was no time for their more powerful spells before the ten Albion Knights were diving past them, allied Dragons squawking as they beat their wings and Sylphs dodging about to avoid being swatted.

The Sylphs gave chase, the majority of Albion formation falling back to guard against them while a single dragon accelerated, taking the lead, its rider's Arm stretching out towards the top of the frigate.

Starting from aft, the deck of the _Zeol _suddenly went white and then exploded into flames. Faries were thrown off the deck or flew clear, catching a few lucky airmen knocked from the edge of the ship. The less lucky screamed all the way to ground.

Before Asuna even knew what was happening, Kirito was shielding her with his own body as the flash came again, an arc of lightning crackling across the top deck of the ship, burning sails, crewmen, and faeries, and igniting gunpowder charges left at the ready beside the cannons.

Every Faerie that hadn't already taken flight did so now, grabbing their hurt friends and dragging them along if they had to. The lightning was followed by blasts of fire, seven in rapid succession striking the deck and burning to cinders anyone unlucky enough to not be below decks or blessed with the power of flight.

Ten massive Draconic shapes rocketed past with their wings folded, followed by the Sylphs of the _Zeol's _defensive contingent who had been unable to stop them from simply ramming their way through.

The dragon's stretched their wings, banking and scattering into four well coordinated flight pairs, the remaining two flying solo. Asuna grimaced as she saw a blue scaled dragon spreading its wings. Was Sir Dunwell really that persistent? But as she looked at it, she had to correct herself, no, it wasn't the Albionian Knight. Her perception ability allowed her to focus on the wind dragon and its saddle and she let out a hiss as she identified the rider.

He must have seen her too, because at that very moment, Captain Jean Jacques Francis de Wardes met her gaze and smiled.


	67. Chapter 15 Part 6

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 15 - Part 6

Coaxing his wind dragon into a wide turn which carried him away from the scattering Faeries, former Viscoutnt Jean Jacques Francise de Wardes smiled as he caught sight of the white winged Faerie. What had he heard the other Fae call her? Ah yes, 'the Lightning Flash', a fitting epithet for his day's first real opponent. But first, Wardes glanced down to the deck of the frigate below.

Ships, warships especially, were protected by powerful fire wards, but there were limits to these spells and he had gone far past them. The top deck of the frigate was already beginning to blaze, flames licking up at the sails and consuming the signaling flags hung high up on the masts. The bodies of dead crew were scattered haphazardly, a handful of dead Fae among them. Such a pity he hadn't been able to catch more before they could take flight.

No matter, the effects had been satisfactory. The Faeries had been scattered from their nest, injured or confused, and the signaling ship that had been coordinating the Tristanian battle line had been effectively knocked out of commission. Though it would not prevent the Tristanian battle line from fighting on, it would tilt this indecisive battle slightly further in Albion's favor so long as Admiral Blake made good use of the confusion. More importantly, this strike had disrupted the Fae's blasted rotations and would buy the surviving Dragon Knights some breathing room.

Their gambit had payed off, and by risking the fire of Tristain's fleet and gathered Dragon Knights, they had managed to break through, leaving the rear lines in disarray in their wake. Most of the Fae were either fully occupied in the naval battle, or holding the walls below and only a relative handful would be able to effectively move to counter.

Judging by what Wardes had observed of the Faeries and their flight magic in Tristain, the squads that would be returning to rest would have to set down on one of the other ships to replenish their flight magic before they could move to engage while the slower Tristanian Dragon Knights were fully occupied in battle for the time being. By his judgement he and his allies would enjoy two or three minutes of time before an effective counter could be launched.

Two or three minutes, not much time, but in the skies, and for a square class mage, it was more than enough.

The main exception were the units who had just launched from the frigate and the sentry squad that Wardes and the 4th Dragon Knights had bypassed on their approach. While the others dealt with the former, breaking into midair duels as they sped off in every direction, Wardes occupied himself with the latter.

The sentries, having been caught off guard by the Dragon Knights, had raced to catch up. Seeing the attack on the signaling ship, they now appeared eager for blood, seven sets of green wings splitting off and beginning their chants.

Wardes pointed his Sword-Wand at the approaching Fae and breathed out his own spell chant. His Runic namesake erupted from the tip of his blade with impossible speed, connecting him for the briefest of moments to each of the pursuing Sylphs in turn.

Lightning magic, a specialty born of his wind affinity. Wardes knew he was not the first mage to harness the natural phenomenon, he was however one of the few who could wield it so potently.

Thunder and lightening had been studied by philosophers for centuries and hypothesis devised in hopes of emulating their destructive power with magic, but few had had much success. It all came down to control. Even a line class mage could generate a powerful ambaric charge on demand, but it required at least triangle level magic to coax the resulting lightening discharge in the desired direction, and square level magic was necessary to do so with any degree of efficiency.

Wardes had found need to revisit his early studies of fire magic and build on them to devise a way to control his spell safely. In the end it had turned out to be a simple matter in theory made complex in practice. Lightening was simply the result of two unequal ambaric potentials in close proximity, after realizing this, it had not taken long for him to realize that all that was needed to aim was to control the ambaric potential of both his wand and his target simultaneously.

It had given him a great deal of trouble until he had finally mastered it, he still had the burn scars to prove it. However, he could not be more satisfied with the results.

The lightning struck each Faerie for only a moment before traveling to the next, burning flesh and heating pieces of their armor to a cherry red. Two, the 'support mages' of the squad, were able to shield themselves with barriers they had readied in advance, but the rest dropped from the sky like swat insects, their armor offering no more protection than paper.

The squad, reduced in the blink of an eye from seven to only two, the Fae mages opted not to press the attack, instead diving downwards, following by their allied Dragons Knights, in an effort to rescue their stricken comrades.

Wardes noted with some surprise that at least one of the Fae was still conscious and attempting to arrest his fall. That shock would have killed a human, it appeared the Fae were a good deal more resilient. He would have to remember to use a stronger charge in the future. No matter, they weren't his problem now.

"Sir Wells." Wardes called over to the acting commander of the squadron and his nominal superior. "May I advise you and your men finish off the Fae before they can recover from this attack." There were still around around dozen of them floating about with varying amounts of remaining flight time. "I will concern myself with their leader."

The Dragon Knight had been left agape upon seeing the lightning spell's effects, but quickly recovered. He gave Wardes a resolute nod. "Very well, but act with caution. The White One is a formidable foe."

Wardes snorted, but of course. Sitting up in his saddle, he urged his mount to give chase, banking towards the Faerie Girl and a black clad Fae who Wardes was certain he had seen once or twice before. His smile widened, ah yes, Kirito, the boy that Princess Henrietta had once called a 'Rogue'.

Neither intended to run, in fact, both had readied their weapons. The girl drawing a pure, silver white sword, and Kirito readying a pair of hand and a half swords in a peculiar two bladed form. Good, that just meant he wouldn't need to waste time chasing them.

* * *

The Rebel army was getting closer. Four narrow columns of massed humanity advancing under the cover of mage conjured wind barriers and heavy cannon fire from the siege line. Ranks of half pikes glinted in the morning light, pikemen and musketeers marching through the dust and gun smoke beneath the shadows of the airships over head.

Between the advancing columns of foot soldiers, mage officers bellowed orders and field guns were wrestled into position to challenge Newcastle's outer wall. Teams of foot mages supported by Golems at their lead, moved forward in support of the commoner formations.

Mage Knights rode atop what might have been horses, once. The creatures were enormous, bigger than any horse had a right to be, and it was distressingly unclear whether their glistening black armor was fitted, or had simply grown over the bulging muscles and corded tendons of their bodies. Their riders were clad in enchanted armor heavy enough to deflect musket balls and wielded massive spell-lances to help breach the fortress from close range.

Ahead of the main army, commoner sappers crawled through mud and rubble or took cover in shallow indentations in the earth, doing anything to shelter themselves as they inched forward to lay smoke bombs or lob mortars over the fortress walls.

And the most insane part of it all, Klein thought, was just how little progress they were making. Slowly, almost painfully, the foot formations were closing the gap between the front of the army and the walls, but they were doing it over the broken and burned bodies of their own comrades. The columns were less lines of advance and more lines of slaughter that started in front of the siege line and ended at the walls of Newcastle.

A flight of four Cait Syth Dragoons sped in from the North, kite-like wings catching the wind as they banked. Musketeers and mages took aim and fired, their spells and musket balls bouncing off the ancient grade armor worn by both the Dragons and their riders.

Jaws opening wide, each of the Dragons spit out a jet of flame that washed over the advancing ranks and barbecued anyone unlucky enough not to be protected beneath one of the wind barriers. They were gone as fast as they had come, having pushed the front line back by another twenty meters. Another twenty meters that the Rebels would have to retake, dying the entire way.

Damn this was ugly!

"Magic Roghnú Dóiteáin Magic," Enya chanted fervently to Klein's left. "Roghnaigh Fo Ball Dóiteáin Iarratas!"

The last runes faded as an unearthly glow enveloped Enya. The Salamander Mage held her staff forward as a sphere of fire inflated from its tip before shooting off like a cannon shot to crash against the wind barriers of the approaching army. The resulting explosion was repeated again and again as the Salamanders along this section of the wall concentrated their fire on a single point. The wind barrier along a small section of the front was beaten down, exposing the soldiers taking shelter beneath to murderous fire from the armsmen and Royalist mages.

Klein whistled softly, no matter how many times he saw it, he couldn't get over just how much raw power Enya and the other mages could wield. It blew his own anemic magic skills out of the water. But it did have a price.

Enya shivered softly, the small girl looked pale, paler than usual. When the call came for the mages to fall back and the cannons to move forward, Klein placed a hand gently on Enya's shoulder to lead her away, a massive Gnome taking her place with an equally massive swivel gun taken from the deck of one of the Tristanian Frigates.

Klein waited as she drank greedily from an offered canteen. Salamanders might have liked it hot, but they still had to sweat. Casting a constant stream of fire spells while grounded was not too different from working inside an oven. Wiping her mouth with the cuff of her gold and red robes, she gave the canteen back to Klein.

"Enya-chan, are you alright?" Klein fretted.

The girl glared at him with a little of her normal contempt, but it lacked the usual bite. "I'm fine. It's just . . . In the last salvo. One of mine got through, I think."

Klein winced. It might not have made a whole lot of sense, but more than the thought of dying, the_ killing_ was taking its toll on a lot of the Faeries, and the mages were taking the worst of it.

During the SAO incident, there had been an extermination campaign against the murderers guild known as Laughing Coffin. Even hardened clearers, people who had risked their lives daily on the front lines, had been unable to bring themselves to kill.

Now, people like Enya were being asked to incinerate soldiers in mass with magic that they'd originally learned for fun.

Klein made Enya turn to face him. "Listen to me Enya-chan. Don't watch where your spells hit, okay? Just aim and fire, got it?"

She stared at him, frozen for a moment, lips parted, then she began to nod. "Okay." She breathed.

Good. Klein patted her on the shoulder. Enya was tough, a lot tougher than she thought. She could do this, and when it was over he'd make sure she worked through it.

"Klein, hey Klein!"

Klein looked up to see Kindjal waving to him and Enya from the inner wall before turning back to speak heatedly with Lord Mortimer. He and Enya traded glances as they stood back up and conjured their wings. They set down on the inner wall to find Mortimer giving instructions to the rest of their squad while General Gramont barked orders at a section of armsmen and mage officers. Mortimer hardly sparred them a glance as they arrived late.

"Dragon Knights have bypassed the battle line and committed to a deep strike. That explosion above us a moment ago was a strike on the signaling ship _Zeol_. " Mortimer nodded to Kindjal.

Klein looked up anxiously to where the airships were trading shots. One ship at the rear of Tristain's formation was billowing smoke as dark shapes swooped about and exchanged magic blasts with a handful of green winged Sylphs. Kirito was up there, somewhere, and knowing him, he and Asuna would be making a straight line for the biggest concentration of trouble.

Klein touched a hand to the parcel he still carried on his back. In the confusion, he hadn't been able to meet up with Kirito like he had planned. His squad has been assigned to support the wall, and the melee troops would be essential to hold the line when they were finally forced to fall back to the inner defenses. Klein understood this, more importantly, he knew how important it was to stick to the plan. He still had half a mind to ignore his orders and head up into the skies.

"Squad Commander Kindjal, I am re-tasking you and your skirmishers with supporting the _Zeol's_ defense squads." Mortimer said.

"Right." Kindjal grunted. The stolid man turned to his gathered squad. "Klein, Calcifer, Enya, Zippo, Yamashita, Wilder, let's go!"

"Lord Mortimer!" A short, pale, silver haired Salamander in high grade, lightweight body armor was running along the wall, followed by a straw haired boy in a beanie and suspiciously Aincrad-ish clothing.

"Lydia, what do you have to report?" Mortimer asked.

"Sir!" The swordswoman saluted. "We've reports of a suspected breach in the defenses. The hidden docks have been infiltrated."

General Gramont's head spun about. "What? The dock! Prince Wales was . . ."

"We know General, that is how we discovered the infiltration, one of his escorts is keeping watch on him as we speak." Lydia answered.

This was bad. Klein thought. He'd seen enough old movies to know how it panned out once the baddies got inside the castle defended by the plucky . . . rebels . . .

Lord Mortimer's eyes blinked rapidly in a pattern not unlike the status light on an old disk drive. "Lydia, Kindjal, I'm splitting your squads. Lydia, take the swordsmen troops and a support mage and head for the hidden docks immediately.

"Lieutenant Burroughs! Gather a musket and half pike section and go with them." General Gramont shouted to one of his subordinates.

Next, Mortimer turned to Klein. "Vice Squad Commander, take the remainder of the mages and your squad's crossbowmen and assist the airborne squads." Mortimer's eyes narrowed. "If those Dragons are left loose . . . they'll be a problem."

"You don't have to tell me twice." Klein waved for half of the squad to follow him, the elite mages of Lord Mortimer's personal guard falling in with them as they took to the skies.

"Good Luck Klein!" Enya shouted from the ground before following after Kindjal, Lydia, and the straw haired boy, staff swaying with her gate as she ran for the Citadel doors.

Yeah, 'Good luck'. They were all going to need it.

The crazy thing about this fight was that it was actually two battles going on at the same time stacked one on top of the other. Hugging the ground, the Salamanders, Cait Syth Dragoons, and other Faerie volunteers were throwing everything they had at the advancing Rebel Army. At the same time, the skies above were dominated by the Sylphs, Dragon Knights and Airships in an ongoing struggle by both sides to win enough breathing room to support their ground forces. And now Klein and his squad were punching through the invisible ceiling that separated the two very different battles, it was nuts!

"Woah!" Klein shouted as the air around him was suddenly full of hazards. A Sylph spun past, narrowly dodging a pursuing fireball and shower of Wind Arrows. A dragon shot by with its wings folded in a dive, spreading them to convert its downward flight into forward speed to keep pace with its target. A second dragon followed a moment later, its rider trading spells with two pursuing Sylph mages.

A flash of light caused Klein to turn his attention upwards to where a Sylph had gone into an uncontrolled free fall. Gritting his teeth, Klein changed course and then, cutting his upward flight, switched into a powered fall to match velocity. He grabbed the woman, holding on tightly as she slammed into him.

"Oy, are you alright?" Klein grunted as he supported the awkward and surprisingly heavy load. "Hey, speak to me!"

She was breathing at least, thankfully, though the breaths came raggedly and with disturbing spasms that caused her wings to twitch faintly. Her skin, what he could see beneath her helmet, was turning a faint shade of red like someone had tried to boil her like a lobster, or like a serious electrical shock. The flash came again accompanied by a loud buzzing -crack-, and this time Klein turned his head fast enough to just catch the afterimage of brilliant blue white light arcing between one of the dragon Knights and a fast moving Faerie.

'Asuna!' Klein nearly shouted out. But Asuna wasn't bug zapped like the unfortunate Sylph, a blue-green barrier surrounded her just in time, cast by a Sylph mage who was keeping his distance.

Asuna flourished her sword, and as the shield spell vanished, shot off after the Dragon Knight.

"Here, take her!" Klein shouted to an approaching Sylph, handing the stricken woman off. He grabbed hold of his Katana and powered up into sky, thinking fast. The Rebels had a flying bug zapper up here, and unlike their own Faerie mages, he could snap off shots like a gunslinger in an American Western. What was worse, his nine buddies were all pretty good too and were keeping the Sylph Artillery and Support Mages tied up while Mister Lightning kept the sword fighters and more nimble battle mages at bay.

"Oy, Flamberge. I want you to stick back and keep ready to buff me with shield spells, got it?" Klein shouted to the only member of Mortimer's guard squad that he knew by name. The stoic battle mage gave him a thumbs up, falling back a bit to keep his distance from the crazy lightning mage that Klein was about to pick a fight with. "Everyone else, stick together and concentrate on one dragon at a time. Focus on helping whoever needs it most."

Cries of "Affirmative!" were carried on the wind as the squad split up.

The Dragon Knight that Asuna was fighting continued to trade blows with her. That lightning spell either took a lot of juice or wasn't quite as fast firing because he'd switched over to throwing wind spears and clouds of arrows.

Asuna dodged around like a dragonfly, and at first, Klein couldn't quite believe she'd only been using her wings for a few days. She must have just been a natural. She struck, once, twice, tearing at the mage's wind barrier, on her third strike she pirouetted away like a ballerina as a black buzz saw dropped in from above, Kirito spinning down from on high to deliver a brutal double strike to the Dragon's spine.

Kirito's swords bit down, blades glinting, they struck . . . they shattered. Kirito was thrown back, staggering in midair as if he'd struck a wall.

A second mage who hadn't been there a moment ago was standing balanced on the neck of the dragon, sword held in a guard as he cast a wind barrier over himself. For one moment, Kirito was left still and exposed.

The Dragon's rider reached out in his saddle, his chant already complete. A flash of light that went on for far too long, a buzzing crack. Kirito went stiff, his wings splaying wide. He staggered, he fell.

* * *

What did you do when you woke up and you found that your best friend had become a zombie?

Caramella had had a nightmare with that premise once after an all night horror movie and cookie dough eating marathon with her dad. This . . . was nothing like that.

Arguile might have been dead, but it wasn't slowing him down much, and the big guy still had one hell of a sword arm. Caramella wasn't so much beaten back as thrown off of her feet by a blow that she was pretty sure would have a cut a normal person in two.

"D-damn!" She cursed, struggling to keep her footing.

"Why do you resist, Caramella?" Arguile asked soothingly. "Allow me to wash you of your sinful life so that Cromwell-sama can redeem you in the eyes of God and the Founder."

She parried another blow, again taking a step back. "Sorry, but I sort of like this sinful life." Eyes not leaving Arguile she shouted over her shoulder. "Wales, I can hold him here, you think you can hoof it well enough to make it back to the top of the citadel?"

"Nonsense!" Wales barked. "Am I to flee even the place I am to flee to?"

Arguile batted at Caramella again, knocking her sword out of position before delivering a punch that slammed her against the wall with a rather unpleasant popping noise. With her out of the way, he didn't even bother to retrieve his sword, making a straight line for Wales.

The Price was still too weak to fight for long and the mental and physical toll that his near death had taken on him left him struggling to conjure up enough willpower to defend himself. Arguiles first blow imparted enough force to the Prince's wind barrier to nearly brake through on its own, the second would have skewered him where he stood if Caramella hadn't managed to return to the fight.

The swordswoman plunged her sword through Arguile's back and leverage her own not inconsiderable strength, bodily lifting him onto the hilt before turning to heave him down the stairs. The meat puppet might have been able to keep fighting, but he stumbled and fell down most of the flight before catching himself near the bottom.

"Wales, this is not up for debate." Caramella growled. "He's after you!"

Now then, how the hell did she kill this thing? Cut off the head maybe? Maybe. Seemed a little cliche but it was certainly worth a shot. She just had to keep him here for a few minutes.

The Prince grit his teeth, Caramella could practically see the cogs turning, it was against every instinct in the bishounen pretty boy's head to run from a fight. Hell, that was part of what Caramella liked about the dumb sonofabitch and she wouldn't be alive today without it. But sometimes he needed to be called out before he did something stupid.

"Wales!" Caramella roared. "If you die, then every single person whose died protecting you, Lucane, Bart, everyone, it will all be for nothing! Now stop being selfish and move your Royal Ass!"

That kicked him into gear. Wales turned, reluctantly, to run, but didn't get far as two more red and white shapes came running up the stairs, first overtaking Arguile and then splitting, one slammed into Caramella while the second briefly ran along the wall before kicking off and twirling to a stop right in Wales' path.

"Oh hell, not you again!" Caramella shouted as she came face to face with a horror that she'd been hoping had been blasted to smithereens back in Wallsend.

"Hi Caramella!" Aki smiled. "That was really dirty trick you played on me back in Wallsend," she pressed forward with literally superhuman strength until Caramella's back was against the wall. "And letting those boys touch my body like that! I thought we were friends!" Aki pouted.

"Caramella." Wales called as he took a step back from his own abomination, narrowly deflecting a vicious kick using wind magic.

The second one was also female, and also dead, a lean, red head that Caramella hadn't know very well at all, though she thought the girl had probably been slightly lower level than Aki, a ninja build if she remembered right, she definitely looked and acted the part. A small silver blade licked out, slashing narrowly past Wales' left ear before returning to its owner's hand with a small tug of its attached chain.

The Zombie Ninja lashed out, again, and again, while Wales struggled to block and parry, she was going to run down his reserves of stamina real quick.

Worse, with these two in the picture, Caramella and Wales had been distracted long enough for Arguile to dust himself off.

"Really now Caramella-chan. This behavior is unbecoming of a young woman." The damn fatherly expression was really starting to piss her off. "Thankfully there is room in the Founder's heart for everyone."

"That's right." Aki chirped. "Just let us cleanse you Caramella-chan, and then we can all be together forever!"

That was it. "Piss off! No we can't!" In hindsight, a headbutt probably wasn't the best way to deal with a walking corpse, but the sound of the zombie girl's nose being crunched into a misshapen mess had been pretty satisfying. "And like hell would I spend eternity with a freak like you!"

"But I'm Aki!" The zombie chirped with obscene cheer, voice distorted as vibrant red blood spilled from her nose. Caramella barely noticed how the droplets dried and turned to dust before they even reached the floor.

"No you're not, you're just a thing that stole her corpse!" Caramella next delivered a solid kick to the girl's sternum, slamming her back into Arguile and stumbling to stand back to back with Wales.

Looking past Arguile, Caramella saw another two Zombies approaching. Not good, even if they were just 'civilians', Wales and Caramella weren't winning this fight as it was and they couldn't retreat either. Arguile was faster than Caramella, and Wales didn't have the strength to keep up.

"Any ideas?" Caramella asked, the sounds of battle were still coming from below, as fierce as ever. Someone was still alive down their, and they were putting up a fight.

"York?" Wales asked suddenly.

Caramella groaned, not this again. "York!" She nodded.

Just as Arguile lead in with his sword and the ninja build threw her chain knife once more, Caramella grabbed Wales and threw them both bodily into the wide chasm that lead from the top of Newcastle Citadel to the underside docks. Unfortunately, although Caramella had discovered how to use her wings, it turned out that they had a lot of limitations, one of them being that she couldn't use them underground. She wanted to smack whatever dumbass thought that would be an interesting game mechanic.

The fall was short, but had the potential to be a lot longer if Wales wasn't quick with his wand work. The already wide hole began to widen even further until they were falling into the docks themselves, a wooden landing sitting directly below them.

At first, Caramella didn't think they were going to make it, she was about to scream when suddenly her stomach pancaked and she felt the strange sensation of gravity going in the wrong direction.

They didn't touch down gently, Wales had waited a little too long for that. But the landing was definitely survivable, plus a few bruises, more or less.

"I've decided." Wales panted.

"Yeah, on what?" Caramella staggered to her feet.

"I will make it a Royal Decree, that we not do that again." Wales replied, receiving a bark of anxious laughter from Caramella.

"Now you're learning blondy."

The crack of muskets cut off any further conversation as they surveyed the docks. Caramella did not like what she saw. She'd wondered, she'd wondered ever since seeing Aki and realizing what she was, just how many of these things Rebels had made. Well, now she knew. Counting the five upstairs, the quartet of familiarly garbed corpses, and the dozen in varying states of being whole or physically dismembered, it looked like the Rebel Necromancers had themselves a nearly full set.

The dock was littered with bodies, most of them commoner airmen, but a few mage officers, their corpses surrounded by scorched deck planks where it appeared they'd realized too late what they were fighting. For all intents and purposes, it looked to have been a slaughter, and judging by the pile of bodies near the stairs, it had started by killing anyone who tried to sound the alarm.

The musket shots came again, and the mystery of how anyone not a mage could have survived down here revealed itself. The HMS _Eagle_ sat in her birth, sails folded against her sides and a half dozen of her gun ports propped open.

One of the zombie Fae tried to make a brake for cover only to be torn to pieces as a blast of shot was fired from one of the cannons. Other attempts to circle around were met by a similar lack of success from musket or swivel gun fire.

These things might have been powered by magic, but they seemed to need a more or less intact body to keep going. Unfortunately, they had ways to take care of that too. One of the formerly . . . dead . . . undead began to rise. Caramella saw the gaping hole in his head and grimaced. Nope, head shots weren't going to cut it.

"Okay then, brake for the _Eagle?_" Caramella asked.

"That's our best chance. So long as they don't shoot at us." Wales answered.

"Couple of faces like ours?" Caramella helped Wales to stand and then without much ceremony, hefted the crippled Prince up onto her back. "Pretty sure this wasn't what my dad was thinking when he said I'd be the one giving the piggyback rides one day."

Wales's reply was lost as she broke into a run across the docks. As soon as they were spotted, they were going to have every zombie in this place homing in on their assess.

One saw them, but before it could raise the alarm, Wales shifted his grip around Caramella's neck and severed its head with a wind whip. That should have left the way clear, but as seemed to be normal, they weren't that luck.

"Ca-ra-mel-la-chan!" Caramella felt herself paling despite the physical exertion as the sing song voice came again. "Ca-ra-mel-la-chan!" Aki was running along the opposite side of the docks, jumping from birth to birth and balancing gracefully along the _Eagle's_ moorings to cut them off before they could make it to the safety of the ship.

It was going to be close! Caramella bounded the last few steps and then leaped, she felt a hand closing around her leg. She threw Wales free before she collided with the deck herself and came rolling to a stop. She felt hands closing around her wrists and something straddling her waste.

"I gotcha!" Aki cheered childishly as the ninja build girl dropped onto the deck behind her. Aki released her grip on one of Caramella's hands just long enough to throw a punch that left her head spinning. "Caramella did a bad thing, so now she has even more reason to be cleansed." Aki said as she rose up and fished for her saber, it seemed she'd lost it in the tussle, well too bad. "Ah, Caramella-chan, let my borrow this please!" Aki said as she took Arguile's sword and raised it in preparation to run her through. "Praise be the Found-"

-BOOM-

And then Aki wasn't there anymore. Caramella blinked owlishly and then grabbed for the sword that had somehow been left behind. The Ninja girl threw her chain knife and Caramella cried out as the blade sank into her forearms before a pair of long, pale tendrils closed around the zombie, wrapping around her waist, wrists, and ankles, snaking around her neck, and coiling over her chest. Then they began to constrict.

Caramella stared, clutching at her forearm as the Zombie was lifted from the deck, struggling and kicking furiously. Rising from a deck hatch, body squeezing through a space that by all reason shouldn't have been able to hold him. The researcher turned slug type mob, Kimura, casually tossed aside a still smoking cannon with a loud -clunk- before turning his attention back to his . . . Caramella almost used the word 'Victim', but she didn't know if it applied.

Kimura regarded the zombie curiously and then began to squeeze. The girl fought back, arms straining, teeth sinking into one of the tentacles as if to bite free. But Kimura simply squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed.

The Swordswoman actually felt her stomach knot up, the girl was literally getting smaller under the tremendous pressure. Fae bodies were tough, tougher than a human by a long shot, but even they had their limits. At first, flesh resisted, bones and tissues much stronger than any humans bearing the incredible stress. Squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed. A strange organic groaning came, accompanied by crunches and pops as ribs began to crack and splinter, limbs were slowly pull free from their sockets, and soft tissues were pulped to nothing. Squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed. Then, with a final wrenching motion, Kimura squeezed just a little bit further and the thing, which by this point no more resembled a human being than a hunk of hamburger dressed in blood soaked clothing, simply broke apart, limbs, head, and torso squeezed neatly into pieces.

The slug let the bits of Zombie fall to the deck with a curious expression before looking over to Caramella and Wales. "Wales-sama." Kimura lifted the ridiculous hat that he had come to wear at all times. The gesture was so ludicrous that it almost made Caramella's mind rebel against what she'd just seen him do. It was easy to forget just how dangerous a slime type mob could be, it had been Kayaba Akihiko's own little inside joke to make them high level monsters. "Caramel-chan."

For once she was glad that the bastard was on their side, "I could kiss you right now." The slug blinked his large, golden eyes with interest. "I mean . . . I could hug you right now." Caramella corrected. "Erm, pat you on the head . . . Eh, you're alright Kimura-kun."

"I suppose I could settle for a small favor of your affections." The slug said in his maddeningly calm voice.

She snorted in disgust at the thought of what she knew he was asking for. "Not just no . . . but hell no." She replied before grabbing her sword and helping Wales to his feet.

"Caramella, this has gone on long enough!" Arguile shouted as he he finally arrived. The other Zombies had been clued in by the distraction on the top deck and the open path presented by the _Eagle's_ bow. Three more of the undead Fae were already climbing onto the deck as Kimura began to cower back down, remembering the way that Arguile had sliced him nearly to ribbons on their first day in Halkegenia.

Caramella and Wales followed close behind, Wales delivering a parting wind shrike to keep the Zombies at bay while Kimura closed and barricaded the hatch. Loud hammering came from overhead, but the Eagle's deck was built of old hardwood and magically warded. The Zombie could probably chop their way through, but that would take at least a few minutes.

"Okay." Caramella looked around. "What now."

Stupid question, now they waited. Kino would be back soon. In the mean time they just had to keep the undead hoard from bursting in and killing them all in horrific and indescribable ways.

Looking around, they were on the _Eagle's _gun deck, dimly lit by what little light was seeping in through the few open gun ports which were guarded by fully loaded cannons. There were around twenty men on the deck with them, all commoners except an officer at the back who was half unconscious from his wounds.

"Prince Wales, Sir!" One of the Sailors lowered his musket and saluted.

"Airman Evans." Wales breathed. "What is going on here.

The man grimaced. "Well we've . . . as you can see . . ."

"They hit the dock, climbed up from below like some kind of spiders." Another of the airmen said. "We didn't notice them until it was almost too late. Would have gotten the drop on all of us if not for this lad." He gestured to still form that had been lain out on a cot. Caramella recognized him, Guiche, the damn little pervert that Wardes had dragged along with him. The boy's head was swaddled in bandages and as he breathed, an unpleasant grinding noise rose and fell.

Beside the unconsciouss mage, an animal the size of a small bear huffed softly, fretting over him like a dog and its pups.

"I see." Wales said.

"So, Sir Lucane didn't sound the alarm then." Evans said.

"No." Wales answered quietly. "No he did not. But we sent Kino for reinforcements, they should be here presently."

"Aye, good lad, good lad." Evans grunted, exchanging nods with some of the other airmen. "If that's the case, we'll stop'm here sir for as long as it takes for Mister Kino to get back."

They were silenced as a regular chopping noise began above their heads. The Zombies, it seemed, had found some of the ships axes and were starting to go to work on cutting their way through the deck.

"Make ready men, load muskets." Wales ordered, we need only hold them for a brief time.

Surprisingly, the sailors seemed entirely less frightened then they should be. "Eh? Muskets?" Evans asked. "We've got something a bit better'n that. Show'm Mister Kimura."

Blinking once in the dimness, Kimura opened his slime filled mouth and extracted a quartet of ominous cylinders. It took Caramella a moment to realize that they were light deck cannons like the one Kimura had used on , that explained where he was keeping them. The muzzle of each loaded gun had been covered by a wrapped canvas sheet to prevent Kimura's slime from going down the barrel and interfering with the gunpowder.

"All that's missing," Kimura said calmly, "Is an 'Ominous Hum'."

"Mister Kimura." Wales quirked his brow. "You do know how to use those?"

"Oh yes." Kimura seemed to smile, though Caramella was never sure with him. "I've been practicing. Like I said, Cannons are cool."

The chopping was changing in pitch, the Zombies finally had the tempo and had found a weak spot in the deck. The sailors grabbed their muskets, and Kimura readied his cannons. Caramella pushed Wales back away from the noise, putting herself between him and any danger.

The axes broke through one after another, super human strength cutting a narrow hole that was then widened swiftly from the sides.

"Fire! Mister Kimura!" Wales shouted and the slug touched off the lighter of one of his cannons. The gun had been loaded with shot and the resulting blast would have made any zombie survival officianado envious. The Leading zombie was reduced to a cloud of blood red mist, and so was the next.

Muskets cracked within the confines of the deck as the airmen added their fire, aiming for heads, that seemed to slow them down at least. Each time the Zombies made some progress, Kimura fired one of his cannons, but with each shot that was one less to hold the next wave.

Finally, Kimura threw his emptied cannons at the next trio of zombies before resorting to grappling with his tentacles. Most of these people were former 'civilians' not even at Caramella's level, most were probably even lower than Kino. But weak was a relative thing, after all, Caramella was still squishy enough for a human to shank her to death for all she could beat a grown man to a pulp, and besides, the dead were fearless.

One zombie, an older, graying man, tall and wielding a spear, lopped off one of Kimura's tentacles, and when Kimura tried to grab him, his partner, a dye job thug who Caramella vaguely remembered, took off another.

The sailors were driven back losing two of their numbers to the super humanly strong freaks before Caramella managed to neutralize one via swift decapitation, locking swords with another, a black haired boy with a bowl cut. God, he couldn't have been any older than Kino.

'Don't think of him as a kid'. Caramella thought. 'Don't think of him as a kid. It's just a thing moving his corpse around.'

Wales noticed her hesitation and ended the stalemate with a swift air needle to the back of the boy's skull. And then . . . and then the zombies stopped poring in, and the sound of muskets came from on high.

Caramella looked up through the hole in the deck in time to see one of the Zombies dance as he was riddled by musket balls and then the sound of more firing, shouts, and cries to attack. Caramella nodded to Wales and some of the sailors as they booster her out through the hole. There were no Zombies left on the deck, instead, the surviving dozen undead were running across the docks to meet the reinforcements. Twenty Musketeers and twenty pikemen stood at the base of the stairs, forming an advancing human wall as a pair of mages cast behind them.

At first they beat them back, the combination of shot and magic crippling several more of the Zombies, but the mages didn't yet realize what they fighting and were slow to switch to fire or dismembering attacks. This gave the remaining undead time to close, and wherever they neared, commoner troops died.

The Zombies didn't care if they were were shot, and didn't hesitate when they were sliced or impaled. Two sacrificed themselves, taking the brunt of the commoner spears and opening the way for Arguile to slash a path through to the backpedaling musketeers.

The zombies had been smart, they'd sacrificed their weakest when they had assaulted the _Eagle_ to try and use up their shots. Now the the remaining ten were tearing their way through the shattered reinforcements like a pack of berserk velociraptors in a den of baby kittens. The mages were the only ones who could make a difference, but not without hitting their own men.

Caramella sprinted to help, not sure what she could do, but sure that she had to do something, just as the second wave leaped over the withdrawing musketeers.

Red, her first impression was that of pure redness as a small, coppery haired woman met a downward slash from Arguile and was sent stumbling back.

"Not so fast! I'll be your opponent!" The woman shouted confidently, dodging to the side and guarding again as Arguile spun about. She was followed into the breach by a pair of walking tanks wielding broadswords, and then a trio of more lightly armored fighters, a red robed girl, and . . .

Kino broke into the lead almost immediately, her deadly little partner picking his fist target, using his small size to stay low, slashing at the legs of one zombie before sending out of a fistful of throwing picks at eye level to blind another.

The other Faeries started spreading out, picking a zombie and giving it hell, the armored warriors wading into the worst of its while their leader dueled with the fallen Clearer. She was good, Caramella thought, fast and precise. She could keep up with Arguile, that was all that needed to be said.

The fight stalemated, the balance of inherited skill seemed to lay with the remaining zombies who had been among the stronger 'civilian' players while their fearlessness and ability to suffer mortal injury simply tilted the odds even more in their favor. They were still losing, but not as fast as they ought to be, thanks in large part to Arguile holding the attention of the strongest fighters and matching them all at once.

"Kino, switch!" Caramella barked as she overtook her partner, delivering a blow that severed the off arm of their own a opponent, another twenty something she'd barely met. The more she fought these things, the more she was grateful that only a few had been as sociable and outgoing as Aki. But at the same time, that just made it worse. These faces could be anyone. Good, bad, now all that they were was puppets for something evil.

The copper haired woman got the drop on Arguile, finally getting into his guard, she let out a roar of victory as her sword plunged into his chest, only realizing her mistake a moment too late. It had been a reflexive attack, and definitely a mortal blow against any living thing, but that was the problem, _living thing_.

Arguile's hand reached out, peeling her own grip from her sword. He withdrew the blade, flourishing it once experimentally, and delivered a swift strike to a joint in the woman's lightweight body armor. A gasp of pain was all that came out before he grabbed her by the head and threw her to the side.

"Commander Lydia!" One of her armored subordinates stepped between Arguile and the stricken woman, swinging his broadsword with startling speed. But again, it was like a repeat of Arguile's last fight against Sir Dunwell. He was a Clearer, and no matter how good his opponent was, the other man simply was not.

Arguile's strikes were precise and relentless, seeking the precious few weak points in the heavy armor until his blade were intercepted by Caramella's own sword.

"Hey now, how bout we leave the newbies out of this." She took her sword in a two hand group, matching Arguile who had slightly less leverage with his smaller sword and damaged chest. Even so, it took everything she had to hold him back.

Then it got easier, and easier. At first she didn't know what to make of it. An electrical rush that filled her and spread into her limbs, numbing the aches and making her whole body feel like she was back at the peak of the endorphin high rather than on the verge of burning out. Then she heard the chanting and saw the red cloaked girl standing off under the watchful guard of one of the other swordsmen.

"Hey!" Caramella shouted."Keep it up!"

The girl nodded, repeating her chant, Caramella feeling herself being hit up with another surge as the strength buff took full effect. Every muscle in her arms, shoulders, and back screamed as she matched and then overcame Arguile, driving him back. The Knight glanced to the side and then leaped back as a blade narrowly missed him.

"Kino!" Caramella shouted.

"Right!"

They launched themselves forward, Kino diving in to slash every time that Caramella guarded, Kino's attacks making openings for Caramella's thrusts. Arguile stumbled backward, losing the initiative.

Caramella's sword bit into Arguile's off arm, cutting through muscles and tendons, the limb fell limp. Kino followed, a throwing knife grazing Arguile's left eye. Slowly, they were taking their dead friend apart, muscles, tendons, joints. Every blow reduced him and his ability to fight back.

Suddenly Arguile did something unexpected, kicking out, he caught Kino, throwing the boy into Caramella, turn around for what she had done earlier with Aki. The brief opening was all the Clearer needed to stab out, solemn expression never changing.

-fwoosh-

The blast wasn't very big, but it had been right on target. Arguile staggering back as his head was consumed in flames. The Salamander mage who had buffed Caramella panted anxiously as she observed her handiwork, and then went even paler as Arguile turned to face her. Or would have, if he had much of a face left.

Caramella probably would have lost her lunch if she hadn't been in the midst of a buffed blood frenzy at that moment. The eyes, his eyes were the only thing that was mostly intact, and they tracked the girl lidless, huge, and obscene now that the skin had been burned away.

Arguile, or rather, the Zombie of Arguile, the disfigurement made it so much easier to think of it as the monster it was, made right for the girl who was now frozen in terror. Her swordsman guard got in the way and was swiftly overwhelmed, he would have been beheaded if Caramella hadn't moved just then. Blade sliding close along Arguile's own she managed to repeat the impaling strike that had thrown Lydia off guard. But now, with only one good arm, Arguile couldn't take advantage of it.

"You want your sword back? Here, take it!" Caramella screamed as she drove the undead back, slamming him into the stone wall, the Aincrad alloy and its incredibly keen blade finding a gap and sinking in. He was pinned like a bug.

"You, girl!" Caramella cried.

The Mage girl looked startled.

"You're a mage right?"

The girl's eyes widened, she nodded hesitantly.

"Then torch this thing, now!" Arguile let out an inarticulate roar.

There was a split second of indecision, just a heartbeat of hesitation before she began to chant. Casting away her staff, a light gathered in her hands, building, first glowing dull red, then orange, yellow, then white. Caramella ducked clear as the girl thrust her hands forward, a geyser of flames exploding outward and crashing into the wall. The fire didn't just burn, and hiss, it roared, and Caramella felt the heat frazzling the hairs of her neck as she continued to back away.

An unearthly scream came from the depths of the flames. Not something that could be created by a human, nor by a Faerie. Whatever it was, it scared Caramella to the bottom of her soul.

"Don't stop." Caramella shouted to the girl. "Don't stop until nothing's left!"

She didn't know if the girl heard, it didn't matter anyways. When she finally collapsed, having used up her mana, all that remained was a blackened smear of soot, cherry red stone, and the sullen, orange glowing remains of Arguile's sword.

Caraemella felt like someone had just hit a light switch as she fell to her hands and kness. It was over, she'd just seen him die, again, she'd seen a friend die again. Someone she'd come to trust. And yet, instead of grief, she felt relieved.

"Caramella?" Kino asked.

"It's alright." She breathed softly, putting a hand around him. And it was.

The sounds of fighting began to die down. The remaining Zombies were dangerous, but Arguile had been their champion, with him gone there was no one left to anchore the assault. The remaining undead exchanged glances, and then as one, the six survivors stepped off of the side of the docks, vanishing from view. Caramella doubted that they were running out of fear.

She returned her attention to her surroundings as a desperate gagging sound was followed by an unwholesome patter, the mage girl disgorging the contents of her stomach until the wooden deck. She trembled, hugging herself tightly as Caramella approached and put a hand on her shoulder. Damn, another innocent lost.

"Hey." Caramella said gently. "Thanks. You did him a kindness."

"Him . . . I killed . . ." The girl mumbled.

"He was already dead." Caramella said quickly. "That things was a Zombie, it wasn't a person. And now it's gone. Guile-kun would have thanked you. Now, what's your name?"

The girl looked up, red eyes wide and anxious. "E-Enya." She mumbled. "My name is Enya."

"Well then, Enya-chan." Caramella wiped a few flecks of vomit aside with the sleeve of her blouse. "Thanks for pulling our assess out of the fire there. That goes to all of you." Caramella looked over to where the Salamanders and Halkegenians were already starting to Triage their wounded. The badass Swordswoman who'd managed to stalemate Arguile, until her little miscalculation, was being propped up and her armor disassembled so that one of the mage officers could treat her wound.

Others were gathering up the dead. That just left one last detail to deal with. "Hey, worry about our guys later." Caramella said, receiving looks of outrage from most of the soldiers. "I mean it. These things," Caramella gestured, trying not to look at a severed head as it looked back, "I saw one get up from a gunshot wound to the head. And I had to fight one I saw get blown to hell a week ago. I think they might be able to regenerate."

"She's right." The affirmation came from Wales, who was currently limping down from the _Eagle_, followed by Kimura who was carrying something that reminded her of bagged burger meet. As it got closer, she realized it was the netted remains of the ninja girl which were feebly writhing about and beginning to stick together in a fashion that was disturbingly reminiscent of where everything ought to be. "I urge you all to take a moment and see to the disposal of these creatures. For the sake of our own comrades and for the sake of their departed souls."

The gathered soldiers nodded slowly and began to go to work at the grizzly task. Separating dismembered limbs so that they couldn't nit back together and gathering parts for incineration.

"Kino" Wales said.

"Uh, yeah?" Kino was startled from his own thoughts.

"Go back up stairs and report that the situation here is under control, but that we will need additional men to make the _Eagle_ ready for departure. Tell them that there has been heavy casualties both among the dock crew and the reinforcements and that we need additional healers to treat the wounded. We'll load the injured onto the _Eagle_ for evacuation."

"Right." Kino nodded and turned to leave before stopping. "And what about . . . that?" Kino looked a little nervously at the contents of the net.

"We'll grant the founders mercy to the rest of these things." Wales observed the next and its contents. "But we need to know more about them. We'll keep this one for now and bind it up as it heals so that it can't escape." Now then, Airman Evans, get these men back to work. I want guards posted and men on corpse duty. We shant leave our comrades behind. Now more than ever."

Wales gave a solemn nod of his head. "The _Eagle _must make ready to depart," The Prince looked around with a pained expression, "And be well done with this place."


	68. Chapter 15 Part 7

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 15 - Part 7

Being honest with himself, Kirito knew that he was terrified of pain. Having lived his entire life in the relative luxury of twenty first century Japan, he had very little stomach for discomfort in general, and his experience in SAO had done little to change that. Kayaba Akihiko had not been so much of a sadist as to devise a way for the players to experience severe pain in his death game. In fact, Kirito had been almost pathetically grateful for the painkillers and steroids that had been used in his physical therapy to help him recover and return to a relatively normal life.

That was why, as soon as the treacherous Viscount's lightning bolt struck him, Kirito's mind went blank. It was like his brain was a computer with a million I/O channels and all of them were screaming Pain at once, an indescribable burning that seemed to be incinerating every nerve in his body on a slow path to his brain. Pain that went on, and on, and on, and then suddenly, blessedly, stopped.

Kirito opened his eyes, feeling as if he were in a dream. Everything felt so detached. He was falling, plummeting towards the ground below. What had just happened?

He blinked once, twice, arms moved feebly, strangely numb. He tried to stretch his wings, but all that he felt was a tingling sensation that ran from his wing stems to the tips and then back down.

Then, suddenly he hit something that wasn't the ground.

"Kirito. Kirito!"

Kirito blinked again in a daze as he starred up at the scruffy face of a man he'd last seen weeks ago while saying goodbye to his sister. A name came to his buzzing head.

"Klein." He coughed out, feeling his tongue flop around uselessly.

"Hold on Kirito!" Klein shouted right in his face.

"Kirito!"

Something else hit him, smaller than Klein. Asuna had grabbed hold of him, peering into his eyes, lips moving wordlessly.

"Kirito-kun, say something!"

"Oy, we need a medic over here!" Klein shouted at the top of his lungs.

"N-no." Kirito groaned, gently pushing himself free of Klein, nearly falling out of the air before he spread his wings shakily. He couldn't say he was just shrugging it off, but he was still airborne and the world was making more sense by the moment. "W-what was . . . what was that?" Kirito asked as he finally regained his senses. He shook his head again, no, Wardes had mentioned something about this before, back in La Rochelle.

"That's what I want to know!" A Sylph shouted as he came gliding back to hover beside them. It was Emshael, looking a bit less confident and a lot more worried. "Damn things like a rapid fire Odin's Blast!"

Kirito looked up to the battle above them as there was another flash. The inexperienced Sylphs, who had been holding their own as skirmishers, were now being badly pressed by the combined power of Wardes and his group of Dragon Knights. Even the Salamander reinforcements weren't doing much to slow down what was essentially a mop up battle as they used their numbers and power to force the Faeries apart and chase them down.

Whenever the Salamanders and Sylphs tried to mass up to use powerful magic, Wardes would force them to defend themselves with barriers instead. And when they tried to give chase individually, or use their less powerful spells, they were blocked or intercepted by the superbly coordinated Dragon Knights.

Worse, many of the Sylphs couldn't run. With the exception of Emshael's group and Kirito, most of the Faeries had used up their flight magic returning to the _Zeol_ and hadn't been able to recharge much before the ship had been struck. They would have only a few moments before they exhausted their remaining flight power and were left exposed and vulnerable.

"Emshael, you're good with magic right? I need to borrow your sword." Kirito grimaced as he felt pain lancing through every muscle in his body. He really would have preferred the numbness from before.

"Hold on a second Kirito." Klein growled. "Are you sure you're alright, you . . ."

One look was all he had to give Klein to shut the Samurai up. They both knew what was at stake. Sometimes a boss battle hadn't gone their way, sometimes the boss had some trick up its sleeve like a health regeneration that was triggered at one percent HP, or a sudden change in attack patterns, or a new mob type revealing a special technique. When that happened, the whole tempo of a battle could be broken and everyone would be in danger.

Viscount Wardes was just such a Boss, and now they needed to take him out before he could leverage his advantage to decimate the entire Raid Force.

Above them, a Sylph mage was being pushed back within the shell of his barrier spell. The translucent marble began to shrink as it was bombarded by wind and fireballs, and then shattered as a strike of lightning cracked against it, sending the stunned Sylph falling. A Tristanian Dragon Knight swooped in at the last moment, catching the Sylph only to be pursued by two of Wardes' allies.

They needed to get the Viscount's attention, make him focus on people who could fight back effectively so that the others would have a chance to hold their own against the other Knights.

Klein stared at him for a moment longer and then nodded. "Alright, but if that's the way it's going to be, I have your back . . . and so does Liz."

Kirito blinked as he was presented with a wrapped parcel that Klein had been carrying over his shoulder. Pulling apart the canvas wrapping, Kirito looked closely at the contents and then back to Klein. They were . . .

"They're perfect." He said without a trace of doubt.

Just touching them, holding them as he slung the twin sheaths over his shoulders, he knew. A sense of deja vu overtook him as he calmly reached over to draw each blade, one obsidian black, the other silver-white. The weight was reassuring in his hands, heavy, and perfectly balanced. He felt like he was holding Elucidator and Dark Repulser once more.

"Kirito-kun, are you sure?" Asuna asked, worry glinting in her eyes.

He smiled back at her and nodded slowly. "I don't see any other choice . . . But . . . I think I have a plan."

* * *

Having joined the Griffin Knights at an exceedingly young age, and achieved the rank of Square in service to the crown of Tristain, Wardes was a self admitted perfectionist. Driven forward by dissatisfaction and even a small hint of self hatred, it had been what had motivated his ceaseless training, his perpetual study and research to expand upon and perfect his Lightening Spell and the Ubiquitous Wind that he had used so often to good effect.

That was why, as he twisted at the reigns to coax his dragon into a bank so that he could guard against the incoming black blur, he felt a mild sense of irritation to see that he had failed to finish his target as he had expected.

Quite unusual, he'd more than tripled the power of the spell. Given the effects that even a human killing burst had had on the other Fae, he would not have expected even an especially vital Faerie to regain consciousness so quickly, much less recover enough to fight.

He was still thinking this as a white blur slashed past him, forcing his Wind duplicate to expend more of its limited reserves of willpower to deflect the strike. It was followed almost immediately by a red clad faery who thrust upward with distinctively curved blade in an effort to skewer the real Wardes. His duplicate expending the last of its willpower to defend him, promptly expiring and dissolving back into the air.

Wardes met the red Faerie's reduced strike with his own sword-wand, knocking him away before switching his casting to his Wind Dragon, speeding his drake so that he could give chase to the 'Lightning Flash' and Kirito before they could escape him. The way they fought spoke of expertise that should be denied to the Faeries and Tristain.

A flight pair of Sir Wells' dragon Knights formed up on his wing, and at his direction, further enhanced their speed with wind magic in order to keep up with Wardes and the two fleeing Faeries. He had them now, they only need stop moving about for but a moment so that the could lay in his aim. They were fleeing, or rather, being driven away from the greater battle and towards a patch of open sky and isolated ground tucked off in the southern corner of the Newcastle Peninsula. The terrain here offered good cover but was too broken for a massed advance and so had largely been bypassed by both sides.

Perhaps they didn't have much flight magic left and intended to land under cover? A fireball lashed out behind him and Wardes didn't even bother to parry, simply swiping it aside with a wind blade before signaling for one of his wing mates to deal with the troublesome Red Faerie at their back.

To his front the two Faeries boosted a bit further ahead, and then the by now familiar shower of arcane runes began to encompass Kirito. Clicking his tongue, Wardes pulled back on the reigns just as the Faeries vanished into a cloud of fast expanding black smoke.

Wardes reacted immediately, pulling back. Smoke screens were not an unknown trick in the repertoire of mages and even commoners, a bit of fire and earth or wind and earth magic, or even some simple kitchen alchemy would suffice to produce a concealing cloud of smoke sufficient to cover an escape. But this was much much more than that. Wardes and his Wingmate banked up and away in an effort to climb above the screen, but they were quickly overtaken, surrounded by darkness that carried a faint stench of dry earth and brimstone.

The Dragon Knight on his wing used his wand to conjure a clear path through the cloud but was distressingly unable to find its edge. It seemed like they were trapped completely in a world of black smoke with only a weak glimmer of sunlight to convince them that they had not gone blind.

The Former Griffin Knight remained calm, an unknown spell meant trouble, but one could not plan for every eventuality and had to remain adaptable. Cautiously, he raised his sword-wand and began to take soundings, his blade trembling as the sound waves were sent out into the air and returned, coursing back into his own focused mind.

The earth below was broken and jagged, providing good cover, if they had gone to ground they would be invisible, his wingmate's dragon and the beat of its wings generated a subtle turbulence to his left. A scattering of small signatures, sparrows, hawks, and crows, as lost as Wardes in this inscrutable cloud, and . . . from above.

He pointed his wand straight up and thrust, a wind dervish parted from the tip of his blade, a whirling sphere of death for anything it touched made of flesh and bone. It cut a path into the smoke and then vanished with nary a trace nor sound to hint that it had struck home. Kirito burst through the smoke screen, followed by Asuna, both aiming to strike him down, showing a superb display of focus and coordination. If they had been Griffin Knight recruits, he would have been quite impressed by their showing and approved them immediately, however, his present circumstances demanded a more decisive response than adulation.

Swinging his sword wide, one Wardes became two once more as he utilized his second master spell, Ubiquitous Wind. Again, though he had not devised the concept of a wind construct controlled at a distance, he was one of the few to perfect its usage to the point that it could be used as more than a novelty. Wardes turned his attention to Kirito while his false self deflected the swift thrusts of the Faerie Girl's sword.

Suddenly, Warde's mount gave a violent shudder, a spray of vibrant red arced up into his vision followed by an equally red pair of wings. The Red Faerie from earlier could not suppress his grin as he parted ways with Warde's dragon. The Drake had not had so much as time to cry out as its throat had been slashed back to the bone.

Stupid. Sloppy. Wardes thought clinically. He'd allowed his success to breed overconfidence and assumed skillful novices. He'd been cautious, but unprepared for a well executed attack. Now, with his dragon dying beneath him, he had no means to maneuver in the air without diminishing his ability to fight back.

He would have to trade the advantage of the skies for the cover of the ground below. Slipping from his saddle before Kirito and the others could make another pass, Wardes slashed the straps of his harness, leaving his duplicate atop the dragon as a decoy while he fell free, using magic to sound through the smoke and determine distance to the ground and then to arrest his descent at the last possible moment.

With an acrobatic flip, he spun about in midair, landing heavily and absorbing the impact as he crouched upon the broken earth of the cliffs of Newcastle Peninsula.

For a moment there was silence save for the distant sounds of the ground and aerial battles, and then their came a shout of triumph, a roar of his wing mate's dragon cut short, a shout of surprise, and then a blood curdling scream that fell and then kept falling off behind Wardes, disappearing into the mists beneath the white isle.

He grimaced to himself, arrogance on his part had put him into a difficult situation. He was now grounded, though not far from his own lines. More importantly, he was exposed to three flying opponents and at least one of the Faeries had the ability to see through this mess of smoke, no doubt its original castor. If their intent was simply to remove him from the fight they would depart no doubt as soon as they had confirmed their kill.

Warde's smile returned. This granted an opportunity if he were only to learn from his own mistake.

* * *

"Did we get him?" Asuna asked softly.

Kirito squinted through the smoke screen that surrounded them. The smoke screen was all but impenetrable to Klein and Asuna, even with their perception skills. But Kirito could see through the spell as if it were nothing but a light fog. He'd thought Wardes might chase them if they moved away from the main battle and their own supporting forces and it seemed he'd been proven right. Wardes had probably seen it as a golden opportunity to do unto the Faeries and their allies what Kirito, Klein, and Asuna had planned to do to him.

Having knocked Warde's dragon out of commission and then turned back to eliminate the second rider, Kirito now turned his attention to confirming the Viscount's survival or demise.

"I can see his dragon, it crashed near the cliffs." Kirito said cautiously, then squinting a little harder. "There's a body but I can't tell if he's alive or dead."

"Should we take a closer look?" Klein asked, it was less a suggestion and more idle musing. All three had been clearers in Aincrad from the very earliest floors to the final battle on the 75th. They hadn't survive that long by getting overconfident.

Kirito sighed. "He might really have fallen, in which case he'd be valuable as a prisoner if he's still alive. I'm sure Tristain would want to interrogate him to find out about other traitors, but . . ."

"It's probably not him." Asuna finished.

Klein and Kirito nodded in agreement, it was too convenient. Warde's was a skilled mage, and he'd already demonstrated his ability to use magic to duplicate himself. The chance that this was simply a Wind Clone playing dead was very high. In which case, getting close would be the same as walking into a trap. At the same time, Wardes must have known that.

"Well, he's finished one way or another." Asuna said. "The ships will be done loading soon, we should get back to the battle and find someplace safe to set . . ." Asuna stopped in mid sentence, suddenly going stiff at the same time as Kirito and Klein. All three were on alert, senses dialed up to their maximum.

It was partly their perception skill, and partly paranoia honed through two years of fighting and surviving in Aincrad. Some niggling bit of sensory data, digested by their subconscious minds but not yet worked to the surface, had put them all on alert. Intuition was proven correct a moment later as a shower of wind arrows sprayed up through the smoke screen.

The Three Faeries responded almost immediately, scattering and pulling back. As expected, Wardes had used his wind dummy as a decoy while the real Wardes had taken advantage of the broken terrain to sneak close. If he was near enough to see them, they needed to keep moving so that he couldn't hit them with his lightning magic. Once that spell left his blade, it was all over.

Klein started muttering a magic chant under his breath, a fist sized fireball formed in his off hand and rocketed down towards the source of the wind arrows. An instant later the smoke beneath them parted to reveal the broken earth and Wardes hurling his next attack.

Something was wrong, why bother with this? "Klein, Asuna, that's enough we'll . . ."

It came from the smoke above them. Stupidly, Kirito had thought he'd had Wardes' mostly figured out. He hadn't noticed until the last second, and neither had the others. A quartet of Wardes were falling from above, not fast, but surprisingly nimble. The first caught Klein, forcing the Samurai into a guard while two occupied Kirito's own swords. The last didn't even bother to evade Asuna's thrust, simply grabbing her in an embrace as it was run through.

What came next convinced Kirito that as much pain as he had felt earlier, he still had no idea of the fullest depths of physical agony. The lightning arced up, not from the Wardes beneath them, but instead the one laying beside the dead dragon, striking each wind clone before conducing directly into airborne Faeries.

The wind clones dissolved almost instantly, leaving the brunt of the current to pass directly into Asuna, Kirito, and Klein.

All three fell the short distance to the ground, landing with barely any control, spasming uncontrollably as the real Wardes approached at a casual saunter. As the last of Kirito's smoke screen began to fade, six more Wardes appeared, mirroring the originals casual grace. However, even through blurred eyes it was clear that they were imperfect duplicates that would only pass for the original at a distance. Wardes must have used up almost all of his remaining strength to create ten of his body doubles.

"An impressive showing Young Kirito, Lady Asuna, and . . . whoever you are." Wardes pronounced as he got closer.

Beside Kirito, Klein managed to get his hands beneath him, and rise to a kneeling position, only to receive another electrical shock for his trouble. The Salamander convulsed, back arching until it almost broke. He couldn't even yell as the electrical current overloaded his body's own wiring. The only noise he made was a violent, inarticulate gagging as his chest constricted uncontrollably.

"That's the trouble with you Faeries, a good deal more resilient than I would have expected." Wardes seemed less to be taunting and more speaking to himself. The lightning came again, this time striking Kirito and causing him to writhe in stunned agony once more. When it faded and he regained his sense, Wardes frowned. "So that wasn't just a fluke before."

Stupid. Kirito thought. They'd been so stupid. They were Clearers, and they'd fought on the front lines of Aincrad, but in the end, as much as Kayaba Akihiko had wanted to make his fantasy real, there were limitations that even he couldn't surpass.

Wardes was what Kirito, and Klein, and even Asuna after her month of desperate survival simply weren't. A real swordsman who had faced countless battles against enemies that were just as intelligent, unpredictable and inventive as himself. Fighting in SAO might have given them sword fighting experience, but it couldn't fully match Wardes' battle experience. He'd been able to outguess them and catch them off guard.

By comparison, they three had only their limited gambits of ingrained caution, reflexes, and their inherited sword skills with which to compete.

Then Wardes turned to Asuna and something in Kirito broke. Asuna . . . 'Asuna, please, no . . . No . . . don't.' Wardes didn't bother to approach, instead gesturing for three of his wind clones to step forward, each raising a sword for the finishing blow.

'NO!'

It never landed.

Kirito felt like his whole body was coming apart, like he'd been burnt down to charcoal. In all honesty, he didn't know how he even had the strength to move. It seemed that Wardes didn't know either.

In his right hand, the black sword reached out, having taken the off the sword arm of his attacker. In his left, the white sword had shattered the sword-wand of the False Wardes standing over Asuna.

The third Wardes, the one standing over Klein spun around, thrusting for Kirito's exposed flank, and then flew back as Asuna thrust between Kirito and his own disarmed Wardes. Split moon thrust out three times in succession, each strike landing a mortal blow, the wind clone burst and vanished. Six left.

Kirito's Wardes tried to grab hold of him to act as a lightning rod for another of the real Mage's spells. Kirito didn't give it a chance, spinning around Asuna, his swords sank into and then through the clones back, severing the constructs torso from its legs starting just above the hips. Five left.

The four remaining clones leaped back with magic enhanced speed, each conjuring a wind construct, barriers, arrows, or spears to launch their attacks.

Kirto and Asuna dodge what they could and parried what they couldn't, the attacked barely slowing them down. Now gathered back together, the Wind Clones met them in a charge, four swords falling simultaneously to be guarded by only three blades.

A flash, a silvery arc clashed against the last blade, knocking the forth Wardes clone back as Klein switched his grip on his Katana and performed a downward slash, shouting out furiously, lips burnt and cracked. Now there were only four left. Klein turned to guard another while Asuna and Kirtio burst through, each taking one of the remaining clones. They had to be quick and not touch the clones for more than a split second or the viscount would use them as a conductor for his magic.

Faster, they had to go faster. The last Wardes clones worked together, one casting a barrier to stagger Asune while the other came around, thrusting low. Kirito batted away the strike roughly with his right hand sword and Asuna finished it. Three left.

Asuna and Kirito attacked simultaneously, three swords striking at a single point, causing the wind barrier protecting the final Wardes clone to come apart under the pinpoint strikes, and then the clone to dissolve as both Faeries carried through into its chest.

All that was left in front of them was the real Wardes and his sword, which was already glinting as he chanted the last words of his lightning spell. There was only one thing left, only one idea that Kirito could think to try.

The Viscount's sword fell, a crackling bolt of blue white stretching towards them in an eye blink to strike home in front of and then behind Asuna and Kirito as the two Faeries took flight at once, Asuna following Kirito's lead. At their backs, the earth steamed as the charge of lightning was carried through Kirito's white sword grounded and out into the earth.

Surprise and the unexpected were once again on their side, and all that was left in front of them was the Viscount himself. There were no more Wind Clones, there were no more tricks to try.

Only Wardes and whatever magic he could throw up in his last ditch defense. Kirito's right hand sword bit into a wind barrier, almost bouncing off if not for the force applied by his wings. Asuna followed him, rapid thrust and slashes beating against the shield and driving the fallen Griffin Knight back and back, further until he stood almost at the edge of the cliffs and then finally braking through.

Wardes roared out as he managed to only partly parry Asuna's thrust, the sword sinking to his shoulder as Kirito slashed upward, obsidian blades severing Wardes' left forearm and slicing across his chest.

There was silence. The Viscount stumbled back, eyes wide with shock as he clutched his sword-wand weakly in his remaining hand.

"H-how?" He coughed, tottering dangerously at the edge of the cliff. "How did you know . . . to . . ."

"I didn't." Kirito panted. "There was nothing left to try."

Wardes nodded faintly as if this made perfect sense, and then slowly, his fall gathered speed. He vanished over the edge of the cliffs, the wind carrying his broad rimmed hat back up to settle at Kirito's feet.

Both Faeries stared down in the whiteness beneath them, and then back to each other. Suddenly, whatever had been keeping the pain at bay began to wear off and Kirito clutched at his chest as he sank to his hands and knees. He felt like he was going to throw up. Thankfully he hadn't had the stomach to eat anything that morning.

"Kirito!"

"I'm fine." Kirito assured Asuna. At least, he hoped he was, he'd heard people could suffer heart attacks up to a day after being struck by lightning. All three of them would probably want to find a healer as soon as they could.

"Klein?" Kirito turned back to see the Salamander limping towards them. Kirito wondered for a moment if he looked as bad as the Samurai, then again, that might have just been Klein's face.

Klein gave a weak grin. "I feel like barbecued lizard, but I think I'll live."

With Asuna's help, Kirito limped back to his white sword and pulled it from the still steaming earth. It looked like Wardes had planned to use a full powered blast on them that last time, the sword was still faintly hot to the touch. In fact, Kirito found his palms stinging as he realized they were covered in burns and pealed skin.

"I'll have to thank Liz and Kofu when I get back." Kirito said as he noticed a finely stamped marking etched on the hilt of the white blade and its black twin. "So, you're Ivory Maven and you're Onyx Arbiter," he whispered under his breath, re-sheathing both swords gingerly.

"We shouldn't stay here much longer." Asuna said. "We're not far from the front lines and people will be coming to investigate soon. Kirito, Klein, do you think you can make it back to the Fortress walls?"

"Probably." Klein worked his right arm, wincing unpleasantly. "Nothing to do but try it."

Asuna nodded once, and then, giving one last glance to cliffs, all three kicked off, turning to overfly the mists on their return to Newcastle.

* * *

The Orc roared as it grabbed hold of the edge of the wall and slung itself over, sword like a meat cleaver coming up to block the pathetic pointy eared human to its front.

The Gnomish Forged Battleaxe went through the crudely formed metal blade like a knife through hot butter, then through through the Orc's helm, skull, and the entirety of its head, before finally coming to a halt sunken into the creature's ribcage.

The Gnome cursed as he kicked the carcass free, where it then tumbled off the wall to beat aside the men climbing up behind it.

The outer defenses were beginning to collapse. Though they'd inflicted obscene casualties against the leading ranks of the Rebel army, the soldiers had finally carried the battle into effective spell casting range where their greater number of battle mages could have its full effect. Spells and cannon fire were traded at ranges so close that one could walk along the pyrotechnic display from one end of the wall to the other.

The Faerie and Royalist mages still manning the wall sent out one last wave of fire to beat against the defensive barriers of the army. The air shields rippled, folding back on themselves in swirls of air turbulence before solidifying once more. The rebel numbers were simply going to carry the day and there was nothing more to be had about it.

"Sound the retreat to the inner wall." General Gramont instructed to the Lieutenant at his side, waiting as the junior officer relayed his orders in a magically enhanced voice.

Gunnery crews and mages retreated first under the valiant guard of the Faeries and armsmen. Armsmen sabers flashed and glinted in the sun, biting down and through the rebel swordsmen and musketeers that were beginning to occupy the walls.

Faeries held back the last of the orc troops that had been kept in reserve for the final assault, the powerful demihumans making little headway against beings that could almost equal them in strength and possessed far more grace besides.

The Armsmen withdrew slowly and in good orders over elevated bridges that connected the tops of the two walls above the outer courtyard. As soon as the last man was across, the bridges were destroyed and the Faerie melee fighters escaped back behind the inner wall using their wings.

A few musketeers fired their loaded weapons, grazing Faeries. General Gramont watched as one Leprechaun staggered in midair, a musket ball bouncing harmlessly from his armor's breastplate.

It was fine craftsmanship, Belgen thought, at that range, all but the heaviest Halkegenian armor would have been punched through.

Gathered on the inner walls, the armsmen grabbed ready muskets that had been prepared in advance and fired a final volley against the soldiers that were now swarming over the walls and into the outer courtyard. One last salvo of the inner cannons joined them to sweep the outer battlements.

The gunners and armsmen did not bother to reload. The evacuation ships were now filled and awaiting only the last of the soldiers, there was no need to risk themselves fighting for the inner walls. General Gramont signaled to commence the retreat to the dock area.

"General Gramont!" A messenger saluted him and then waited for his approval to continue. "The _Eagle _is fully prepared for departure and Prince Wales is at the helm. They can depart as soon as they take on the remaining Royalist defenders.

"Thank the founder." The General sighed, fortunately, King James hadn't learned about the incident on the lower docks until it had already been dealt with and the docks reinforced.

Now, the King of Ablion turned to the gray haired man who had remained at his side throughout the battle. "Paris, now is the time for all but the rearguard to depart. Take everyone and tell my son to launch at once."

"My King?" Paris asked. "Surely my place is with you to the end."

King James shook his head. "Were that it would be. My son will need you more than I. Go with Wales, your advice might save him one day old friend."

Bowing reluctantly, the Royal adviser departed to gather those who would be escaping. Only fifty of the Royalists intended to stay behind, holding the inner citadel that barred the way to the docks as the last troops departed.

"And you, General Gramont." The King said.

"Your Majesty?" Belgen asked.

"I have no right to ask it of you. Especially after the miracle you've give us this this day." King James confessed. "But if you still hold any lingering fondness for my brother, the Prince Regent, then see to it than my son is kept safe and offer him what aid you can."

"Of course." Belgen breathed.

A shout came from the upper walls. "Incoming!"

The thick timber gates of the fortress's outer wall began to shake on their hinges as something struck them head on, and then again, and again. Heavily warded against interference by magic, brute force would be the only way to tear down the portal that barred the way to the citadel. The remaining mages on the inner walls were concentrating their fire at the weak point, trying to stop whatever siege engine the Rebels had brought to the front but to little success.

The gate creaked, began to split, and at last failed, a tumbling mass of vaguely humanoid stone battering through at last before turning to and fro to beat aside the barricades and iron portcullis that barred further advance. Quite the construct to have rammed through so easily, the Rebels must have had an expert Golemetrist on their side.

Behind the Golem, a troop of heavily armored Mage Knights atop Dullahan Beasts, vicious products of Germanian alchemy that breathed steam and spat poison, charged into the fray, wielding their heavy spell lances to saturate the walls in bursts of fire and deadly wind blades.

"Lord Mortimer, King James, I do believe we shall be getting our hands dirty!" General Gramont observed before raising his staff and beginning to chant.

Belgen slammed his staff down, its contact with the ground met with a -crack- like a whip. The earth in front of the inner wall began to flow forward towards the large Rebel Golem, rising, taking shape, materials hardening and transmuting, limbs articulating, artistic flourishes and engravings growing out and etching themselves until the masterwork spell of Gramont Earth magic rose fully formed, a vaguely feminine suit of magically animated iron armor over ten mails tall, the Grand Valkyrie.

The Rebel Golem's clumsy strike was grabbed deftly in one articulated gauntlet, throwing the clumsy brute off balance as the Valkyrie's free hand balled into an iron fist and then exploded forward so swiftly that the air boomed with its passage.

It was too much for the rebel mage, wherever he might be hiding. Rebel Stone met Gramont iron and was found wanting. Inferior construction sheared and cracked, bursting apart and dissipated the controlling spell. The Rebel Golem crumbled and collapsed back into gravel while the Valkyrie advanced to plug the gap in the gates and prevent a fresh wave of Orc shock troops from rushing in where they might be a bother for the remaining defenders to hold back.

The Mage Knights on the ground must have seen Belgen and reasoned, correctly, that he was the originator of this latest construct. Their lances turned towards the General, then, the air around them thundered. Commoner soldiers clapped hands to ears and screamed as eyes wept blood. The Mage Cavalry and their behemoth mounts were tossed about like toys by the King of Albion and his vacuum bomb.

Stunned for a moment, their thick armor had saved the Elite Ground Assault Mages who now spied their former king and hooted with glee that they might be offered the opportunity to claim his head. They neither expected nor knew what to make of the shower of brilliant sparks that suddenly filled the air around them like fire flies and then struck down in their hundreds, each bursting with the force of a grenade.

Wind barriers were overwhelmed, Dullahan Beasts were pummeled until their exoskeletons began to deform and peel away, exposing the vulnerable horseflesh beneath, Mage Knights were felled, bodies either broken within their armor by concussive force or shredded to pieces as that same armor failed and they were left helpless and exposed.

King James and General Gramont turned to stare at Lord Mortimer. The pale Salamander Lord gave a small shrug. "You said we should get our hands dirty."

"Well then." Belgen said as he marched his golem to the gates, casting another enchantment to revoke his previous spell, the golem began to crumble back into its base material and then fuse together into a crude granite wall. His warding wasn't top notch but unless they had a triangle mage or three ready at this very moment, he judged it would take them around five minutes to get through that.

The Rebel soldiers that were still coming over the walls stopped in their tracks and leaped for cover as a roar came from above, a Cait Syth Dragoon crashing heavily down onto the top of the inner wall. It's rider's gold polished armor glowing in the reflection as the brutish ALfheim drake opened its jaw wide and breathed its sustained jet of iron melting flame across the outer courtyard.

The commoner troops that weren't incinerated fled back over the walls in terror, having the sense to realize this was solely a battle of mages, magic beasts, and golems.

The Dragoon turned to General Gramont and Lord Mortimer and pulled up his helmet. The nose of the Captain of the 3rd Provisional cavalry twitched in that vaguely feline fashion common to the Caits. "My Dragoons are finishing their last passes now. How long until the troops can finish loading?"

"We're getting closer." Lord Mortimer breathed.

"So's my next birthday!" Gaius snapped.

"No more than five minutes," Belgen said, "Look, the first transports are shoving off!" And it was true, behind Newcastle's solemn citadel the masts of a transport were spreading like a bird in flight.

King James watched the sight, whispering a small prayer. "Then, we part ways now General Gramont. The citadel will guard your retreat." The King turned and raised his staff to the remaining Royalists manning the wall. "Men of Albion, to me!"

* * *

"That's the last of them. Shoving off!" Airman Evans shouted as the Eagle's gangplank was retracted and the ship was made ready to depart. Crewmen worked the Capstan wheels, driving gearboxes below deck to pull the frigate from her dock and into position over the hole bored through from bottom to top of Newcastle.

Wales looked around the docks one last time before turning at the voice of his Manservant and now First Officer, Maison. "Sir, Captain Lydel reports the ballasting engine is fully charged, we are ready to depart at your order.

"And the cargo?" He asked.

"Secure in the hold." Maison said. "I daresay you can't see a thing beneath the chain."

While most of the Zombie remains had been incinerated, the ones they had been able to find in any case. Wales and his men had been careful to fully retrieve the pieces of the one that Kimura had dismembered. An intact zombie would be valuable evidence to present to the Church of Romalia, perhaps even enough to gain the Church's support.

Wales took a breath and then nodded to himself. "Very well. Prepare the engine for maximum power."

"Aye sir, Maximum power, prepared for ascension." The Helmsman reported.

"Wait a second." Caramella perked up from her perch beside the helm. "Did you just say ascension?"

"Aye." Wales smiled slightly. "If I'm to flee from my own Fortress, Surely I may at least use the front gate!"

The Eagle was in position now, the hundred mail wide hole that was the core of Newcastle Fortress and its underground docks and storehouses gaped above them, and beyond that the clear skies.

"Engines, standing by at your order my Prince!" Maison reported.

"Very well then. Engine room, full power, ascend to four thousand." Wales instructed, raising a hand to the helm railing to steady himself as the docks disappeared below them and the Eagle began to rise up past the spiraling staircase at the heart of the citadel, emerging into the central courtyard.

The Eagle swiftly rose past the five story tall Citadel and joined with the evacuation transports. Hoots and calls of greeting were given by the Faerie Dragoons as they fell in to escort the last ships out.

Beneath them, Newcastle began to burn as the the battered assault forces of the Rebel army commenced the final storming of the Citadel, Father and his Knights preparing to fight to the last. Though barely spoken of, charges had been laid through the Fortress so that when they were finally brought down, the last defender could immolate themselves and deny their bodies to the Rebels' foul necromancy.

* * *

"Admiral, the transports are braking away. We must pursue at once!"

Admiral Blake turned his attention to Captain Stayner, once again, a Captain attempting to instruct an Admiral. Lord Cromwell might have freed him to command a fleet, but the leash did chafe.

"Admiral, HMS _Eagle _spotted topside." A midshipman shouted across the deck.

Using an air lens, Blake was able to confirm that the unknown ship was indeed the _Eagle_, the advanced frigate's sleek hull, and rigged sails giving a most predatory impression as she caught the tail winds and chased after the bulkier cargo vessels that had been docked at Newcastle only briefly. In all, it could not have been but an hour since the first ships had been spotted, and now, with their objectives achieved, the Tristanian fleet was beginning to spread sail and deny battle.

One by one, the frigates and ships of the line ceased their exchanges and began to pull away, the _Thunderchild's_ last broadside bouncing almost harmlessly off the thick hull of a Tristanian Third rater as she and her two sisters fell in around the crippled fourth ship of the line, the victim of concentrated fire dealt by both the _Thunderchild_ and the _Unconquerable_.

"T-the Eagle?!" Stayner stuttered. "Admiral, if the Eagle is departing then that means that one of the Tudors must be aboard. We cannot allow them to escape."

"Very good Stayner." Blake said tiredly. "How do you propose we stop them?"

"We . . ." Stayner hesitated. The man was a good ship's Captain, with time he might even be a passable strategist. As he tallied their losses, he grimaced. "We can send the frigates to pursue." He suggested.

"They'd be cut to peaces." Blake answered. "Those Tristanian Third Raters are still more than enough to take on our lighter patrol cruisers."

"The Dragon Knights then." Stayner suggested.

"They probably wouldn't even make it through the screening forces." This time the reply came from Sir Dunwell. The Dragon Knight rubbed at his brow. "Reports are still being tallied, but 7th Squadron took heavy losses. Their Captain is dead, along with a quarter of their veterans and half of their recruits. My own 4th Squadron suffered the loss of yet another Knight and his mount, while another was forced to abandon in midair." The years seemed to catch up with Sir Dunwell. "Between Tristain's own Dragons and the Faeries, our cavalry is outmatched."

"Is their nothing we can do?!" Stayner asked, clenching and unclenching his fists.

This at least Blake could understand. Though not a devout follower of Reconquista's stated mission by any means, he took professional displeasure in seeing the Navy's reputation so readily tarnished.

"It will be up to the York Squadron to intercept them." Blake answered, as unsatisfying at that was.

At this time of day, the winds from York would be especially favorable and the retreating Tristanian fleet would be fully clear of the Isle mists and exposed in broad daylight over the sea. With just a little luck, and provided that his dispatch had arrived, the York forces might yet manage to intercept. Ten battleships would make short work of that poor man's line of battle that the Tristanian's had brought to bear, and seven frigates would stand good odds of running down the Eagle.

"Captain, instruct the fleet to drop altitude and maneuver to offer any aid we can to the General's forces. If there is any resistance left within the citadel we can at least put an end to it."Blake instructed.

"Aye . . . Admiral." Stayner turned to depart with a look of contempt.

Blake mused, if Stayner was his watcher, just how damning would his report to Lord Cromwell be?

"What a damned fiasco." Blake muttered as smoke began to rise from the heart of Newcastle.

Dunwell picked his way forward across the battle damaged deck to stand beside the Admiral. "An unexpected attack by a minor power with allies of unknown ability. Given the circumstances we could have done worse."

Blake looked down at the devastation spread across the field between the siege line and the fallen fortress. By now, smoke was beginning to rise from the citadel as the lead elements stormed the final bastions and slaughtered the defenders who had stayed behind to allow the last ships to depart safely.

Through his air lens, the Admiral watched the very last of the Fae using their wings to depart from the dock area, flying up to settle onto the deck of the Eagle or one of the other Transports while the frigates fired their cannons in one less spiteful volley.

He cursed softly. "But we could not have done better."

Dunwell frowned. "The question now is . . . how do we isolate ourselves from this . . . fiasco?"

Blake snorted, Dunwell had never been politically deft. "Well, in that regard we're blessed. General Ashborough has dug his own grave this day. He's spent too much time maneuvering to take credit for the fall of Newcastle. So falls the glory, so falls the blame. All we need do is underline our own efforts. I doubt even Lord Cromwell will question the decision to preserve the fleet over the ground forces. What I would like to know, is what you plan to do about the Prince, or King James if he managed to escape."

"I imagine that will be something for Lord Cromwell to decide, though if their destination is Tristain, I've been told our agents are . . ." The Dragon Knight was cut off by the arrival of a Dragon setting down heavily on the deck. A young Knight slipped down from the saddle and came running, exhausted, to Blake's side.

"Admiral, urgent dispatch from York." The Knight panted, his eyes were deeply ringed and skin sallow, signs of physical exhaustion.

Blake quickly unfolded the dispatch. He stared at the page for several moments. It was only one sentence, but at first it didn't make sense. Then, the most unfamiliar knotting began to grow in his stomach. The letter almost crumpled in his hands as he quite uncharacteristically lost his temper and let out a roar of anger that drew the attention of every man on the deck.

"Admiral?" Sir Dunwell asked before receiving the crumpled note to read himself. The Dragon Knight let out a hiss.

"You, lad? How fast did you travel?" Blake asked the Knight.

"Ah . . . I ya . . . Best speed from York once the fleet was spotted on the horizon Admiral Blake . . . I would have flown sooner, but not a one man knew what was going on. The port was bombed Sir!"

Thirty Leagues. Blake thought quickly, at full speed that was less than twenty minutes flight for a good Wind Drake. He turned his eyes to the south where York was hidden in the morning haze. By now, even if they arrived to help, the battle would already be well under way and most likely already decided.

Suddenly it all seemed like some sort of sick joke and Blake chuckled softly, receiving worried looks from Dunwell and the young messenger. "I do wonder sometimes if God and the Founder don't find ways to punish us for our hubris . . . Now I know." His efforts to preserve the fleet of Albion had been spit upon this day, by . . . by children . . . by commoners playing a game . . . by Faeries.

He took comfort in one small fact. If he was to hang for this, he most certainly wouldn't be hanging alone.


	69. Chapter 15 Part 8

Halkegenia Online - Chapter 15 - Part 8

"That's over half again the maximum range of Naval Cannons." The Duchess de la Valliere observed as she stood atop the walls of the fallen coastal fort, leaning against Sir Bjorn to steady herself.

Eugene grimaced, one hundred and fifty percent the range. "And you didn't know about this?"

The Duchess shook her head, eyes not leaving the rebel fleet. "I've never heard of any shipboard cannons with that sort of range on the same plane of battle."

From her own vantage, Morgiana watched as the cannon fire sped through the sky, from the muzzles of the Rebel guns straight into the oncoming Tristanian fleet. Some shots missed, some bounced from the hulls. But others smashed into the hull or skipped down the top decks, clipping sailors and masts all the way. And still, La Ramee didn't fire back.

Morgiana's knowledge of ships started and ended at the Tokyo Bay Tour, but she didn't need to know much to see how this battle was starting to pan out. Tristain's fleet was going to have to wade through the Rebel fire just to get into range, taking punishment all the way.

"La Ramee has the ships, he can push through." Eugene said uncertainly.

Karin nodded. "He can, and he'd win for certain, but not without suffering losses. Albion's ships may be damaged, but they're larger and more sturdily built than our own to begin with, and on top of that, longer range means more power behind each of those shots. If the Rebels can inflict damage at this distance . . ."

"They'll maul our fleet badly before they die." Sir Bjorn finished. "La Ramee can't risk the battle line, he must know this!"

"He does." Karin said, gesturing to Tristain's fleet. "Look, the ships are coming about and climbing."

The Duchess was right, slowly, the battle line began turning to port, La Ramee presenting his tougher flanks to the Rebel cannons while gaining altitude to climb out of range. He was only partly successful. Although the Tristanian broadsides were tougher, they were also easier to hit, and now it would take La Ramee's fleet even longer to close in.

At the same time, the Rebel ships began to rise into the sky, paying out their moorings as they remained above their births, effectively countering the Tristanian attempt to gain the high ground.

"There's a flag signal rising from the _Mercator_." Sir Bjorn squinted as if trying to read something before finally resorting to magnifying his view with magic. "Signal reads . . . Request Attack Status. Proceed or Withdraw?"

In other words, La Ramee wanted to know if things were as bad as they looked. Morgiana would have laughed, that was if she was in a laughing mood.

Things were pretty bad alright, for the Rebels, the port was trashed, their coastal fort was wrecked, two of their big ships had been reduced to toothpicks and two more were barely holding together, and that didn't even take into account the thousands of sailors and mage officers that had been killed when the bombs fell.

But somehow, from where she was standing, it seemed to mean piss all. These morons didn't know when to quit! What the hell had Hex and the others died for if their lives didn't save lots of other people?

"Captain, how do you wish for us to respond?" Sir Bjorn asked.

The Duchess studied the unfolding battle, and then with a tired sigh, nodded to herself. "Send a messenger, tell La Ramee that we'll silence those guns on his approach."

Every eye in the fort, even those of the prisoners lined against the wall, fell on the Duchess. Morgiana perked up, this ought to be good, she thought.

"K-Karin?" Sir Bjorn stuttered. "You can't mean that . . . certainly . . ."

"Send the order, Sir Bjorn." Karin's tone was resolute and dared anyone to challenge her. "Then listen closely because time is of the essence." The Manticore Knight pointed below the Albionian ships where a veritable maze of mooring lines connected them to the docks.

"The Fleet Commander here has enacted measures to fight at anchor. The winds do not favor a retreat, so he has chosen to stand and garner what support he can from the remaining coastal guns and the mages of the garrison. Those extra lines are springs used to rotate the ships so that they can bring their batteries to bear while at anchor."

"Right." Eugene muttered. "Brother told me about this once. Ship's at sea used the same technique. So if we cut those lines they'll have to use their own sails to maneuver." He frowned. "Or, I suppose they could use wind magic?"

"They can." Karin agreed, her eyes narrowing, "But I won't let them. Sir Bjorn."

"Yes Sir." The Griffin Knight stood taller.

"d'Artagnan is too injured to fly. I'll need to ride with one of your Griffins."

"Very, Well." The Knight answered and began barking instructions for his men to get ready.

Karin turned to look at Eugene and Morgiana and for once she didn't wear that sternly enforced, emotionless mask. In fact, between her disheveled hair and dirt and blood smudge face, she almost seemed pleading. "Can we rely on you this last time, to ensure victory for Tristain?"

Morgiana looked over her shoulder to the line of Prisoners, eyes falling on one very particular Dragon Knight. The man looked away fearfully. Despite what Eugene had said, she felt the urge to kill rising within her. It would be so easy for her. She could twist the bastards head off if she wanted to. But it wouldn't bring anyone back from the grave, and it wouldn't save anyone else either. She had to put that anger to good use now or it was just going to fester inside of her.

She looked to her guild, the Kurotakas were scattered all over the Fortress wall, listening with half an ear. Dark eyes, ashen skin and dirt smudged faces. Shirishi in particular was looking a lot scruffier than usual. "What do you say Kids? In for some overtime?"

"Ah hell." Drake groaned as he began to catch on. "This is a Kamikaze run, isn't it? I knew I should have stayed in bed today." Even as he said it, the self styled Soldier of Fortune clipped another short bolt to the trolley of his crossbow and began to wind the weapon back.

"I guess we don't get payed if we leave the job half finished." Name-kun observed, pulling his helmet back down.

Murmurs of agreement spread through the Kurotaka. They knew the score, it was the same as the last time. None of them were being pressured to do this, and nobody would be allowed to think they were cowards. Maybe that was why nobody backed down.

"Carmond?" Eugene turned to his subordinate.

The Salamander tank ran a hand through his hair. "It's going to get intense, but if Tristain needs those ships knocked out, then we've got your back." Most of the Salamanders were still wearing their helmets, their faces were invisible, but a slow line of nods ran through the ranks.

This was it, do or die time.

"This is real great and all, but mind telling us what we're going to do about those Dragon Knights?" Drake asked as he strapped down the last of his pouches, having removed a mana restore potion from his harness and taken a long swig.

Morgiana felt like laughing again, and this time, she did. "We'll just have to plow right through them! Hey Eugene, leave supporting the Griffin Knights to us, lets see how fire dragons like fighting Black Hawks."

Eugene nodded. "Kagemune, take two squads and watch over the Prisoners and the injured, the rest of you with me." He said, waving for his men to fall in. "We're going to have to cut through all of them in one pass, so I want a lawnmower formation from squads A, B, D, and F. E is on over watch. I want everyone to mind the whiplash too, some of those cables are going to be under plenty of tension."

"Alright, you heard the General, lets move it!" Carmond barked.

Morgiana followed Eugene and the others, rising into the early morning sky. She wasn't going to let these bastards steal a win from their dead, they were finishing this fight.

* * *

Karin grimaced as she probed at her side once more. She was not a young woman by any stretch, but between her disciplined training regimen, her own natural vitality, and liberal use of some of the rarer medicinal reagents found in the deep forests of the Valliere estates, her physicians had told her that she was still in astonishing physical condition for a woman of her years. Even so, she was feeling every one of those years now as she climbed up onto Sir Hindrik's Griffin.

The Faerie potion had worked wonders, she doubted she'd have been able to so much as stand for this long without it, but there were limits to what it could do and she could tell that the price of its miraculous effects had badly taxed her body and more importantly, her willpower reserves.

She pawed at bottles that she had retrieved from d'Artagnon's saddle. Would she use it . . . ? Yes she would. She would need every advantage, and she remembered what the Faerie Mage Shirishi had told her when giving her the potions. The mana restore would also provide a 'buff', a slight increase to her spell casting power and efficiency, for roughly ten seconds after taking effect in her system.

Ten seconds was a long time in a battle, time enough for a full powered Heavy Wind to wreak its devastation, it was also time enough for her to be stricken from the skies by any number of enemy magics or even mundane cannon fire. Just ten seconds.

She settled in, clipping her harness to the Griffin's saddle before Sir Hindrick took to the skies.

The Griffins came over the walls of the fort quickly, followed closely by the Faeries. A few shouts of surprise were carried up on the wind from the startled soldiers keeping watch on the fort, and then Karin and her Knight escort were diving down over the edge of the the White Isle, skimming just below the lip of the cliffs for cover while the Faeries paralleled them above.

Dragon's, roosting among the buildings and streets as they waited for La Ramee's escorting cavalry, gave chase almost at once, rising into the sky on heavy wing beats. Between Karin, the Griffin Knights, and the Fae, more than twelve dragons and their riders had been slain in the first minutes of the surprise attack, but the remainder, coupled with the ship's swivels, were still more than enough of a threat. Especially now, after it had been observed that a Square Class Wind Mage road with the Griffin Knights. Karin predicted that she would be their target, and she was not disappointed.

The Dragons dove over the cliffs in pursuit and were caught immediately by a Murder of Spriggans. With the exception of their specialized mages, the ash skinned Faeries lacked raw power with their magic, but this hardly seemed to matter as they exploited their skills to incredible effect. The illusion masters lived up to their names, scattering through the Dragon Knight formation, sewing confusion, dodging spell fire and trading it right back.

One mage would strike a Spriggan only to learn his target had been a decoy, his distraction leaving him vulnerable from behind. Clouds of crows burst into the paths of the pursuing Knights and the entire rear of their formation was suddenly lost in an encompassing cloud of dark smoke. Half of the Spriggans turned back to keep the Dragons at bay, now the Griffins were on their approach, escorted by a dozen Spriggans and the Salamanders overhead.

The Fire Faeries showed their talents next, illustrated by their superb coordination. The swarm of Fae broke in to five groups of seven, General Eugene at the lead. Four of these groups spread out so that they could sweep beneath the entire length of each anchored ship, slicing cables with swords and well aimed spell fire.

Cables fell free or whipped about with stored tension, forcing nimble wingwork from the Salamander troops lest they be swatted from the sky by something as mundane as a ship's line.

Now in broad daylight, and having recovered enough from the original attack to respond, the Rebels fought back, musket and spell fire spat from the docks only to bounce off of barriers cast by the mage group holding back at the rear of the Salamander line. What few shots did manage to get through largely missed or bounced ineffectually from the heavy Faerie armor.

And then they were through, the Faeries scattering in all directions to evade reprisal while the Griffins began to climb with labored beating of wings, rising to altitude for Karin to take aim. Karin looked over and came face to face with the bow chasers of a Second Rate ship of the line, two thousand tons, and a tenth weight in cannons.

"Brace yourself!" Karin shouted to Sir Hindrik before her sword-wand sliced through the air, the Griffin's wings caught on the her burst of wind, clearing the path of the Second Rater just as the forward cannons fired. Someone had thought to be prepared and had ordered the forward cannons loaded with shot to deter air cavalry.

Karin grabbed for the vial, was just about to pull it free when the thunder came again, higher pitched and diminished compared to the sounds of the heavy guns of the 2nd Rater below them, but a much more sinister sound for all that. The air around her grew suddenly solid as the escorting Griffin Knights cast their barriers. Clouds of shot were stopped in midair.

Hidden between two of the ships of the line, a pair of small patrol vessels, post ships covered in a veritable forest of swivel guns and light cannons, and decks crowded with massed ranks of armsmen with muskets and mages with heavy battle staffs began to fire, and with them came the very last line of Dragon Knights, at their lead, a wind dragon bearing the crest of a Squadron Captain.

The Griffin Knights held at bay by the cannon blasts, the Faeries raced out to come to grips with the Dragons, slicing through the formation in a display of aerial acrobatics that not even the Griffin Knights could match. But their opponents were similarly impressive, no doubt the Flagship's honor guard.

The Spriggan Archer that Karin had seen earlier spun about, loosing arrows until she exhausted her supply and then switching to rapid fire magic chants. Morgiana' and one of her soldiers flew close dueling with the Knight Captain only to be beaten back when two of his subordinates came to his aid.

A squad of Salamanders arrived, lead by General Eugene, cutting a path for the Griffins, they were almost there, all that Karin needed was ten seconds, a mere ten seconds.

"Hold us steady on this course!" Karin ordered. This would be the time of greatest risk, when all of the danger would be incurred on herself and Sir Hindrik as she lined up her shot.

Karin had been called a prodigy and less kindly a freak of nature for her prowess with magic, honestly she didn't know why, she had not started out this strong, it was a power attained as much through ceaseless training as talent. Whatever the origin, the rumors and legends that surrounded her identity as the Heavy Wind had not been an exaggeration, no, they'd been an understatement.

She raised the small blue bottle to her lips, about to drink. Five seconds to take effect during which she would take aim, and then five seconds to channel an overpowered Heavy Wind, not just her ultimate spell, but its ultimate evolution, the channeling of the sum of her willpower.

The Griffin bucked violently beneath her, she almost lost her grip on the bottle. Sir Hindrik shouted out a spell, pointing his sword-wand to their left. The wind barrier buckled and gave way. The Dragon Knights had seen them, and their Captain must have fathomed that the others were guarding them for a reason. At once, all three dragons had burst through the Faerie lines, the remainder of their force challenging General Eugene and his squad and leaving only the lone Spriggan Lord to meet them.

Morgiana raced up, spear in one hand, a fistful of Arcane Faerie magic in the other. But even a Faerie Lord couldn't match three dragons at once. Her spear strike nearly drove through the Captain's spell on its own, but then it was reinforced, and reinforced again by his subordinates. The air shield burst, delivering a concussive wave that sent Morgiana spinning one way, and her spear and helmet another.

Karin raised her wand, intent on slaughtering the lot of them when a third spell struck and broke through Sir Hindrik's defense. The Knight urged his mount into a spin that threw off Karin's aim. A moment later she was swept free as something struck her with bone braking force.

She was falling, torn loose from the saddle but somehow still clutching her sword and the potion bottle. The Dragon Knight Captain, not satisfied with just magic, had chosen to simply ram the Griffin from the air. Now, the jaws of his wind drake were opening wide as is chased Karin down through sky, past the ships and towards the white mists.

She didn't give her circumstances a second thought, she'd been in worse before. A chant, Karin felt her whole body turning as to air as she accelerated herself, the calm sense of synchronicity as her body was finally able to keep up with the speed of her thoughts. The dragon snapped down on nothingness, Karin spinning aside and flinging her arms wide to catch the air.

The Knight Captain overshot, pulling his dragon out of its dive. He had only made himself a larger target. Her vacuum blade bisected both dragon and rider with nary a thought for the Captain's attempt to parry.

The whole motion from the Dragon attempting to take a bite out of her to the fatal blow had taken less than a second. That was the power that Karin could draw on. But like with the Faerie potion, it had a price, compounded by her present condition.

Karin's whole body convulsed as flash healed muscles began to give out. She'd probably just torn open some of the wounds that the Fae potion had just sealed shut. And unfortunately, one of those wounds had been to her shoulder. Buffeted by the wind, she struggled to aim for the remaining dragons.

They saw that she was vulnerable, and had every intention to take advantage. Reaching forward in their saddles, both stopped and looked up as a shadow overtook them. It was . . .

Karin's first impression was of smoke, but not like the Spriggan smoke screens from before that could swallow half the sky, this smoke was smaller, denser, and it moved, it writhed as if alive.

Stretching out into thin, solid black bone and corded black muscle. Taut black tendons and glittering black talons. Wickedly hooked black beak and glistening black feathers. Gray black eyes, each the size of a dinner plate glittered with clear intelligence and open malice for the two men in its paths.

It was no longer smoke, it was a hawk, a Black Hawk of Draconic dimensions.

"SCREEEEEE!"

Both Knights turned to this new assailant, fear taking hold over sense. The hawk dove, wings folded tightly against itself, body streamlined and perfectly adapted to its element. It was an apex predator built to a size that humans could be its pray. Talons raked forward, tearing asunder a wind barrier with brute force and sinking into the back and spine of the first drake. Muscle was rent and torn, hooked beak slicing through the anchoring tendons of the keel bone before letting loose and grabbing hold of the mage rider.

The Knight screamed as he was flung at his companion and bounced away by a wind barrier, tumbling off into the mists. The moment of added distraction gave the Hawk an opening to rake at the surviving drake and slash at its wings.

The dragon began to roll, losing all control over its flight and veering off. The Hawk didn't pursue, instead turning to Karin.

Every instinct told her to attack, but something stayed her hand. Almost certainly it was the calm gray eyes that should by all sense be as hungry for her death as the other Knights.

Carefully, the hawk closed the distance and Karin slowed her descent. The Hawk offered its neck to her and the Heavy Wind did the only reasonable thing and accepted.

Pulling out of its dive and sweeping back up into the sky, her ears were met by hoots and cheers as, climbing from the mists, Spriggans gathered around them.

A pair of dragons tumbled from the skies above, the unfortunate victims of two on one combat with the honorable General Eugene. The Salamander's eyes widened as he fell in beside the hawk. "So you used that, Morgiana?" Eugene rumbled.

Morgiana?

Karin had no right to be surprised, after the incident with Young Kirito, she had insisted on being furnished with a list of Fae Spells. Beastial Form, an illusion conjured body that took the shape of a 'Mob' that represented it's caster's attributes converted entirely to raw physical power.

That Morgiana, as the Lord of the Spriggans, would know such a spell did not come as a surprise. But its potency was beyond anything Karin had expected. Perhaps the reports of Kirito's 'Demonic Transformation' had, like her own legend, not been overstated.

"Rute's going to be pissed about that armor." Morgiana's second in command called over.

The Hawk simply cocked its head, preening with very unhawkish amusement.

But there was no time for that. Now was their chance. A hole had been opened in the Dragon Knight's and the shock of losing their Captain gave a golden opportunity.

The Griffin Knights could make no more sense of what they were seeings than their Rebel opposition, but they had faith enough to follow Karin's lead. "Morgiana," Karin said, not knowing if the Spriggan Lord was really able to fully understand in this state. "Just hold us steady for one pass."

The shriek that she received in reply was all the confirmation Karin needed.

Shots and spells were thrown aside as the Griffin Knights lead the charge, mounts and riders glowing, not just figuratively but literally. The Spriggan Mage Shirishi was casting a wide area buff to further strengthen everyone's magic. Even Karin felt the heady rush. And now it was her turn, she was flying straight and level for the damaged 2nd rater that had tried to shoot her down earlier.

She took the potion bottle, now clutched in a death grip and swallowed the contents, an intense, tart, sweetness spilling down her throat and then . . .

. . .

She wasn't clear afterward just what happened, she couldn't remember it well at all when asked.

The surge of Shirishi's buff was swept aside, swallowed completely by a rush of shapeless force that welled up through her chest and then pushed into every extremity. For the first time in her life, Karin felt like there was too much of her magic and not enough of _her_ to contain it. Like her skin would split open and a hurricane would tear free from her insides.

But more than that, much more than that was the surge of . . . Memories . . . Images . . . Emotions.

No! She was in control! She was Steel! Her emotions were defects, contaminants that alloyed her, made her stronger, but only when they were controlled. Not like this.

Every heartbeat was met by hundred images and hundred garbled conversations.

Uncontrollable anger that she didn't understand and didn't want to understand, causing her run, and fight, and shout with little sense or reason. Her pride in becoming a soldier of Tristain, the purpose it had given her. Arrogance, embarrassment, disgustingly immature.

More anger, better understood, and much more focused at a certain young man who had dared to mention her chest.

And then . . . Fear . . . Lots of fear in lots of forms. Fear for her life, for the lives of others, her sovereign, her friends, her husband, her child.

Pain. Relief. Light. Holding a newborn life close to her chest. Wonder. And then pride, seeing that life grow, seeing how they were alike, the girl's temper and her talent, Eleanor. Smart, determined, but unable or unwilling to restrain herself. Undiplomatic, always contradictory, always difficult with people she did not agree with and unhappy for it.

And again, another girl, not at all like Karin herself, kind, happy, at peace. Cattleya. But so tragically frail. Why? Karin didn't know. Constantly suffering attacks and spasms, illness slowly destroying her body. Powerlessness. The Physicians had said there was good chance that Karin would live to see her daughter die. Grief.

And then more fear than ever before, for by the time she had learned of this hopeless occurrence, another life had been conceived. This one, Karin had prayed for every day, prayed that she'd be strong, that she'd be healthy, and most of all that she would not live a life like her. Louise. Talent-less but hard working, studious, honest, a good girl.

She was proud of them, and so very afraid _for _them. That Eleanor would get herself into trouble, that Cattleya would take a turn for the worse, that Louise would never find herself. That was why . . . that was why . . . she was who she was . . .

Karin blinked and her history had vanished from her eyes, the battle was before her once more. All of that, all of that in a heartbeat! She was still riding the surge of emotion as she raised her wand high. She didn't even try to hold back the tears that ran freely.

Wind, once, twice, thrice, four times. Four fold winds, squared and driven forth. All of her strength, all of _her_.

The air around her went silent as if she were deaf, but she wasn't, she could still hear the gentle rustling of Morgiana's feathers in the wind. They were merely at the heart of the Heavy Wind, the eye of the storm. And before them, the storm front surged forward.

The Second Rater had taken only minor damage thus far. Though its rigging had been wrecked, it was for all intents and purposes, fully battle worthy, with a strong, solid hull of fine hard wood, fit to resist cannon balls or dragon's breath. At point blank range, the ship absorbed the entire brunt of Karin's spell, and disintegrated in the blink of an eye.

Flush deck planks peeled away like cheap roofing shingles. Air moved so fast that the edges of the ship simply combusted, and everything, anchored or otherwise was swept from its deck. The ship, its rigging, and its crew, were simply erased from the world, converted into an expanding cloud of splinters, broken structural elements, blood, cannon balls, and wood pulp that smashed into the next ships in the line, cracking and splintering the already damaged hull and throwing it into a third ship, a frigate, that was promptly smashed between it and another ship of the line.

The destruction sped outward, tearing post ships and gunboats from the air and throwing them into the docks, swatting dragon Knights like flies.

The destruction began to abate with distance. The battleships were spread across nearly a league of the dock's length, and by the half league mark, the Heavy Wind was only strong enough to turn frigates like weather vanes and buffet the heavy ships. Cast free of their anchoring lines, these furthest vessels were thrown out of position, unable to continue their fire against La Ramee's fleet. The Admiral would know this was his opportunity. By the time the surviving ships could recover, Tristain's battle line would already be on top of them.

Her final tally was one second rater, a heavily damaged third rater, and a single frigate completely destroyed. Three post ships crash landed into the city of York. Four dragon Knights unlucky enough to have not gotten clear. Two third raters suffering additional moderate damage, mostly torn sails and crew cast overboard.

Perversely, the distance, combined with the other ships acting as sacrificial shields, had left the First Rater _Royal Sovereign_ almost completely unscathed.

Karin sank down atop Morgiana's neck panting heavily against black feathers. Willpower exhaustion was not something that she'd often encountered, but now, the abuse she had ignored before demanded its toll.

Eyes closing, sinking into darkness, the last thing Karin heard before losing consciousness was the laughter of her daughters.

"Here they come, Sir." A midshipman reported. It would have been a Lieutenant, if there had been any Lieutenants to be sparred from other duties just keeping the battered ship balanced and airworthy.

Captain Sir Henry Bowood, formerly in service to the Royal House of Tudor, and presently the acting commander of the first rater _Lexington, _formerly the _Royal Sovereign_, stood with hands clasped behind his back, watching as the victors approached, two dragons, two griffins, and host of smaller winged forms besides. It was the last that had his attention now. After their showing, how could it be any other way?

With the death of the Squadron Commander during the surprise attack, and the apparent death of the Captain of the 6th Dragon Knight Squadron, Sir Bowood had found himself in a difficult position as acting commander. Surrender or obliteration.

The surprise attack, combined with the second devastation of what he could only describe as an impossibly powerful wind spell, and even that did it no justice, had left the Far Northern Squadron in no condition to fight on. Only three of their surviving ships and the Lexington possessed anything resembling flight worthiness, and the surviving Dragon Knights had been driven off or forced to stand down in short order.

The arriving fleet, which proudly flew the flag of the Kingdom of Tristain, had taken the opportunity to rush into gunnery range, sending up international signal flags demanding that all surviving ships stand down and prepare to be boarded. The alternatively was to be shot from the skies while they struggled to steady their ships and see to their dead and wounded.

Bowood, having joined the Rebel forces out of a firm belief in his obligation to obey and follow his superiors rather than any personal devotion to the cause, had given the order to stand down with only so much reluctance as propriety demanded. In truth, he was silently thankful that it was over, and that there would be an opportunity for his surviving men to escape with their lives, even if his own ended up forfeit.

The mixed flight of Dragons and Griffins spread wings and came to a halt, dropping smoothly onto the deck of the _Lexington _one by one. The impacts barely rocked the bulk of the massive ship, the following winged beings even less so as they landed like featherweights.

So these were the Faeries he'd heard about. Bowood observed carefully. They were . . . Well . . . he wasn't certain how exactly to describe them, even after seeing their prowess first hand. The red clad ones were obviously enough warriors, trained soldiers equipped in superbly crafted armor, the massive man at their lead most obviously a Knight or Commander of some sort.

It was the others he was confused by. Darkly clad and scattered loosely about, no two were equipped the same, in and of itself not unusual, but more than that, no two had the same bearing, standing straight or learning casually against masts. And were those women with them?

He was left to wonder as one of their numbers stepped forward, wrapped in a dark cloak, long black hair spilling freely past her waist. A woman, a beautiful, raven haired woman who wouldn't have been out of place at all on the arm of a Count or a Duke, at first he didn't even notice her pointed ears. She stepped lightly across the deck, barefoot he noted, unlike any of the others, and with the strangest smile as she joined the Red Clad behemoth.

Sir Bowood was still digesting the odd pair as two of his midshipmen helped a man down from one of the Dragons wearing the uniform of a Tristanian Mage Officer.

"Good day, Captain Bowood." The Officer saluted. "I am Captain Fevis of the Crown Ship _Mercator_ here to accept your surrender." Lowering the salute, Fevis stood erect. "Might I say that you and your men fought bravely be all accounts. This grizzly business reflects well on you . . ."

A stare from the black garbed woman cut Captain Fevis short.

"Ah yes." The Captain said uncomfortably. "As I've mentioned. Your men are to stand down and vacate your remaining ships and the docks at once. The exception being the officers, including yourself and the gunnery commanders who will be taken as prisoners of war. Your remaining forces will remain away from the dock areas until we depart. In return, Admiral La Ramee vows that no attack will be perpetrated on your men or the ships and buildings of York. Is this acceptable."

Sir Bowood nodded slowly. Despite what had been claimed, that they would be treated honorably as Noble prisoners, he might well be handing himself up for execution. An anonymous death for a man who considered himself a closet Royalist. "The terms you've outlined are acceptable to myself and my officers. The crews will be made ready to evacuate our ships."

"Very well." Captain Fevis turned and signaled to one of his Griffin Knight escorts. "Signal for the Admiral to bring ships up along side. We'll transfer over the prize crews while our armsmen land and retrieve the cannons on the docks and at the fortress."

It appeared that what Reconquista had gained from the Royalists, would now fall into the hands of Tristain and its Faerie allies. It was as he was thinking this that Sir Bowood noticed the black haired woman examining his officer's hat. Picking it up gingerly as if a child amused by some bobble.

Sir Bowood frowned. "Excuse me Miss, but if I may ask . . . " He stopped at she looked over at him, a smile smile quirking her lips.

"Yes?"

After several false starts, Bowood finally managed. "Just who are you?"

A chuckle spread among the dark clad warriors. Were they her soldiers? Her honor guard?

"Who am I?" The woman asked the question back before placing Bowood's hat carefully atop her own head, tipping the rim forward. She smiled. "I'm Morgan le Fay."


	70. Halkegenia Offline Set 6

-Halkegenia Offline Set 6-

-There's stilla epilogue to be released, but it's turning out really fricking long so I'll probably split it up into two parts. In the mean time, here's some more offline crack. Remember folks _some_ of this might become canon.-

++Thoughts by the Departed++

"Wells-sa-ma!"

Sir William Wells, former vice commander of his majesty's 4th Royal Dragon Knight squadron, and now field commander of the 4th Dragon Squadron of the Holy Aerial Cavalry of the Glorious Movement of the Reconquistadors*, grimaced as he heard the sing song voice of the bane of his existence.

"Wells-sa-ma!" Aki sang again, badly as she bounced up behind him.

Despite every effort that had been made by both himself and Sir Dunwell to tactfully dispose of the . . ._ unique_ assets that had been entrusted to them by Lord Cromwell, the Zombies proved disconcertingly resilient. Of the six they had been allowed to retain after the battle of Newcastle, they had managed to attrition the zombies down by about half so far, employing them deliberately in a fashion to ensure their destruction. However, somehow, no matter how many times she was dismembered, her bones splintered, and her flesh sliced to shreds, Aki had come through ever mission with no more permanent damage than a missing rib.

Every day with her about was a new and unique horror. Interrogations of prisoners taken brutally literally. Trainees traumatized by her mere presence. And then there had been the incident where she had brought breakfast to his room dressed in an apron . . . and nothing else. He tried desperately to shut out the memory and its implications.

Wells had decided that he would either eventually grow numb to her existence or else finally throw etiquette out the window and incinerate the walking horror, possibly in full view of every one of his subordinates, and damn the consequences. Why he had not done so already was a mystery, even to himself.

Perhaps it was masochism.

More than any of the other undead, Aki represented a uniquely personal hell. Reminding him every day that he had killed an innocent and that he obeyed monsters in the hopes of serving some greater good.

It had not been intentional. He had simply seen a figure by the fire light, running through the smoke, brandishing a sword as she made a path towards the foot soldiers. Though his fireball had missed its mark, the wood splinters thrown out when it had struck a nearby tree had taken her threw the heart, killing her almost instantly. He had only learned the full horror of what he had done after Aki had been resurrected as one of the undead and happily explained her circumstances.

That might have been why, instead of ignoring the voice, Wells reluctantly turned around to accept the latest episode of his ongoing punishment.

"Aki." He greeted neutrally.

"Wells-sama!" She chirped back, clutching a book closely to her chest like some young bording school girl.

Said book was a compilation of low level Fae magics that had been obtained by their agents in Tristain. It had been decided that so long as Aki and the other zombies existed, they might as well be studied, and their capabilities utilized to their fullest. Personally, Wells thought giving Aki the ability to conjure magical fire was a horrific idea.

The girl bounced up and down on the balls of her feet as she stared at him with her ever fixed smile. He remembered after a moment that he had instructed her not to speak more than greetings unless spoken to first. Some of her comments had been quite . . . compromising . . . in the past.

"Do you need something to do, Miss Aki?" Wells asked. At very least she could be made useful around the camp, and while occupied she had less time to horrify the men.

The girl tilted he head to the side. "Wells-sama, I've been thinking . . ."

'Never a good thing.' Wells thought.

He couldn't say what Aki had been like in life, but in death, her reanimated mind had become a maze of obscene, perverted, and borderline psychotic thoughts giving rise to most of her untoward comments.

"If its about the chicken then no!" He groaned.

"No, not that silly!" Aki shook her head. "I have a question."

Almost as bad as her thinking for herself, but, "Go on." Wells sighed.

"Those mages and Faeries we killed the other day said some very hurtful things." She said with a faux pout of her lips. "They called Dunwell-sama a traitor and Lutece-san a whore, and they called Wells-sama the illegitimate son of a traitor and a whore and . . ."

"Yes, yes, where is this going?" Wells asked.

"Dunwell-sama didn't deny being called a traitor and Lutece-san didn't care that she was called a whore. But that made me think, when I was killing that Puca, he said I wasn't really Aki, isn't that silly?" Aki took on an exaggerated look of studious concentration. It would have been comical, adorable, if done by anyone else.

He really didn't have time for this, and the faster he got to whatever was rattling about in Aki's perpetually un-rotting skull the better. "And what do you think?" He asked carefully.

Aki smiled brightly. "Obviously, I'm Aki! How can't I be? I have Aki's face and all of Aki's memories, there's nothing else I could be but Aki! So?"

"So?" Wells asked.

"What do you think Wells-sa-ma?" Her head tilted from side to side as she sing songed his name and the attached honorific.

Wells shook his head. Was this all. "I think that it is just so, you are Aki." He said, exacerbated. "Is that all?"

"Yep!" Aki nodded.

Thankful to have this resolved for now, though nonetheless somewhat at a loss, Sir Wells returned to making his way down the hall towards his next meeting.

That should have been the end of it, but as he turned the corner, Aki's voice carried down the hallway, she'd seemingly never relearned the etiquette of whispering after her demise.

Speaking to no one but herself. "That's right." The voice as cheerful as ever, but with a distinctly brittle note. "I a_m_ Aki."

* * *

++A Special Day++

Yui, Kirigaya Yui, former mental health care AI in the game world of SAO, and now one of only two Maeve Faeries in all of Halkegenia, tucked her hands deeper into the warmth of her pockets and buried her face further into her scarf. It had been ten months since the former players, the Faeries of ALhfeim as they had grown to prefer, had arrived in Halkegenia, and although the Halkegenian calendar was slightly longer than that of Earth, the signs of autumn transforming into winter were everywhere.

That morning, Yui had found frost forming on the outside of her bedroom window, and she had been particularly reluctant to crawl out of the pocket of warmth beneath her heavy blanket. The only thing that made it bearable was Miss Siesta. The maid, who had ended up in the employ of the Kirigaya family after an incident several months ago, had made it a point to wake early every morning and tend to the fireplace so that by the time Yui stumbled down the steps into the kitchen she didn't feel like she was about to freeze to death.

Outside, the Faeries and the small number of commoner humans and petty mages who had begun to inhabit Arrun, were already dressing in their winter clothes. Thick coats, scarves, and sweaters. Yui was likewise dressed, her winter boots crunching through the frost that had formed on the streets, breath puffing out in small white clouds in front of her as she made her way down towards the city outskirts. She could have flown, but if it was this cold on the ground, she couldn't imagine how bad it would be in the air. Besides, the exercise would warm her up.

Query. She wondered how the Pixie Gardens were doing. There had been some concern over how winter might affect the Yggdrasil blossoms, but Hinagiku hadn't seemed too worried when last she'd heard from her. The pixies knew well enough by instinct how to prepare their nests and had been gathering up food and tinder to keep warm since spring. With the help of the humans of Halkegenia they were very well prepared for Winter. Most of the plants in the gardens were either hardy enough to endure the cold months, had already gone dormant for winter, or else wilted, their seeds carefully collected for replanting at the beginning of spring.

Even so, as Yui passed a street corner she noticed a small kiosk built atop a fence post. A dozen or so pixies were huddled up within the doll house sized structure, eating and warming themselves beside an oil lamp, their super heavy winter coats making them look like dandelions with wings.

Yui wished she could be inside too, but Aunt Sugu said she couldn't miss a day of practice just because it was cold out, she had to be tough. She hefted the sword she carried slung over her shoulder, a simple one handed blade given to her by Aunt Lis when she'd begun practicing swordsmanship. Besides, it was the responsibility of the self defense classes, under the careful supervision of trained instructors, to keep the number of mud-skeet-toads and now tundrantulas that infested the outer walls of Arrun in check. Among the very weakest mobs, they served as good live targets for civilians and children seeking to improve their self defense skills.

She was around halfway to the gates of the city when Yui caught sight of her own reflection in a shallow, half frozen puddle and stopped for a moment to stare. Cautiously, she reached up and pulled off her hat and ear muffs, reaching out, she touched her ears cautiously, watching as her reflection did the same. They were long, and delicate, and pointed, just like Mama's. The thought Pleased her immensely. Anything that made her closer to her Mama and Papa was a good thing. It was almost like she was their real daughter . . .

Yui's hand fell away dejectedly. She'd been trying hard not to think like that, but recently it had become difficult. Reminders were beginning to pop up. Ten months was enough time, after all. The first babies, the first Fae babies, conceived after the transition, had begun coming to term. Though still a rare sight, the new mothers were often reluctant to turn their infants into spectacles, it was becoming more and more common to catch glimpses of the new parents, their infants swaddled up in blankets or dressed warmly in knit clothing and caps.

Yui had even had the chance to hold one just yesterday when she'd visited the hospital for her own checkup. The baby boy, eyes still closed, had curled up in her arms as she held him reverently. His dark hair, moderately pointed ears, and ashen skin had marked him out as a Spriggan even now. Careful not to wake him, she'd handed the baby back to his mother, the raven haired woman grinning all the while as she accepted and held her son close to her own chest.

"He's beautiful." Yui had complimented.

The woman had given a small chuckle. "That's sweet of you to say kiddo. But his good looks aren't the only thing he's going to have going for him." She reached down, poking her son's cheek affectionately. "This little guy is going to grow up strong, just like his Mom and Dad."

Yui had nodded in agreement. Watching as mother and child began the first steps in bonding. She was struck by how incredible humans and by extension Faeries were. Infants were helpless things, they could only communicate the simplest of needs, they had no knowledge to begin with, and it took many years before their minds and bodies developed to the point where they could reliably care for and behave themselves. Yet a mother's instincts could be strong enough to care for and bond with their child, to nurture them as they grew. The thought that the baby held in her arms would one day be grown with is own children to protect was simply Amazing. Humans were amazing, most of all, mothers were amazing.

And that was also part of the problem. The bond between parents and their children was incredibly strong. Parents would do anything to protect and care for their children and the way that Mama and Papa treated her was no different. But even so, she couldn't help but worry a little. It was only natural that one day, maybe even soon, her parents would want to have another child, one that shared their blood.

Yui couldn't help but worry that when that happened, holding their real child in their arms for the first time might change the way that her parents thought of her. She knew that they loved her, and that she loved them, and Yui also knew that wouldn't change. But was the love they felt for her really how someone felt for their own child? Love was such a complicated Emotional State, there were many variations, she couldn't be sure. Besides, a baby needed a lot of attention. While Yui wasn't Averse to the idea of having a sibling, the idea that it might reduce the time she could spend with Mama and Papa was concerning. This line of thought had been occurring more and more often recently.

At first she had disregarded the idea as mere noise, faulty logic . It was ridiculous, her parents loved her and she loved them, they were Family, it was as simple as that. But over the last couple of weeks, her parents had been up to something. Staying quiet when she was around, finding extra things for her to do that took her away from them. They seemed to be hiding something. The only thing she could think it might be was . . . She shook her head, Mama didn't show any of the physiological symptoms of pregnancy. Yui's enhanced sensory abilities would have picked up on it before all but a highly trained doctor, so it definitely wasn't that. But they might be making arrangements, and that was scary in its own way.

A shadowy silhouette had appeared in the reflection beside her. Yui had sensed the interloper, but since she was on a public street she hadn't thought much about him until he had stopped moving. "Yui-chan." A Gruff voice said, or at least, a voice that was gruff for an eleven year old.

"Oh, Bardiche-kun." Yui said with open Affection. Standing a head taller than her, his short cropped blonde hair a mess, dressed in dark green coat, black pants, and heavy winter boots, the Sylph boy looked down at her sternly.

"You weren't at the usual spot, so I came to find you." He said, eyes averted. His face was flushed, probably from the cold.

"Oh." Yui said, thinking what to say. "I must have just lost track of the time." Of course, that was impossible, Yui could no more stop counting milliseconds than she could stop breathing.

Bardiche nodded as if this made sense to him. He didn't know that Yui had been an AI in that other world and she still wasn't sure how to tell him. Being among the youngest players caught in the transition, Bardiche had been almost too happy to find someone His Own Age other than his sister to spend time with. Ever since they had met, the three of them tended to party up when they went mob hunting along the walls or just explored Arrun and the surrounding countryside together.

With Bardiche to provide offensive magic, his sister Balandeen to handle buffs and healing, and Yui to do the close in melee and additional offensive magic, they worked well together.

Leaning against his halberd, the sylph boy shook his head. "Anyways, it doesn't matter too much. Class was canceled since the instructors are sick."

"Both of them?" Yui asked.

"They think one of them caught it from the other. It's just the flu, but they don't want to spread it to anyone else." Bardiche said seriously. In Yui's opinion, he was very Mature for his age. Hypothesis Bardiche only had his uncle and younger sister, he probably felt it was his job to Be a man so that his uncle wouldn't have to worry and so that he could protect Balandeen. "You know the rules, no instructors, no class."

"Un." Yui nodded. She understood perfectly. It was a little Annoying since she'd walked all the way down here, but there was nothing that could be done. Maybe she could head to the library, at least it would be warm in there.

She was about to make her way back up the street when Bardiche reached out and rustled her hair. "Come on, the Cafe isn't far, I'll buy you a hot chocolate."

Yui pushed his hand away, feeling a hint of Annoyance. "I told you to stop doing that." She huffed as she pulled her hat back down over her head, the only people who could pat the top of her head were Papa and Mama.

As if to further Annoy her, Bardiche simply grinned. It was about the only thing that could reliably upset her, so why did he take so much pleasure in doing it?

"Well then, let me make it up to you, come on!" He had her by the wrist and was tugging her along. While it wasn't by choice, she didn't resist, their heavy foot falls clomping down the cold streets, the air around them thick with the vapor from their breath. Yui's lungs were burning from the cold before they reached the end of the street.

"Bardiche, please slow down a little, my stats aren't that good!" Though she'd gotten a little faster and stronger since she'd started her training, the phenomenon that enhanced Faerie strength, endurance, and magical ability was very slow in this world. It would probably take years of hard work for her to match Aunt Sugu, much less Mama and Papa.

Eventually Bardiche had slowed down, quelled by shouts from the adults around them, and more concerned warnings to be careful to not hurt themselves. They ended up on one of the side streets in Arrun's central district. This back alley had originally been nothing but alchemists shops and special weapons salesmen open only at night time. But since the NPCs had disappeared and the shops had been stripped for emergency stocks after the transition, they had been gradually given out to Faeries starting their own businesses.

One such business was a Hole in the Wall establishment near the far end of the street, tucked into a corner between the shop of a native Halkegenian pharmacist and a Leprechaun alchemist. The Dicey Cafe, favored establishment of off duty Faerie Knights and the Kirigaya family.

When they reached the front door Yui noticed a sign advising that the Cafe had been reserved from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM. By her internal clock, and the decorative watch she wore around her wrist, it was just past 10:30 in the morning. "Bardiche-kun, it looks like we'll have to come back later." Yui said. From what she could sense, there were already a lot of people inside, the whole Cafe must be full for some special engagement.

Instead of heeding her advice the Sylph boy pushed her forward. "Isn't Agil-san one of your Uncles? Remember, he said you're always welcome. I'm sure we can sit back in the kitchen if its full right now."

"He did." Yui admitted. "But that doesn't mean we should just barge in and . . ." Bardiche reached out, tugging her cap down over her eyes. With one last solid push she was sent stumbling over the threshold into the cafe, feeling her boots knocking against the hardwood floor. "Bardiche-kun!" Yui grumbled as she pulled her hat up from over her eyes. Despite everything she knew about people, there were still lots of times that even the ones she knew could be a complete mystery. Why would he do that?

"Happy Birthday Yui!"

The combined shout of a dozen voices nearly made the young Maeve jump out of her skin. Her head spun about. Her senses hadn't been incorrect. The Dicey Cafe was packed with people. All of them people that she knew, her Aunts and Uncles, her friends and family. Aunt Sugu, and Aunt Lis, and Uncle Klein , and Agil. Others too, Balandeen, and Silica, KoKo, and most of all standing beneath the wide banner hung over the counter, proudly proclaiming what everyone had just said, her Mama and Papa, both smiling, arms reaching out to her.

"Happy birthday Yui-chan." Her Mama said, smiling warmly as Bardiche gave her another gentle push into the middle of the room.

"We hope this is okay." Her Papa said, scratching his cheek apologetically. "After all, we might have gotten the date a little mixed up since the calender is so different here. But it's been about a year either way."

Was this what they had been doing? Her Mama and Papa? Yui wondered as she looked around. Everyone was smiling expectantly, even Pina was waiting for her response. Her parents . . . This was supposed to be a surprise. A present for her. But it would have been hard for them to plan anything if she was around. So they'd gone to all of this effort to hide it so that they could give her the gift of this Special Moment.

"A year since we first met." Her Mama nodded. "A Year since we met you Yui-chan. Things sure have changed, haven't they . . . Yui-chan?" A look of worry replaced her mother's smile.

Yui reached up and felt the tears running down her cheek. Her face was so cold from being outside that they burned really badly, they almost felt like they were scalding hot. Wiping them away Yui shook her head and smiled back to her mother and father, her family. "They're happy tears!"

* * *

++Envy++

It was frequently marveled that though Tristania was not the largest city among the Kingdom's of Halkegenia, that honor being given to the Capital of Gallia, nor the wealthiest, a privilege reserved for the seat of the Holy Father, it was perhaps one of the best planned. Over a century ago, Tristania had been burned nearly to the ground by Germanian Invaders in the War of White Roses with only the Royal Mausoleum and the a handful of heavily warded stone buildings surviving the destruction. Even the old Palace had been thoroughly defaced, its repair deemed more expensive than simply rebuilding.

It had been with great fortune that the King of the time, Princess Henrietta's Great Great grandfather had returned from his campaign in Gallia along with forces formed from an Alliance with Romalia and Albion. The Germanian invaders were repelled with little further damage to the Kingdom than had been caused by their narrow invasion corridor. The war had ended the next year when Gallia had sued for peace, and the opportunistic Germanians, seeing the situation unfold, did the same, offering many concession, including vast quantities of treasure to repay for their surprise attack.

The King of Tristain, seeing his country on the verge of collapse after ten years of war, had pored this wealth into one of the largest civil projects ever imagined, the reconstruction of Tristania. The great Romolian Intellectual Leonard de Vence had been commissioned to redesign the Capital from the ground up. The Capital was to be a crown jewel fit to serve as the home of the Royal family and the seat of the monarchies power. And furthermore, to resist any attempt at another sacking.

The City's main streets had been arranged in the pattern of an eight pointed star, a layout popularized by new construction in Romalia, the districts neatly divided into mage and commoner quarters and consideration made even in the design of the roads to ensure that they sloped in such a way that liquid waste would flow downhill towards the downstream end of the Anik river.

Even the placement of public squares and municipal buildings had been carefully considered. Accommodations were made to fortify Tristania in times of war while inviting commerce and expansion in times of peace. Likewise, the Palace had been carefully situated in such a way that it was surrounded by other houses of government, the Legal College, and the Court of Peers, at the heart of the Noble Quarter of the city. Indeed, the palace and its surrounding environs took up nearly the entirety of one of the Triangular arms of the eight pointed star.

Many assumed that the Palace had been constructed at its exact location for some secret reason. Perhaps hiding a repository of Royal Knowledge, Guarding a Sacred Artifact, or sitting atop a particularly powerful Ley Line. All were strictly true. But that was not the deciding factor. For the Palace had been constructed so that within its grounds, the Royal family would have exclusive access to a mineral spring.

Louise Valliere looked down through the clear water, starring hard at her hands and trying not to feel too bad about herself. After all, she should be pleased, ecstatic even. Of all thing, Henrietta had seen fit to Knight her for her service at Tarbes! How could she not feel pleased! But even though she should be happy. And she was happy, ecstatic! She had finally proven herself to be a mage despite her shortcomings. Her current surroundings painfully reminded her of some of her shortcomings.

'S-stupid Kirche . . .' But not just Kirche. ' . . . stupid Faeries!' The source of her angst surrounded her. The Zerbst and several very beautiful, and very female Faerie Lords.

"Ah, this really was a wonderful idea. Thank you for inviting us Princess" Lady Sakuya of the Sylphs sank down into the water opposite Louise, resting her arms against the sculpted marble of the Royal Baths. Above their heads, an elaborate gold rimmed Fresco of Cherubic Children flying forth to announce the coming of the Founder looked down on them as the warm afternoon light fell in through the tall windows flanking the bath. The waters of which were constantly renewed by heated mineral water rushing down an artfully constructed fountain head.

"It's quite alright Sakuya-chan" Henrietta said, very carefully pronouncing the Faerie term of endearment. "I'm always happy to have you. And Novair seemed worried that you were over working yourself again. You'll get wrinkles much too soon if you don't stop to enjoy yourself!"

"Enjoy myself?" Sakuya asked. "I'll have you know I enjoy myself just fine!" She gave Henrietta a mischievous look. "Though I do wonder if someone else isn't enjoying herself too. What with her Prince Valiant being so close at hand. Where is Wales today anyways?"

"The same place as your Black Swordsman and White Flash." Henrietta said. "Mister Kirito showed up just yesterday and dragged him out of the Palace right in the middle of a strategy meeting telling him that he needed some time off."

Sitting Beside Lady Sakuya, Lady Alicia, the Cait Syth leader, perked up, childish features growing alarmed. "Hey now! And you just let him! There's a war on you know!"

"Exactly!" Henrietta agreed. "And Wales is acting like he's fighting it all on his own. Honestly he's running the General's ragged. Besides everything's been decided for now. We can't do anything else until the army is raised and organized."

"Heh, a whole army of his very own to play with, I bet Mortimer is like a kid in a candy store." The dark haired Lady of the Spriggan's commented from her place at the far side of the bath. A broad lipped goblet and a bottle of wine sitting next to her. "Well, he does have to share with General Gramont." Morgiana corrected herself thoughtfully. "Though the General was looking like a kid again himself when that crazy Leprechaun chick and the Earth mages unveiled their new golems."

Henrietta nodded. "That's actually why I asked Mister Kirito and Miss Asuna to cart him off for a few days. I thought they'd be good company for him so I lent them our a Country Estate near Ragdorian Lake. Mister Kirito said he's going to teach Wales how to fish. That should keep him out of trouble for a while at least."

"And you didn't tell Wales?" Sakuya asked, eyes wide as Henrietta shook her head, "That was evil of you!"

"Thank you." Henrietta accepted with beatific smile as she sank lower in the water.

"Hey is something wrong Lulu?" Louise looked up to see Lady Alicia giving her a concerned look. "You should be enjoying yourself after all. Its a nice day. Plenty of good food and good wine. Not to mention great company! Cheer up!"

"N-nothing. Nothing is wrong!" Louise stuttered, waving her hands quickly. At her side, Botan, the Pixie Knight who had official been accepted as a retainer of the Valliere family and Louise's personal servant, bobbed up and down in the water like a wine cork. Louise's eyes fell once more, inevitably, on the outline of Lady Sakuya. It was just . . . The Faerie Lord really was quite beautiful and . . . wholesome. Louise winced, wondering not for the first time what sort of diet the Fae had been raised on to end up with bodies like that. Worse, while she teased with Henrietta, Sakuya was nothing but kind to Louise, like the tolerable parts of Kirche without the hidden bite.

Naturally it was at this moment, when Louise was at her most vulnerable, that the Zerbst decided to speak. "Louise is just sad because her boobs haven't come in yet."

"Thank you Kirche." Lousie said tightly. She'd been getting much better at controlling her temper, all the practice most likely.

Henrietta smiled kindly. "Louise, it's nothing to be ashamed of. You're a perfectly lovely girl just the way you are."

"That's right." Sakuya agreed with a slightly amused but sincere smile. "Besides, you're still on the young side, aren't you? I'm guessing you're not more than twelve or thirteen, right?"

"I'm seventeen." Louise mumbled, sinking a bit deeper in the water. At least through the ripples and steam it wasn't so obvious.

"Oh" Sakuya offered awkwardly.

"Eh? You're worried about being titless?" Lady Morgiana said. "Relax kid, I didn't start to fill out until I was almost out of high school." The Spriggan lord stretched in a way that accentuated her bosom. "Don't worry, the cleavage will come."

"That's right." Henrietta added. "After all, your mother and sisters are all lovely women."

Louise shook her head mournfully. That was because Cattleya took after her paternal grandmother. Eleanor still padded her bra, and though Louise didn't have the courage to ask, she suspected her mother did as well.

"Don't sweat it." Lady Alicia said as she placed her arms beneath her own modest chest. "Big breasts may be glamorous, but small ones too are wonderful. Besides they can be a real pain the back, literally! I bet a lot of girl's are regretting getting a bit too generous with the character editor back in that other world."

"The problem is." Kirche said relentlessly. "That Louise doesn't just have small boobs, she doesn't have any."

"Thank you Kirche . . ." Louise breathed.

"I mean look at her! She's flat as board. She could be used for carpentry!"

"Thank . . . You . . . Kirche!"

"By the Founder, even Botan over here is bigger than her! And that goes for both relative and absolute proportions." Kirche gestured to the pixie girl who had until now remained silent.

"Waah!" Botan spluttered, moving quickly to cover herself. "Kirche-san! It's not proper to draw attention to them!" The pixie Knight turned completely red and sank down in the water until only the top of her head broke the surface.

Finally, Louise decided she'd had it. She was angry, but not really at anyone but Kirche. It was just . . . just . . . Everyone was trying to be nice, but they were only making things worse. "That . . . Is . . . ENOUGH!" Louise shouted, erupting out of the bath. "I'm through with hearing all of this! I don't need . . . I don't need pity!" She slapped a hand to her chest. "A Valliere's pride is above such things! Botan, let's go get dressed. Princess! We will await you all when you're done!" With as much dignity as she could muster, Louise plucked her tiny retainer from the water by her larger primary wings. The pixie giving her a grateful look even as she continued to cover herself in embarrassment.

"Where are you going Louise?" Henrietta asked, amusement turning to concern.

Louise shook her head angrily as she stormed off. "I'm going to go drink a lot of milk!"


	71. Epilogue Pt1

The Epilogue has gotten really long, so I'm splitting it into three parts, which, interestingly, works really well for each parts theme. And to answer questions, no this is not the end of the story. I'll be starting up a continuation once I'm done with the epilogue. Stay tuned of HaLO v2.0

Halkegenia Online - Epilogue Pt 1

It was evening as the ships of Tristain began to return home, their round trip journey bringing them back to where they had started over the dimly lit streets and squares of the their Kingdom's Capital.

News of their return had been sent forward by Dragon messenger to the Palace where Suguha had just been sitting down to dinner with Yui, Louise, and Princess Henrietta when word had arrived. By the time the ships became visible in the darkening sky, a congregation had already gathered to greet them.

Suguha wrapped her arms tightly around Yui from behind. Both shivering slightly in the strangely chill evening air.

The messenger hadn't given any specifics, only reporting breathlessly that the mission had been a resounding success. There had been few losses, and Prince Wales Tudor had been successfully rescued. By the time Suguha had had a chance to ask about her brother, it had already been faster to just come out and see for themselves.

One by one, the ships began their slow descent to land in the fields outside of the city, met by flights of Manticore and Dragon Knights who signaled a challenge to each in turn until only one ship was left alone in the skies, slender hull casting a dark silhouette, sails catching the light of the early rising blue moon.

At last, lines were cast down from the final ship and caught by ground crews who helped to guide it into a waiting cradle. Sails were brought in, masts were folded, the hull settled heavily, creaking as weight shifted from the ballasting engine to the skin of the ship. Silence fell, the gangplank was dropped, and the the first passengers began to disembark.

Suguha watched with baited breath.

The sick and wounded were carried off first, men atop stretchers followed closely by attendant Undine Healers and Royalist Physicians. They were met by more healers as soon as they set foot on solid ground, carrying the worst cases quickly back towards the city and the infirmary at the Champ de Mars Training facility.

They were followed by the walking wounded, those who had been hurt in the fighting but had been able to make it to the ships on their own. Those who were judged seriously hurt were sent after the other severely injured while the others were simply lead aside to have their wounds examined and redressed.

Finally, the fit soldiers and sailors began to disembark, men who were unhurt, but haggard, tired looking as if they hadn't rested well in ages. Compared to the Tristanians all around them, even these able bodied men looked thin and sickly. Amazingly though, they carried themselves proudly as they set foot on Tristain's soil. For them, survival had been a great victory.

"Aunt Sugu?" Yui asked urgently.

"It's okay." Suguha reassured her niece. "They're here, just wait." They had to be. They had to be here. If the mission had been successful, then it definitely meant that Kirito and Asuna were alright.

The line of disembarking soldiers, sailors, and Faeries began to trickle down to the handful who were remaining aboard to finish docking the ships and place them on standby readiness. Still there had been no sign of the two they were waiting for.

Suguha held her breath. And then, two more figures came to stand at the gangplank of the last ship. Moving with slow deliberation, helping each other to limp down to the ground. One clad in jet black, and the other in pure white. Suguha's heart fluttered.

"Papa! Mama!" Yui shouted. Suguha let the girl go, watching as she ran with all her might to Kirito and Aunsa. "Mama! Mama!"

The chestnut haired girl at Kirito's side widened her eyes as she heard Yui's voice, head spinning around. "Yui-chan? Yui-chan!"

"Mama!" Yui shouted one last time, tears running down her cheeks as she threw herself into the arms of the only mother she had ever known and was taken up in a deep embrace, both mother and daughter clinging to each other for dear life.

Slowly, Kirito limped forward, her brother definitely looked worse for the wear, at least as bad as some of the Albionian soldiers. Suguha couldn't imagine what he must have gone through just today, much less over the last two weeks. But now it was over. Kirito gently placed his arms around Asuna and Yui, holding them both closely. It was over.

Suguha watched from a distance, smiling. She blinked as a strange heat began to come to her eyes. She was happy, or at least, she thought she was. Her brother had found the person who mattered most to him in this life, and together they embraced their daughter. They looked just like a family, a family that was finally complete.

"Miss Leafa?" It was Princess Henrietta, gently placing a hand to her shoulder. "That is your brother, is it not? You should go to him."

Suguha squirmed a little. "R-right. I'll do that, after . . . after they've had some time." She looked over as Henrietta's hand fell from her shoulder and quickly covered her mouth.

Up on the deck of the ship, one last solitary figure had come to stand in front of the gangplank, and it wasn't just Henrietta who was watching him.

It started slowly and then gathered strength, cheers and claps from the gathered Tristanian nobility, from the disembarking soldiers, and even from the Faeries as word of the youth's identity spread through the crowd. Crown Prince Wales Tudor of Albion, the last son of the fallen King James.

He began his personal descent, limping with the help of a cane. His gate was feeble, but he refused aid from the Faerie woman and boy following at his side.

Henrietta fidgeted nervously and then glanced to her Regent, Cardinal Mazarin, who had come as her escort.

The Cardinal's stern expression broke as he sighed. "Princess, your impropriety and that young man have caused a great deal of trouble."

Henrietta bowed her head low, looking shamefully at the ground. "I . . ."

"But the Church has a saying for times like this." Mazarin cut in. "Relish your impropriety, and worry later."

The Princess looked dumbstruck and then, lips pressed into an uncertain smile. "Thank you." She whispered before turning to run towards the ship and Prince Wales Tudor.

_'_Thank you for what?' Suguha wondered . . . 'Oh.'

Coming to stand at the bottom of the gangplank, the Prince and the Princess faced each other, and then without more than a word exchanged, fell into an embrace.

"Hey, hurry it up here! You're blocking the way." The Faerie woman behind the Prince grumbled and then yelped as she was jabbed in the side by the boy next to her.

"Wales . . . " Henrietta breathed, resting her head against that of the young Prince.

Wales lifted a hand to Henrietta's lips to silence her. "It seems I've caused you some trouble, Henrietta." The voice of the Prince was clear, cultured, and carried a hint of pained humor as he looked into Henrietta's eyes. "Well, it's only right that I help to correct that matter." Taking Henrietta's hands in his own, the Prince smiled. "I Wales Tudor, Crown Prince of Albion, am as always at your service, Princess Henrietta de Tristain."

He leaned in and whispered something in the Princess's ear that even Suguha's Sylph hearing couldn't catch. The Princess blushed and then threw her arms around Wales' neck, receiving curious looks from those present, but Suguha thought she knew and smiled a little more certainly. There were more people to be happy for tonight.

Hoots and shouts began to spread, arms pointing to the sky. Drawing the attention of the Prince and Princess, and of Kirito, Asuna, and Yui.

Arriving now, after the faster ships, a fleet of twenty large airships could just be made out by the way they blocked the moonlight, a massive ship that dwarfed all of the others taking lead. And rising from its deck were the lights of Faerie wings.

* * *

_A sharp, almost painful tugging of his hair snatched up Guiche's attention. "Hey, were you listening? What's that letter about, Guiche?!"_

_"Eh?" Guiche lowered the missive from his eyes._

_A golden haired girl looked down on him, studying his face as she awaited a response rather less patiently than he would have entirely liked._

_"Don't 'Eh?' me." Montmorency mon Montmorency huffed irritably. "What is it? Tell me, or I shall assume it's another of your indiscretions and destroy it at once." A wand appeared in Montmorency's right hand and was waved menacingly about._

_Guiche clutched the letter closer in a panic, not so much worried for the letter as for his own well being given the girl's self admittedly terrible aim. "It's from brother! Its from my eldest brother, Reinhardt!" He explained quickly._

_Montmorency didn't seem to believe him at first, so quickly, he thrust the letter into her hands so that she could be satisfied with her own inspection. Muttering dangerously to herself, she scanned through the letter, expression going from open irritation, to thoughtful, and then apologetic. She handed the letter back with a small sigh._

_"I should have known you'd be telling the truth this once."_

_Guiche sat up beneath the comfortable shade of the tree had had been laying against. "But of course I'd be telling the truth I . . ." He frowned. "What do you mean by should have known this once?"_

_Montmorency gave him a conflicted look, as if about to reveal some important piece of military intelligence. "You've never used your brothers as an excuse."_

_"I haven't?" Guiche shook his head. "I mean . . . I have not, whatever would you be talking about my darling Monmon?"_

_Montmorency rolled her eyes as, straightening her skirt, she took a seat beside him. "So."_

_"So?"_

_"What's it about." She asked curiously. "I just scanned it over, the first paragraph, and the farewell." She shrugged. "It's pretty rough paper, and it didn't smell like perfume, so I stopped."_

_Guiche looked back at the letter, reading through it again. It was an announcement of his brother's promotion to the Rank of Captain, an impressive accomplishment, and his assignment to one of the border Fortresses as a commander where he would serve honorably as part of Tristain's first line of defense in the event of war. He began to explain this all to Montmorency, reading through from top to bottom, stopping to explain when his brother used military shorthand. When he finished, Montmorency nodded slowly._

_"It's a very great accomplishment." She decided aloud._

_"But of course!" Guiche preened. "He is after all a triangle class wind Mage. He was destined to go far in his military career."_

_"And what about you?" Montmorency asked. _

_Guiche blinked. "What about me?" Yes, what about him?_

_Montmorency's expression soured again. "I mean, do you plan to go far as well?"_

_Guiche fell silent for a moment, and not simply out of contemplation. The unspoken question. Do you plan to impress father enough for my hand?_

_It was not a topic he had tried to give much thought to. It was because, because he was a Gramont! Marriage so young? Why it would stifle him, and lose him opportunity to admire the feminine aesthetic!_

_Not to say that he was entirely averse to the idea. Montmorency was rather more svelte than his ideal, and the idea of taking on such a permanent obligation did weigh heavily on him. But . . . But she did listen to him, and not just listen, she talked back, argued, but in a good way. And a girl so forgiving of his . . . adventures, was most certainly a rare thing, among other advantages._

_It was no secret that the Gramont and Montmorency families had been in decline for many years. The Montmorency's had been met with misfortune in earlier generations after coming to abuse their unique relationship with the Spirits of Ragdorian lake. Even after a generation of struggle, they were only just beginning to recover a tiny fraction of their lost affluence and influence._

_Likewise, Guiche's own father was a superb military officer, as were all of his brothers excellent soldiers, but their efforts to leverage their talents elsewhere were forever met by bad luck. The Gramont family's saving grace was in the fact that each of the Baron's sons proved superbly skilled as a Mage. Even Guiche, a mere dot, showed the same potential as his brothers and was more than adept enough to conjure and control multiple golems._

_The result was that Guiche and Montmorency were almost made for one another. The fourth son and third Daughter of two formerly great families forever wrapped in misfortune but forever plotting their respective revivals. There had even been talks, preliminary probes by the current Montmorency Patriarch about Guiche's availability, an effort to bring good blood into the family in exchange for some of the Montmorency business expertise._

_"I . . . I don't know." Guiche admitted. "I shall of course be joining the army after graduation." Yes, to follow in his brothers footsteps and make his father proud. Father . . . Father didn't have much faith in him. "If I can make Lieutenant in the infantry, then I might be able to take a station in the the Royal Ground Cavalry." Certainly he would not become a Dragon Knight like his third eldest brother Gustav, an Earth Mage had no business fighting in the skies! "I suppose it will depend on how I am appraised when the time comes."_

_Montmorency nodded. "Well, if that's the case. The I suppose you'll learn soon. The familiar summoning is just next week."_

_Yes, the summoning. Whatever would it be? An Earth Dragon would be lovely, or perhaps a rock worm. As he considered the many varied possibilities, Montmorency began humming wordlessly. It was an old Tristanian tune from the regions of her family's estates. Something about a woman waiting for her love, and throwing herself down into the lake when she learned he had died while off to war._

_It was all very sad and suitably tragic, and yet airy and hopeful at the same time._

_Having made a pact with the Spirits, her love had moved the ancient beings, and her soul had been taken into their bosom and made into one of their jealously guarded treasures._

_Guiche closed his eyes, and listened . . ._

Guiche opened his eyes as he heard the last hummed lines of the familiar song. He was laying flat on his back, but not in Monmon's lap like he remembered. Nor was he outside, starring up at an unpainted wooden ceiling in a tiny room that had hardly enough space for a cot, a table, and a chair. Pale morning light shown through the window.

He tried to reach a hand to his head, and then winced in pain. His groaning was met by sudden silence.

"Oh, you're awake!"

Guiche turned his head to the side and blinked a few times to clear his vision. "Mon . . . mon?" Guiche wondered aloud. It was indeed her, golden ringlets and all, wearing a hospital smock and nurses cap. She looked tired, much too tired, and her eyes were ringed from lack of sleep. "What . . . where are . . ."

"There, there now." Montmorency whispered. "You're in the Infirmary at the Champ de Mars training center. There were quite a few injured and sickly from Newcastle, so they asked for water mage volunteers. I came as soon as I learned what had happened to you."

"To me?" Guiche asked, he remembered . . . the docks . . . and then . . .

Monmon nodded. Worry crossing her face. "You were unconscious for nearly two days and . . ." She was cut off as Guiche stared at her. "What is it?" She blinked quickly and then began to pat down her hair self consciously. "I-is my hair a mess or . . . do I have food on my face? Guiche? Are you alright?"

Unconscious for two whole days. He'd almost died. In fact, he certainly should have died if what he could remembers was any indication. It was supposed to have been safe at the lower docks, but he'd nearly been killed anyways. The thought . . . the thought terrified him. He could die at any time. And then he looked back at Montmorency, jaw trembling as he tried to speak.

"I . . . I . . . Ah . . . . Aaah!" He didn't care that it hurt. He grabbed onto her with all his might, tears staining her blouse. All that mattered was that she was real, and there, and there for him.

He almost didn't hear as Monmon placed her hands on his head. "Shhhh. Shhhh. There, there, you silly boy. It's alright . . . "

And it was.

* * *

Opening her eyes, slowly blinking away the sleep. Morgiana was confronted by multiple mental alarm bells in rapid succession.

'Where am I?'

The ceiling above her head was painted a milky white that was just beginning to lighten as the sun slanted through the windows. She could hear birds chirping along with a less distinct BGM that her brain was still trying to make sense out of.

'Why am I in a bed?'

She was indeed laying fully reclined atop a heavily stuffed feather mattress, which was odd, because for the past couple of weeks she'd been consistently crashing on one of the couches in the Kurotaka Guild Hall. She could have snagged an apartment in Arrun, probably would while the snagging was still good, but in the meantime there'd just been too much to do.

Slowly the memories of the day before began to trickle back in, rising from the background static of a very mild hangover.

There had been a lot to do after their victorious return. Prisoners to be handed over, fancy battleships to present to the Crown, hastily arranged victory celebrations to attend, funerals to arrange . . .

Hex . . . And not just him, the others too. The remains, what they'd been able to dig up, had already been cremated and now awaited shipment to Arrun. Sakuya had promised that they would find an appropriate way to honor the fallen.

The Lady of the Sylphs knew how to give a speech at least, and also how to show her respects.

Morgiana hadn't been in much of a celebratory mood the night before, not at first, but she'd put on the face and soldiered through it. And in the end, she'd actually started to believe it herself.

People had died, but they'd pulled off an incredible win. That had to count for something. She liked to think that if she'd been the one holding on to that bomb, she'd have been happy to know that everyone else had kicked ass and gotten out alive. She wouldn't want them moping over her, or freaking out that she'd finally bitten off more than she could chew.

That was how she'd been able to get up in front of a room full of self congratulating Noble assholes who hadn't lifted a finger or risked a hair, raised her glass in toast, and drank down more than a little bit of their high quality, and very expensive booze before pilfering a few bottles extra and finding the first excuse to sneak out and meet up with the rest of the Kurotakas.

There were a hundred parties going on that night and she'd hit them all. Every inn and tavern had been crammed full of Royalists, Tristanian Soldiers, and Faeries, the real heroes of Newcastle. The sailors that had manned the ships, the armsmen and mages who had guarded the walls, and the Dragon and Griffin Knights who had flown at their side.

Morgiana had flitted about all night, taking part in every cheer, drinking game, and quiet moment of remembrance that she could find. She'd bought rounds for all of the Griffin Knights, Eugene and his Salamanders, and her own guild.

It must have become a hell of party, because she really couldn't remember quite when it had ended. Only that, at some point, she'd been leaning against an equally Drunk Eugene as they made their way up a flight of stairs.

Morgiana frowned slightly as another sensation in the here and now started to impinge on her recollection. 'Why am I wearing a man's shirt?' A hand pinched at the baggy red garment and then her frown deepened.

'Why am I not wearing panties?'

The answer came a moment later as her alcohol addled brain finally processes the BGM for what it was.

Eugene's snores could be likened to a very soft spoken chainsaw, broad, bare chest rising and falling slowly as he lay spread out in bed beside her.

'Oh.' She thought. The realization kicking her short circuited memory back into gear. It started to come back to her, she'd been drunk, but not _that _drunk.

It has just sort of happened. Lowered inhibitions, the pent up frustration and fight instinct looking for a release, and hey, he wasn't bad looking. At least, not in this form.

Morgiana turned over on her side to study Eugene's face and wondered for a moment what he'd really looked like before. Pouting her lips, she played fingers over his chest. The Salamander General's snoring caught for a moment and then went on.

Deep sleeper, lucky.

The idea that he might have been some shrimp IRL amused Morgiana immensely. But, in the end, it really didn't matter. After all, being turned into their avatars hadn't made them any braver or more noble, all of the courage and charisma he displayed was pure Eugene, no matter what he looked like.

Letting her arm fall to rest, Morgiana decided that, in the grand scheme of things, it really wasn't the _worst_ mistake she'd ever made.

Then, with a small mental shrug, she snuggled a little closer and went back to sleep.

* * *

"And have you seen to d'Artagnan?"

Situated in the infirmary of the Royal Palace. Karin Desiree de la Valliere waited for an answer as she propped herself up with an extra pillow. Willpower exhaustion or not, being bed ridden was no excuse not to see to her responsibilities. Or rather, to see to her husband seeing to her responsibilities.

"Yes Dear." The Duke de la Valliere nodded solemnly in reply to his wife's question.

"His wing will take time to heal so he won't be able to properly exercise. He's only to have lean meats until he can fly again." Karin went on.

"Yes Dear."

"And most importantly, he mustn't umph . . ." Karin was cut off as the Duke found his opening and slipped a spoonful of the healthful infirmary porridge into his wife's mouth.

"I know how to care for a Manticore, Dear." The Duke said. "In the meantime, you need to focus on regaining your own strength."

"Hmph, mmph?" Karin grumbled as she sat forward in bed, chewed, swallowed, and then glared petulantly at her husband and the father of her daughters.

The scornful look barely phased the Duke who quite gently nudged his wife to lay back in bed and accept another spoonful of porridge. Once she'd emptied the bowl, he let out a long sigh. "You really need to be more cautious Dear, you're not as hardy as you used to be."

Karin took exception to this. Just because she acknowledged her age didn't mean that other people could.

"I'll have you know that I've been the portrait of health, I've . . ."

"Yes, yes, Dear." The Duke nodded. "You've taken very good care of yourself. I worry is all."

Her retort was cut off by the way the Duke looked at her. The Duke de la Valliere was not a very expressive man, this was something of an inclination rather than an acquired trait, but the years had taught her to read him, and that tiny furrowing of his brow carried more meaning than anyone else might imagine.

"I was needed." Karin said, feeling an almost painful heat rise to her cheeks. By the founder, she was acting like . . . like some school girl!

Damn the Fae and damn their blasted elixirs! It might have saved them all, but the after effects of the 'mana' potion were still running their course within her. Karin prided herself on her control, but at present her emotions were proving intensely difficult to re-cage. It made her feel uncomfortably like the younger self she had put away so long ago.

"Are you alright, Dear?" The Duke asked.

Karin shook her head quickly, no, no, stupid! She couldn't let this beat her! She'd regain her control soon enough, in the meantime she'd just have to manage. She would just have to think of it as the after effects of a strong drug. Yes, it was simply a drug making her feel this way!

"Fine, I'm quite fine!" Karin said just a little bit too quickly, kicking herself mentally. "And what about the Estates? You mentioned the negotiations with the Gnomes were going well."

"As well as can be expected." The Duke agreed. "They're an ambitious lot, I'll give them that. That fellow who came to Tristania as their representative has been showing me some of their other ideas."

"You mean, that furnace they want to build." Karin urged him to go on, leading her husband away from the topic of her current . . . delicate . . . state.

The Duke nodded. "Yes, quite a bewildering design. They want to build a small one first as a proof of principal before increasing production. I've been told that if all goes well, the facility they want to build could manufacture more high grade steel than the entirety of Tristain."

"What!" Karin would have had a hard time holding in her surprise normally, but as she was now, she had to cover her mouth after realizing that she'd raised her voice.

That much steel? Bronze was a superior metal to wrought iron, but steel was in turn superior to bronze, being even stronger and holding a better edge. Normally the production of quality steel was the domain of skilled earth Mage smiths which put a major bottleneck on its production, but if she understood correctly, the Faeries believed they could dwarf this output with only a fraction of the workers, many of them commoners!

The the potential economic and military advantages for Tristain would be immense. And that wasn't all, this was just one of the inventions that they were going to introduce.

Of course, it could well be too good to be true. Even if the Fae were sincere, it was easy to be overly optimistic. "Do you believe this?" She asked the Duke.

He duke crossed his arms. "I don't think the Gnomes or other Faeries would lie. Not when doing so would only hurt them in the long run. In either case, I will decide more after I've inspected the results of their labor for myself."

There was a knock at the door.

The Duke and Duchess exchanged looks. "Enter." Karin called.

The door swung open and for a moment Karin worried that she was not as in control as she thought she was.

"Father." The Youngest Valliere daughter greeted. "M-mother, I came as soon as I heard you'd woken up. Mother?"

Karin was staring at her daughter, studying her in a way that she hadn't since Louise had been nothing but an infant in her arms. What she saw, was her younger self. She'd always known that they were alike. Louise had her temper, and also her determination. Karin felt a gnawing at her insides. She could only pray Louise hadn't also inherited her poor judgement.

"It's nothing, Daughter." Karin said quickly. "I am pleased to see you here. This is good. I wanted to discuss your mission." Between the events of the past week and her own recovery, there hadn't been time for Karin to go over her daughter's report in any depth. She'd reread that morning while waiting for her husband to arrive.

Louise stood a little straighter. "Y-yes mother!"

Karin quirked a brow as she noticed a second figure, smaller, standing equally straight on her daughter's shoulder. It was the Pixie that had returned with her Louise, though she had only briefly met with the diminutive Fae.

"Dame . . . Botan, was it?" Karin asked.

"Yes Mi'lady." Botan curtsied her black skirt. "An honor to make your acquaintance."

"Now," Karin said, getting comfortable, "I've gone over your report and believe there are several issues that require clarification. But first, on the matter of the Pixies, I don't imagine the other Fae are taking the news well."

Louise blushed slightly. "They aren't." She admitted. "Lady Sakuya was very upset when it was explained to her. She's already demanding that the Pixies be protected under the treaty. Henrietta agrees."

"The Nobility won't care for it." The Duke advised. "Many are unhappy enough having to make concessions with the Faeries as it is. I can't imagine they'll allow their authority challenged once more."

Louise nodded, and then, looking down nervously. 'No Louise, look us in the eyes, you're braver than that', Karin thought and then shook her head. "You've something to say, daughter?"

"I don't think the Pixies will be a big problem." Louise said, and then stopped to correct herself. "I mean, they're likely to get themselves into trouble, but that's just because they don't know any better." Louise nodded apologetically to Botan.

"I think that what would be best," Louise said thoughtfully, "Is to show the Nobility that the Pixies inhabiting their lands can be good tenants. If that can be done, then I think most Nobles won't have issue with it."

"Is that your assessment?" Karin asked.

Louise nodded hesitantly. "It is, Mother." Then turning a little redder. "With the Princess and the Queen's permission, some of the Faeries I went to Tarbes with have already started looking for the other Pixie gardens. They say that there should be around twenty scattered around Tristain. They want to find them all so that we can negotiate terms with the Nobility."

"A wise decision." Karin appraised. "Was this the Princess's idea?" Henrietta did seem quite taken with the Fae.

Louise shook her head slowly. "Actually, I suggested it. It's bad enough that some of the Pixies were taken from their homes. That shouldn't be allowed to happen again. And that's also why I've started searching for signs of the lost Pixies here in Tristania."

"Louise-chan has been very helpful to my search." Botan said, flitting over to stand on the bedside table. "We've already found a few leads that need to be investigated."

"I see." Karin hid the pride in her voice. This was a minor matter in the face of a war, but one her daughter had been entrusted with. Louise was taking initiative, and responsibility. Very commendable. "Then I will trust your judgement in this, Daughter."

"Mother?" Louise stumbled, eyes going wide.

Karin shrugged slightly. "You are after all the Crowns appointed agent, and you've already gained valuable experience. In fact, if one of these 'Gardens' is found on the Valliere estates, I will expect you to come home at once to help negotiate fair terms of settlement."

Louise's look of awe was wiped away a moment later as Karin continued. "That simply leaves the matter of your magic, and this incident with a 'Boss' to deal with."

"Y-yes mother." Louise mumbled.

"While your affinity remains unclear, it cannot be denied that you've made some form of progress." Karin began. "I can only assume that this is thanks partly to your tutors and this new approach. Your father and I have already agreed to put forward funds for you to replace your wand so that you may continue with your lessons."

Louise looked ready to collapse. "T-thank you Mother!"

It really wasn't a problem. Certainly Louise was far from showing any form of mastery over her magic. But if she was learning to control it and channel it, both to be of use to the Crown and to protect herself, than Karin could only thing to let her continue. Besides which, Karin had burnt out the focus of her own sword-wand casting her last Heavy Wind. She could hardly chastise her daughter for damaging her wand in battle. Which was the other matter at hand.

Voice growing grave, Karin continued. "In the matter of this Boss . . ."

Louise grew a little paler. "I-I'm sorry Mother, but everyone was in danger, I . . ."

"You are not a soldier Louise." And so long as Karin still drew breath, she never would be. "You should have left the fighting to the Faeries and Dragon Knights."

"But then . . ."

"Your mother is right." The Duke added, worry returning to his voice. Worry for his youngest daughter. "It is the responsibility of soldiers to risk themselves, and the Faeries knew better what they were facing. I've already made my displeasure known to Commander Gaius."

Karin's heart ached as she saw her daughters dejected expression. "It's just that, nobody's spells were having much effect, and mine seemed to hurt it. The Faeries might have known better, but lots of people could have been killed if I hadn't helped."

"But you couldn't have known that." Karin silenced her daughter with a wave of her hand. "It worked out for the better this time, but there was no guarantee it would. Keep this in mind in the future, or your Father and I may come to question the wisdom of your continued training."

Louise blanched even paler than before. "Yes Mother." She squeaked.

Satisfied that Louise would obey, Karin let her battered body relax and with it, some of the restraint she had been using to reign in her own chaotic feelings on the matter. "Other than the matter of you placing yourself in avoidable danger, you appear to have conducted yourself admirably."

Looking her mother in the eyes for the first time, Louise seemed shocked. "Mother?"

Lips curving ever so slight upwards. Karin smiled tiredly. "You did well, Louise."

_Today marks the end of the fourth week since our arrival here in Tristain. It has been four weeks since our shared fantasy became our shared nightmare. Four weeks since we woke up in the forms of our avatars and found this fantasy world to have become all too real around us._

_The Transition, the Crash, the Great Summoning, many names for the same anomaly to which we still have no answers and to which our Tristanian allies can only offer speculation at present._

_There is hope, that with time, we will be able to decipher what has brought us here and find a way home. Until that day, we can do nothing but live on. This is a task that would be challenging enough on its own but is accompanied by an immediate threat to our very survival._

_In seeking safe haven and alliance with Tristain, we are now at war with the Kingdom of Albion. The White Isle, which has just emerged from a brutal civil war that saw the massacre of the Royal Family and the rise to power of the usurper Oliver Cromwell, now sets its sights on Tristain as the first step in conquering the rest of the Continent._

_Cromwell and his Radical Revolutionary Group, Reconquista, have a vision for Halkegenia, one that has no place for us or the people who have come to our aid._

_To save ourselves, we might flee from Tristain and the fighting, but to do so would be to abandon the only Allies we have and the only home we know in this world. That is why, with only the consent of the volunteers who stepped forward to risk their lives, we have begun to move forward with plans to support the Kingdom of Tristain in the coming War._

_This is not by choice. War is never something to be desired. But it is our only option if we are not to be broken and scattered to the winds._

_Already, some of those volunteers have risked themselves, fought for us, killed for us, and died for us. We suffered thirty casualties in the past week, ten of which were fatalities. Ten friends, brothers, and sisters, who showed the greatest courage to sacrifice themselves for the well being of others. Their passing diminishes us all._

_But take strength from this. They did not die in vein. They stood and chose to trade their lives to save others. Two hundred and eighty SAO survivors, people who have suffered the greatest injustice, two thousand of our Royalist Allies who will prove invaluable in the weeks and months ahead, and Prince Wales Tudor, the rightful future King of Albion, have been rescued thanks to their bravery. We will have need to call on that bravery again._

_Oliver Cromwell seeks to crown himself Emperor. Our own history has shown again and again that he will fail. The ambitions of Tyrants always exceed their grasp. As Operation Dunkirk and the rescue of the Last Prince of Albion has shown, victory is possible for Tristain and ourselves. We need only have the strength to endure and see a day where we can live again in peace._

_I know that this will be difficult for all of us. None of us expected this, none of us were prepared. How could we be? We were torn from our day to day lives, our selves and our surroundings changed beyond recognition. We live now in what should only be the pages of fiction._

_But most importantly, we still live. And to go on living will take all of us. The skills of our real lives, and those that have been gifted to us along with our powers, will be essential to securing ourselves here in Tristain while we find a way to return home. What's more, they will be essential to how we take hold of our own destiny._

_Until today, we have only reacted to what has happened to us, but that cannot continue. We must take the initiative, we must gather momentum on our side, we must cause the reaction. With our thoughts, with our words, and with our deeds._

_Before we are Faeries, we are Japanese, and before we are Japanese, we are human beings. Humans are adaptable creatures, and we have been given every tool to survive and thrive. I stand in awe of what we will accomplish._

- Official Address of Lady Sakuya, two days after the Conclusion of Operation Dunkirk.


	72. Epilogue Pt2

Halkegenia Online - Epilogue Pt 2

Picking his way gingerly through the debris, Sir Terrance Dunwell walked the ruined outer courtyard of Newcastle Fortress in the company of his familiar. The courtyard was a mess of furrows dug by cannonballs and shot. How many tons of ammunition had been squandered here? Scirroco wrinkled her nose at the residue sent of gunpowder, adjusting her glasses to hide her distaste.

It had been days since the formerly unassailable Fortress of Newcastle had been broken, its defenses reduced and its defenders fled. But the price had been obscene. Thousands of lives thrown away, hundreds of tons of powder and shot expended, and in the end for nothing, Prince Wales Tudor had escaped.

The outer walls stood broken, hammered into submission by spell and cannon fire. The inner walls still stood, mostly intact, but breached at several points where the reserve Mage Ground Cavalry and Golem units had bludgeoned their way through to claim their prize, what was left of it.

The defenders had acted in spite to the very end. Engineers had undermined the foundations of the Fortress Citadel and set charges in advance. All the while the rear guard was fighting to the last breath, they had been slowly collapsing the Fortress from within, destroying war stocks, and burying anything else of value under hundreds of tons of rubble.

Dunwell paused as he caught sight of Lord Cromwell standing before what was left of the Citadel's massive timber doors, the half collapsed structure now broken and defunct. Already in his company were Viscount Robert Blake, Sir William Wells, Lady Sheffield, and the six surviving undead.

Noting the lack of any overt signs of distress, Dunwell took a breath and stepped forward.

Of the three of them, Blake was on the most treacherous ground. Dunwell had thrown his lot in with Reconquista early and clearly and his subordinates had followed suit after he had voiced his reasons. This had earned them all death warrants from the Royalists, but also praise and trust from their new Rebel allies, many of whom had formerly been in the services of the King.

What's more, Albion's Dragon Knights were subservient to Navy Commanders, so any ill act of judgement would return inevitably to Blake rather than Dunwell.

Admiral Blake's leanings were much less proven and his position most precarious. While it was true that he had denied the use of Albion's fleet to King James and his forces, he had not delivered his ships directly into the hands of Reconquista either.

This apparent neutrality meant that he was met with far greater suspicion and his part in the battle for Newcastle was far more suspect. It would not be difficult for an unscrupulous person to claim that he had allowed the Royalists to escape.

Dunwell frowned. Any military man would see that the Admiral had done nothing wrong. In fact, his decision to act cautiously had likely preserved more ships and Dragon Knights who would have otherwise been lost pointlessly. A decision that had proven most fortuitous given Reconquista's simultaneous defeat at York.

The fact that Dunwell's own gambit had also proven unsuccessful simply proved that Prince Wales and King James had been unreachable from the moment the surprise attack commenced.

The question was, would Lord Cromwell see it that way?

"Reluctant?" Scirroco asked.

"Either Blake has been absolved or . . ."

"Or you are to be his executioner." His familiar finished, green eyes blinking once. "I wouldn't worry. He doesn't smell of fear."

Dunwell glanced over to his familiar. "The Admiral is not the sort of man who would shake at his own death."

Scirroco shrugged. "It's not about courage. No matter how brave the man, the body has a healthy desire to go on living."

He wondered sometimes if she was being completely honest when she claimed such things about her sense of smell. It certainly made more sense than 'feminine intuition' which was the only other explanation she'd ever given him. However, it appeared she had been proven right once again.

"Sir Dunwell!" Lord Cromwell stretched his arms wide in greetings, beckoning Dunwell closer with a smile. Whatever disaster had befallen the Rebels, their leader appeared as optimistic as ever.

"My Lord." Dunwell bowed stiffly before turning to observe.

Work crews, mages and commoners, were picking dutifully through the wreckage of the Citadel. Although it was unlikely that anything of value had been left behind, there was always a chance that one of their own had been trapped in the rubble or else Royalist survivors who might be interrogated to learn something of the events leading up to Tristain's involvement.

Tristain had acted with astonishing speed and decisiveness. Had a relief effort already been planned? Or had this been made possible by their Faerie allies? It was essential that they know. That they learned everything that they could, now more than ever.

"Please now Terrance, there's no need to be so formal, we're all friends here!" More than the possibility of the man's wrath, Lord Cromwell's absurd expression of optimism left Dunwell feeling distinctly ill at ease.

Did the man not understand what had happened? Was he some sort of idiot? Dunwell was careful not to let himself be seen glancing over to Lady Sheffield. Just what did this woman, and by extension her backers, want from Albion?

He would have to see if that position in Londinium was still available. The closer he could get to Shefield and the truth, the better.

"Sir Wells and Admiral Blake were just explaining the progression of the battle." Cromwell explained. "Ghastly business. I fear that General Ashburough will have to go after this lackluster showing. If only the Royalists had not chosen to fight us to the last, we could have been spared all of this."

"It is as you say Lord Cromwell." Dunwell nodded. "But, if I may speak out of line, that persistence has won them the day." And far more besides.

And then, Lord Cromwell chuckled warmly, or in a fashion that had almost certainly been meant to be warm but that chilled Dunwell to his soul. "Is that what you think? Do you mean Prince Wales?"

"Why, y-yes my Lord." Dunwell answered carefully. "The Prince has almost certainly escaped, given what has been relayed to me by your . . . servants."

About the only thing that could be said for the abominations resurrected by Lord Cromwell was that there were now fourteen less. Though, if given the choice of which he was forced to continue suffering, he rather missed Arguile. At least Aki had finally been destroyed. One of the remaining undead reported her blasted to rags by a ship's cannon at point blank range.

"Ah, Wales." Cromwell said wistfully. "You know that young man has been our greatest undoing these past months. Well, I would not worry myself overly much, Terrance."

Looking around the ruins with clear interest. Cromwell's smile widened. "Besides, now that Newcastle has fallen, the White Isle is a fortress belonging to us alone! We will have ample opportunity to deal with the Prince in due time."

"Sir, I urge you to reconsider." Dunwell said tiredly. "Prince Wales is a grave threat, and coupled with his rescue, his popularity will no doubt rise among the people."

More than the military defeat, the propaganda blow would soon prove devastating. Not only had an enemy met Albion in battle, they had done so over the White Isle itself and won victory. What's more, they had done so with the clear and essential aid of Faeries.

Faeries, they were not the children of Medb like many believed. But even if Dunwell knew the truth, the common peoples would be hard to convince. Fantasy thrived because it was what people _wanted _to believe.

Already the barracks of the common foot soldiers and low ranking mages were abuzz with rumors. They were demoralized by the losses, haunted by what they had seen. It would not be long before those rumors trickled from the camps and spread across Albion like a wild fire, only adding to the damage of their dual defeats. Dunwell could only imagine that Reconquista's propaganda arm would be operating at full swing in the coming weeks to downplay and twist events as best they could.

"And as I have said, it will be taken care of. The Prince may have escaped Albion, but he has not yet escaped our grasp. He will be dealt with in good time. Now then . . ."

Shouts from the excavation drew everyone's attention. The rubble was moving on its own, sliding and collapsing. Dunwell, Sir Wells, and Admiral Blake each took a step back and raised their wands. There was every chance that what remained of the citadel was about to give way.

But the Fortress did not settle further. No, it was worse than that.

"Dun-well-sa-ma?" A loud, off key, sing song voice came

"Dun-well-sa-ma? Where oh where are you Dun-well-sa-ma?"

The excavation teams all took a step back, starring frightfully at the girl who had just emerged from the wreckage. Her Faerie ears set them on guard, but more than that was the absurdity of her dress.

Aki didn't look like she'd been hit by a ship's cannon, but her clothing most certainly did. Bloodied rags hung from her upper body leaving her chest partially exposed, and the white cavalryman's pants had been stained almost as red as the remains of her jacket.

Stepping from the cloud of dust, Aki barely seemed to notice as she smiled cheerfully and swung her arms back and forth like a child at play, a familiar head swinging by its hair in her right hand.

"There you are Dunwell-sama!" Aki's expression brightened and then brightened further. "And Cromwell-sama! _Look _Cromwell-sama, look what Aki found!"

"Ah, what do you have my child?" Cromwell asked and then smiled as if reunited with an old friend. "Why, hello there my King. Or should I say former King?"

Dunwell paled as he was brought face to face with the head of King James. The remains of his former sovereign stared at him lifelessly, accusingly.

Dunwell shook his head. "Aki, how are you still . . . intact. The others reported you destroyed?" Just how much abuse could these abominations survive?

Aki's normal expression grew childishly serious. "It was _hard_ Dunwell-sama! Aki's body was blown to pieces by that nasty Slug Monster that Asuna-sama brought with us. But Aki remembered her mission and did her best to pull herself together!"

The serious expression deepened as she crossed her arms over her chest, though Dunwell doubted it was meant to restore her modesty. "But by then, the_ Eagle _had already left, and Aki was all tangled up on the far side of the dock, so Aki most brilliantly obeyed her contingency orders and proceeded up into the Citadel to kill the Royalist dogs in their den!"

Beaming once more. "That's where I found this Royalist Dog trying to light some things on fire. He didn't notice Aki in the fighting and confusion, so Aki used a sword she found to chop his head off. Then the ceiling fell on Aki and she was smashed as flat as a bug again. It took a long time for Aki to repair herself from that. By then, there weren't anymore Royalists alive and Aki decided to dig her way out!"

Having finished retelling her grizzly story, Dunwell starred at the corpse girl. "Is that how it was?" He asked weakly. Meanwhile, Sir Wells had gone as white as a ghost.

"Well, this is indeed a spot of good news." Lord Cromwell decided. "Prince Wales may live, but the Tyrant King does not! A great victory for our cause, wouldn't you say, Sir Dunwell?"

"I . . . Yes Lord Cromwell." He sighed inwardly. He'd much rather it be the other way around. It was preferred when fighting an enemy that their beloved be dead and their despised still among the living.

"Aki, you've done well this day in the eyes of the Founder." Cromwell smiled and patted the Zombie on her head.

"Yay!" Aki chirped gleefully, bouncing on the balls of her feet like a child receiving a reward. "Aki has been praised for her most excellent work in service to the Founder!"

Cromwell held up the head, examining it studiously. "Yes, I suppose I do like you more this way my King. And Aki has been so generous as to bring us your most useful part. Fear not my King, you will be redeemed in the bosom of our Founder."

The New Ruler of Albion tucked the dead King's head into the crook of his arm before looking back to Admiral Blake. "As I was saying earlier Admiral, fear not, you've done nothing wrong in the eyes of the Founder. Indeed, your caution yielded excellent results given the circumstances. We are lucky to have such a reliable Admiral to command our fleets!"

Blake wasn't a man to look pathetically grateful. Nevertheless, his shoulders sagged slightly. "I thank you for your continued faith, Lord Cromwell."

"Now then, I do believe we have other business to attend to." Cromwell said. "Back to Londinium I suppose." He sighed heavily. "Lady Sheffield."

"One moment, Lord Cromwell." Sheffield said coolly, her eyes glancing to the six, now seven, remaining zombies. "I am curious, the Royalists were quite thorough with their destruction?" Surprisingly the question was asked to Aki.

The Zombie girl nodded her head. "Uh-huh, they burned up everyone as they tried to put themselves back together and didn't stop until there was nothing but ashes. Aki only survived because she was blasted all the way to the other side of the docks and got missed. Oh . . . But they took Mizuki and wrapped her up in chains while she was healing and then threw her in their nasty ship's hold!"

"Mizuki?" Cromwell asked as if he knew the girl personally. "Oh my, that is a dilemma."

"Lord Cromwell", Lady Sheffield advised, "It would be unwise to allow one of your soldiers to remain in Tristain's custody."

Cromwell seemed genuinely disappointed. "I suppose that you are right." He raised his ringed hand to his lips. "Alas, what the sacred void gives, it must sometimes take away."

* * *

Laid flat on its back atop a stone examination plinth, stripped of clothing, its arms and legs bound in chains. The husk of a Faerie looked all around at its captors, tilting its head curiously.

There were seven of them, all cloaked in heavy gowns and garbed in alchemists breathing masks. Five stood well back, observing but otherwise saying nothing while two stepped forward to begin their grisly work. The Zombie watched, brown eyes moving from one to the other as comments were exchanged and medical tools were readied.

Not for the first time, the Zombie struggled against its restraints, but the physicians had learned after it had gotten free and nearly killed a nurse in its attempts to escape. Since then, no risks had been taken with the defiled corpse and it had remained restrained in triplicate at all times.

"Noting again after extensive examination of the corpse, no signs of decomposition, color of soft tissues is . . . normal. Consistency remains unchanged. Body temperature has also been previously observed to be slightly above room temperature, possibly due to friction from tissue movement." The Physician on the right reported, his every word recorded carefully by two of the observers.

The Zombie listened, and, processing what was said and then perked up slightly. "For my flesh is made anew by the Founder. No sword or magic will tear it asunder. Nor shall time weary meh . . . mph . . ." The Zombie continued to try and speak as the right side physician used several implements to pry the mouth open and examined the interior with the assistance of a conjured light and a mirror.

"No signs of decomposition within the mouth either. Gums look normal, teeth remain healthy, salivation continues to occur." The Physician swabbed at the inside of one cheek and placed the cotton ball in a small glass container to the side. "External inspection is complete. We can move forward now."

"Making the first incision along sternum now." The physician on the left said, scalpel meeting flesh directly above the breastbone and parting it easily. The first time they had done this, they had hesitated, and with good reason. Neither Physician was a sadist, and they took no pleasure in what they were doing.

However, after seeing their subject knit itself back together endlessly without any overt signs of pain, they had grown clinically detached in this special case and simply muscled forward. "Note that in previous examination, subject's Fae musculature presented additional resistance, taken to be a normal byproduct of Faerie physiology, further investigation is required."

"Mmph, mrrf, muff . . ." The Zombie tried to say something but was largely ignored. Another idiosyncrasy that had been discovered. While usually silent, the undead would speak if spoken to, and from time to time rattle off random catechisms that it thought appropriate.

Unfortunately, attempting to question it had proven fruitless as three of the observers had learned in the past. Though possessing a modicum of intelligence and even being capable of cordial conversation, albeit while bound in layers of chains, the Zombie seemed to not know anything of use, and no attempt at coercion had shown the slightest effect.

"Now opening the rib cage. Again, note that Faerie constitution offers additional resistance." The left side physician said.

There came a grinding as the sternum was sawed through, four of the five observers looking away uncomfortably. The Zombie merely looked down at the damage as if fascinated by the dis assembly of its own body. A crude mechanical vice was put into place, screws were turned, ribs began to bend apart exposing the interior of the chest cavity.

"Making inspection now." The right hand physician said, eyes scanning the interior of the torso. "No apparent organ activity. The heart is intact, but inactive. The same is clear for the lungs."

"Mmph"

"Correction, the subject does utilize the lungs for speech. Stomach is also intact but shrunken."

"Taking palpations." The left hand physician replied. "Heart feels slightly inflated, palpations along with previous examinations and incisions suggest blood flow is continued. Hypothesis that this is a byproduct of the Necromancy Spell." Hand working deeper in to the abdomen. "Stomach is also confirmed shrunken, no material appears to be present in the stomach or intestines. Moving to further inspection of the heart . . . What!?"

Both physicians leaned back as the Zombie convulsed once, nearly wrenching free from its restraints, muscles standing out as they were strained well past their limits. Jaw clenched down, braking the wedge holding the mouth open.

"For we our the Founders blessed children! Reborn in his radiance!"

As it shouted the soft tissues began to discolor and distend and the visible organs within the chest cavity began to darken and swell up, starting with the stomach, but rapidly spreading to the heart and lungs, and through the veins and arteries.

"The Founder's Light is a Gift to all! To be Granted to all!"

The eyes began to cloud, weeping puss filled tears as the skin grew constricted and mummified.

The taint spread rapidly, the body beginning to wriggle from within, limbs bruising, blistering and swelling. Flesh began to peal and then slough off, turning first ripe, then bruised, before melting into a putrid liquid that steamed and bubbled away, exposing bone and dissolving organs.

By now the convulsions had stopped, there simply wasn't enough muscle left.

The Zombie continued to speak, but by now the vocal cords and lungs could no longer shape words and tongue had dissolved completely with most of the rest of the soft tissue, teeth beginning to crack and fall free from the rotting and blackening gums. It tried anyways to speak its praises to the Founder as it was surrounded in steam burning off from the unwholesome materials dribbling from the examination bench, until at last, all that was left was a skeleton charred by the heat of its accelerated decay and a thin film of fine dust, all that remained of its tissues.

"Damnation!" The right hand doctor cursed, all professionalism being cast aside. "What was that!" Peeling his mask off, the man immediately gagged, nearly throwing up before he was lead from the room by his colleague. The observers quickly followed behind them.

"Get the nurses in her to collect the remains!" The left hand doctor shouted, leading his associated well down the hall before permitting them to remove their masks. He stopped and turned back. "And someone air that room out quickly! Some of the gases may be combustible." Even here, the stench that had carried on them was overpowering.

"Gyah. What is that?!" The first examiner, one of the note takers, asked as she stuck out her tongue as if to wipe away the cloying sent of decay.

"Putrefaction, Miss Valliere." The right hand physician said as he leaned over his colleagues. "But impossibly fast. Like a time lapse." Removing his own mask slowly to reveal the green hair and slightly pointed ears of a Sylph youth. Doctor Shouichi Saito took a whiff and then grimaced. "Lady Alicia . . . you may want to keep your mask on until the sent has cleared."

The smallest of the masked figures nodded. "Gotcha." Looking over her shoulder, expression hidden by her mask, her tone told the whole story. "I don't think Prince Bishounen is going to be too happy. They went to a lot of trouble to keep that thing intact. What they hell was that?"

"Water magic." The right hand physician, Doctor Panam said. "Used to accelerate the bodies rate of decay. Ingenuous, the heat caused the water to boil off, destroying any evidence of the spell."

"Much too sophisticated for a human water mage then." Mask dropping away, Headmaster Osmand tugged at his beard. "Perhaps . . . Spirit magic? A spirit allied with the Rebels, or perhaps some artifact attained from them . . ." The Elderly mage continued to mutter conspiratorially to himself.

"I find this troubling." Lord Mortimer said as he removed his own mask. "That was some sort of self destruct, possibly designed to remove any evidence of the Zombie's existence."

"Other than a suspiciously charred skeleton." Alicia commented, nevertheless, she still sounded queasy.

"This is no laughing matter, Lady Alicia." Mortimer growled.

"Notice my lack of laughing. I'm not smiling under this mask." The Cait Syth Leader said. "So what now?"

"The Good Lord Mortimer is right." The last observer said as he removed his own mask carefully. "These undead are quite sophisticated. Well beyond anything that I've ever heard of before. With its self destruction, it was fortunate I was already here in Tristania to meet with you Fae on behalf of the Church."

"Then you saw enough?" Doctor Shouichi asked.

"Oh yes. I saw quite enough to verify your claims. You are quite correct that this was the most heinous of heresy. Necromancy. It was right for you to bring this to my attention." The blonde haired youth said as he fixed the doctor gravelly with blue and red eyes. "I shall dispatch a letter informing the Holy Father at once."

* * *

'Amazing, simply amazing!' Colbert thought as he walked the long isles past row of row of tightly packed shelves. Every time that he found himself with business in the Faeries Capital, he simply had to visit the Arrun Library. If there was any monument in all of Arrun that proved that the Fae were a people of admirable nature and virtue, it was this place.

He had discovered the Library quite accidentally on his third visit as he asked his guide about the peculiar, ivy covered entryway not far from the base of Arrun Tower. The one that seemed much too large and formal for the the building it apparently lead into. What he had discovered inside had left him agape with astonishment.

Colbert was a scholar and thus was familiar with the great Archives and Libraries of Halkegenia where knowledge was collected and jealously guarded. The Fenrir Library of the Academy of Magic, and the Royal Archives maintained by the Academia, as well as the Imperial Library of Germania, and the Grand Pentagon Library of the Church of Romalia. Each was a vast storehouse of knowledge containing thousands of books, scrolls, and documents.

The repository of the Faeries neatly dwarfed them all combined. Tens of thousands of books, manuscripts, documents, replicas of famous pieces of artwork from the Faerie homelands. A jewel of knowledge and culture. But more than what it contained was what it represented.

The Faeries were a race that valued knowledge greatly, even more so than most of the Nobility. They believed that knowledge should be use for the benefit of all, made available to all. When the the Fae spoke of their library, they did not mean a hoarded repository available only at the pleasure of an Elite few but a grand institution of self learning limited only by a visitors desire to know.

'Amazing! Marvelous!'

Although admittedly, at the moment, the Arrun Library did fall a little short of that lofty ideal. The Fae Lords had deemed the Library a 'strategic resource' due to the knowledge and references of their natural philosophy which were held inside. Entry was restricted for the time being without special permission until such a time as the entirety of the Library could be cataloged and the more important works duplicated.

It was a task that might take months. Colbert thought, no, perhaps even years! In the meantime, permission to enter was not difficult to obtain, although visitors were thoroughly searched upon arrival and departure and kept under close watch by an escorting 'Nav Pixie'.

He glanced over his shoulder at the diminutive Fae girl who drifted as his side silently, balanced on her slender wings, observing everything that he did. The surveillance was only natural to protect this place and its wealth of knowledge. Given the circumstances, Colbert would have done much the same.

He did not chafe under the surveillance of his small guide, in fact, he was quite grateful lest he become hopelessly lost. Arrun Library was home to hundreds of thousands of books and other documents with all of the space and shelving that necessitated.

From the entryway, traveling downward into the partially subterranean structure, a grand balcony overlooked the Library's circular main chamber, domed roof arching high overhead as light was admitted by small windows. From vantage high on the walls, the shelves seemed to describe an immense and complex maze, one that Colbert could have easily been lost in if not for the help of his escort.

From time to time, they passed other guests, Librarians, or Pixies busily attending to their own duties, but for the most part they were left alone. Between the walls of books and the thick carpeting, even the echoes and voices were swallowed up.

Colbert found that he was enjoying himself immensely. Breathing in the scent of tightly packed paper, eyes scanning the endless rows of titles. He couldn't decipher the script, but it hardly mattered. Just to stand in this place was a wonder unto itself.

"Damn it!"

Colbert blinked. Where had that come from?

"Son of a . . ."

It was off to his left, he was reasonably sure, the lack of echoes did make it quite a bit easier than he would have expected to localize the source, and the voice was making it quite easy as it continued to curse softly.

"Damn, damn, damn, damn! Grrr!"

Taking one last turn, he came to a gap in the shelves where a number of tables had been placed for guests to use at their pleasure. Seated at one of these tables, surrounded by stacks of paper and over a dozen books, a lone girl was furiously crossing out lines of messy handwriting with impatient motions of her arm, until at last, her hand bumped the small glass ink jar at her side, spilling the contents across the table.

The girl turned quickly, grabbing up two of the book before they came to any harm and then stared as the expanding puddle of ink reached some of her papers, soaking up and beginning to sink and settle. Trembling softly the girl clenched her teeth.

"For fucks sake! Can't someone in this stupid world invent the fountain pen!"

Before Colbert could say a word, his Pixie guide raised a finger to her lips. "Silence in the library!"

The girl looked up, and Colbert got a clear view of her for the first time. Very pale, coppery hair, messy bangs, and thick eyebrows, slightly pointed ears. If he were to guess, he'd say she was a Salamander. She looked startled at their sudden appearance, and then started to grow angry before blowing air through her teeth.

"And what do you want?" She growled suspiciously.

"Want?" Colbert asked, and then raised his hands quickly. "Why nothing! I want nothing at all. Please accept my apologies, I meant no disrespect!"

The girl's glare softened and she glanced over to the Pixie. "You must have permission to be here or this little gal would be fuming right now." The pixie blinked, tilting her head curiously at the observation.

"Sorry for the noise." She mumbled and turned back to her papers, saving those she could from the top of the stack while continuing to mutter curses about copulation with one's own mother and a sanctified excrement while blotting up the rest of the ink with some of the remaining blank parchment.

Colbert watched for a few moment before stepping forward. "Ah, Miss?"

"What?!" The girl spun around and then recoiled as Colbert offered her a hand rag.

"Wiping it about won't do any good, you should blot it." Colbert knew this all too well from the many small spills and accidents in his own workshop. He'd had plenty of occasion to learn the best way to pick up oils and inks.

Looking at the rag, the girl nodded once and turned back to the table. Colbert pulled another rag from his pocket and began to help, eyeing a few of the rescued papers as he worked.

The writing was meaningless to him, but . . . there was a pattern to it. Lines of text that could almost have been pulled from the Albionian alphabet, though meaningless in these combinations, were laid side by side with words in the Runic Script that appeared during Fae magic chants. A short series of even odder lettering in the impossibly confusing Fae language that he'd learned was known as 'Japanese' followed on each row.

He noted that most of the rows were either crossed out or checked off with a second list being composed containing only the checked off lines.

"Excuse me Miss, but if I might ask what you were doing?" Colbert adjusted his glasses.

The girl snorted. "What does it look like?" She asked.

Sarcasm, oh dear. Colbert sighed inwardly. Well, it was not the first time he'd been in a position to deal with a difficult student. And this type was simple enough. "It does appear that you're trying to reverse engineer an enchantment."

The girl, occupied with her blotting stopped and went stiff. "How did . . . ?"

Instead of anger, she looked generally surprised. He fathomed that she was used to viewing others as beneath her. A smart child who had moved beyond her peers and teachers. And now she was hungry for an answer she didn't know.

Colbert smiled. "Simple deduction from your writing."

"You could read what I wrote?" She asked with disbelief.

"Not a word." Colbert answered with a chuckle. "But the pattern is clear enough. It's common in Halkegenia to try and deconstruct a spell from its chant."

Common, though not very useful, many spells could be cast with only a partial chant or even by sub vocalizing to hide their true nature. Still, it was a useful teaching exercise for students just beginning to master their magic.

"Tell me, how long have you been at this?"

The girl watched him cautiously, she seemed to be trying to determine if she could trust him enough to tell the truth. "Just since I got back . . . from Newcastle."

Colbert's vague smile vanished as he saw the dull look in her eyes. 'Oh founder no . . .' He'd known the Faeries had sent volunteers, but this girl hardly looked suited to the rage of battle. No one was really, but her less than most.

"You're right, I'm trying to deconstruct our magic spells." The girl said. "I want to see if there's an underlying pattern."

Ah yes, Colbert recalled, Faerie magic had been an artifact of ALfheim, which meant that they had no study of magic in their homeland, not in a sense that Colbert or any Halkegnian would recognize. Instead, the Faeries memorized their spells by wrote. So this girl wasn't just trying to decompose a spell, she was trying to dismantle the entire magic system back into its basic building blocks. Quite ambitious, and brilliant for one so young.

"Have you made any progress?" He asked.

"Some." The girl admitted as she re-stacked her books. "But I keep getting stuck. I like languages . . . they're . . . fun." My, she looked embarrassed admitting that! Her expression grew frustrated. "But this thing is so . . . so stupid! I mean, I can work out parts of the vocabulary but the syntax is like some sort of crazy maze, I can't make any sense of it." She clenched her fist. "I bet it's something that was iterated by the Cardinal System. Stupid game designers letting a computer design their stupid magic language! They could have hired a linguist you know!"

"Shh!" The Pixie floating beside Colbert said, a little bit less patiently than before.

"Right, right." The girl grumbled. "Look, thank you for your help." She said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to work. My squad has . . . we have patrol duty in a couple of hours." She looked sicky at the thought, much too frightened for someone who had endured battle. Colbert had a guess as to why.

"You've had to use your magic in anger . . . haven't you?"

The girl started writing again slowly, dipping her quickly into the shallow pool of ink at the bottom of the jar. She went back to writing.

Colbert understood, he didn't have the right to ask that question. Forcing help on someone would only do them harm. "That was rude of me. I'll go now." He turned to leave when . . .

"I burned them all up. Completely to ash."

Colbert paused to listen.

"It was a game, you know." She said. "It was just supposed to be fun. And now . . . Everyone going on about us being turned into Faeries. Some people are even happy about it! What the hell is wrong with them!?" Breathing heavily she looked at her hands. "Don't they get it? ALfheim was a game of conflict. The main powers and skills were built around making PvP fun and exciting. All of my magic is focused on artillery and combat support . . . I'm a living weapon."

He didn't know what to say. He wished he did. He wished he knew what words would free her from that guilt. But if he knew that, he would not be the man he was.

"Why do I have to be here? I hate my magic. I hate myself." The girl whispered. "I hate that it's only used for killing. I hate that I killed." Colbert bowed his head, enduring rather than saying anything in reply. She wasn't entirely wrong. Which was why he was surprised by what she said next. "But that's stupid, So I'm going to use if for something else."

He looked up. "Pardon?"

"Other than languages, fire magics the only thing I'm good with." She explained. "Its kind of stupid. Fire magic has a lot of advantages in combat, but it really get the short end of the stick for doing anything constructive. So I'm going to change that."

"Oh?" Colbert asked, cautiously optimistic. So, did she already understand?

"I mean, its a tool." The girl began to gesticulate. "It's all about how you use it. We use fire to purify and shape metals, to drive chemical reactions, and to drive engine." Colbert perked up curiously. "Fire allowed humans to create civilization so fire magic must have something it can do other than destruction, I think."

Falling silent, Colbert waited to see if she would say anything else. At last, he took a breath. "It's interesting that you would say that actually. I happen to be a teacher at the Academy. I don't know if my expertise would be of much use, but if you are having difficulty in your research I might offer a different perspective . . . I could get permission from the Fae Lords and the Headmaster if you would like . . ."

The girl looked up, blinking a few times.

"Oh, my manners." Colbert bowed. "I am Professor Jean Colbert of the Tristain Academy of Magic. It is my pleasure to be of meet you Miss . . ." He held his bow until he heard her answer.

"People call me Enya." She said. "It's nice to meet you, Colbert-sensei." Biting her lip, Enya seemed to give her next action some thought before gesturing to the chair beside her.

She said she had to leave in a couple of hours. Colbert recalled. Well, his business was not so urgent. Sitting down beside her, the two began to converse, Enya explaining her goals, starting point, and reasoning while Colbert probed with his own questions.

It was not long before both were absorbed in their own shared world.

* * *

"Uhm, excuse me, but where are we going again?" The Leprechaun asked her guide as she set down beside the hooded Cait Syth.

Her only answer was a slightly sinister snicker. "You'll see pretty quick. Tis a place I think you'll like sa."

The Leprechaun looked unconvinced as she straightened out her coat and skirt and entertained the thought that this whole thing might not be on the level. Her friends did keep reminding her that this wasn't a game anymore. Like she didn't know that!

Well, Novair had vouched for her Cait Syth guide when she'd reported to Arrun tower, so chances were good that this really was official business. So she supposed it was probably alright. Besides she was curious just what this 'Argo' wanted with her. It wasn't like she had anything else to do while they were trapped in this stupid place after all.

The building they had arrived in front of didn't inspire much faith. Built along the highway that linked Arrun to the Capital of Tristania, a lone, hastily constructed warehouse, more of a large barn, sat surrounded by a wooden stockade, a number of tents, and several earthen berms. A large airship was landed nearby along with several Dragons and Manticores.

She opened her mouth to voice a question, but then thought better of it. There was no telling whether she'd like the answer.

Setting off on foot the short distance to the warehouse doors, they were watched with mild curiosity by soldiers and laborers. Thankfully it wasn't the full on stares that Faeries had been receiving for the first couple of weeks. Not that she'd know much about that personally. After the reality of . . . reality . . . had set in, she'd done her part to keep order in Arrun by draining excess alcohol supplies wherever she could find them . . . She'd really buried herself in her work.

"So what is this place anyways?" She asked Argo.

The Cait Syth pulled down her hood, ears twitching once. "Temporary storage, don't let the rough finish fool you. We'll be moving to nicer accommodations once things take off."

"I see . . ." She said, not seeing at all. "I guess I'll take your word for it."

She didn't have much longer to wait. A small crowd of people were waiting in front of the warehouse doors when they arrived, a mixed group of Faeries and Halkegenians.

The Halks were all new to her, not that she knew many to begin with. An elderly man in a weird looking hat and what she thought were supposed to be religious vestments. A middle aged Noblewoman, very well dressed by local standards and flanked by a pair of Knights, a mustachioed Nobleman, another man, late middle aged with graying hair, but still quite handsome in a casual sort of way, and a blonde haired man wearing a very new looking military uniform.

The Faeries she had a lot more luck identifying. Too more Leprechauns who . . . She sucked in a breath, she should have known.

"Hey, longtime no see!" One waved, slightly dreamy eyes looking straight at her.

She felt her right eye twitching, a nonplussed expression gracing her face. Hegent . . . Now there was someone who looked entirely too happy with her new circumstances. And naturally, where one found Hegent, they would inevitably find Yuyu. The shorter silver haired Leprechaun looked more alert and a lot more anxious as she stood by her friend's side.

"Good morning, Yuyu." She sighed before turning suspicious eyes to the other one. "Hegent."

The dreamy eyed Leprechaun's smile turned a little unsure as she backed away but it didn't drop completely. That was mostly what made her so infuriating. Did she not understand the gravity of their situation? No, of course not! To Hegent, the idea of having 'real magic' probably made everything worth it.

Finally she turned to the last trio of Faeries, Lady Sakuya in all of her elegant glamour, flanked by a pair of her assistants.

"It's wonderful that you could make it, Sensei." Sakuya bowed her head respectfully to the Leprechaun who simply grimaced.

She didn't know if that honorific really applied in this world. A Doctor of mechanical engineering specializing in systems and nuclear technology. In Japan, she'd been one of the chief engineers on the design team for the Gen IV reactors being built at the New Fukushima project.

But that really didn't matter here in a world that had never even heard of the steam engine, much less , , or . Now she was just a Leprechaun Alchemist, trapped in a world so primitive that indoor plumbing would be the stuff of speculative fiction.

"Well, I didn't have much else to do with my time." She mumbled, slightly grateful that she'd bothered to take care of her appearance for the first time in weeks. "Novair called me in and said you had something you wanted me to do." A month of sulking was long enough, she needed to do something to start feeling useful again.

Sakuya looked her over thoughtfully. "I've heard things have been tough for you."

"I've been managing." She lied, trying not to look too dejected. She'd only been getting out of bed because her land lady was throwing her out every morning.

The Sylph Lord's painful smile said that she knew the truth. "I'm still glad you came. Now then, on to introductions."

Turning to the high class noblewoman, Sakuya began. "Queen Marianne, Cardinal Mazarin, allow me to introduce Hyuuga of the Leprechauns. I've been informed by some of her friends and colleagues that she might be well suited to help us."

Wait, Queen! Alarms bells began ringing inside her head. She might not have been in the loop lately, but she wasn't so out of it that she'd forgotten her manners in front of Royalty. "Y-Your highness!" She bowed.

Queen Marianne smiled gently and gave a small wave of acknowledgment. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance Miss Hyuuga."

"These other two gentlemen are Count La Ramee and Baron de Gramont, of whom I'm sure need no further introduction." Sakuya gestured. And they didn't, Hyuuga had heard about both in the reports posted in Arrun's central square. They'd been instrumental to the military operation that had just been conducted by Tristain. "And this last gentleman is Captain Lydel, formerly of the King's Army."

"A pleasure, Miss Hyuuga." The Count bowed deeply, the Baron following suit.

"I'm honored." Hyuuga said, frowning faintly. "Um, what exactly have I been invited too."

Sakuya exchanged glances with Argo. "You said not to say anything until she agreed to come along. And I thought it would be easier to show her than to explain on the way."

The Sylph Lord gave a small sigh. "You're probably right. Hyuuga-sensei, please, if you would follow us inside."

A pair of workers began to roll the door of the warehouse open, iron wheels creaking on crude bearings as the interior was revealed to the light of day. As the illumination widened, so did Hyuuga's eyes. Without any prompting or a trace of hesitation, she ran inside, circling the item that rested inside.

"This is . . . " She felt an inarticulate -squeak- escape her throat as her hands fell to rest on the smoothly rounded nose, the glass canopy, the olive drab paint.

"I've been told it's called an Iroquois or a Huey." Sakuya commented. "I'm sorry but it's not really my area of expertise."

"How did this get here?!" She asked, distractedly as she climbed into the passenger hold to examine the controls.

The main engine and gearbox assembly would be located up in the housing above her head. A turboshaft engine if she wasn't mistaken. She felt herself starting to salivate at the idea of taking it apart. It was all old tech, but it was in amazing condition! No rust, no dust! Someone had really put a lot of effort into taking care of it. For a moment she forgot herself as the thought of tinkering came back, long nights spent with her father in his workshop. The result of being the only child of an expert machinist.

"We don't know." Sakuya confessed. "It was found near the Village of Tarbes in Northern Tristain, but there's no sign of how it got there, and sadly, the crew have all passed away." Sakuya looked on gravely. "The implications of this objects existence are far reaching. I assure you that we will continue our investigation."

"So this is why Miss Argo was so secretive." Hyuuga surmised, rather pleased to find herself so mentally agile after a month of borderline depression.

"We didn't want to start to get people's hopes up until we had examined it thoroughly." The Sylph Lord nodded. "An official announcement will be made in a few days time. In the mean time, we have a proposition for you and some of the other technically inclined Fae."

"A proposition?" Hyuuga asked. "What sort of proposition?"

"You've heard of the technical exchange we've been conducting with Tristain, correct?" Sakuya asked.

The Leprechaun crawled back out of the cockpit and looked over. "Un. The Gnomes have got something going on up North, and there's that count Woestte guy . . ."

"The Count has been most pleased with the demonstration of the new mechanical reaper." Cardinal Mazarin noted. "He's already agreed to purchase several more as quickly as they can be manufactured and to invest in further production."

"And Rute wants to use some of our funds as Capital so that we can start making money to support ourselves." Sakuya added. "We can only live on the gold and silver reserves in the treasuries for so long. And there are consequences to adding so much gold to Tristain's economy so quickly."

The Sylph Lord circled around the helicopter, performing her own inspection. "What we'd like to do is set up an institution to redevelop and introduce contemporary technologies into Tristain."

"Things like those reapers the Gnomes and other Leprechauns are building." Hyuuga reasoned. "And the Bessemer converters."

"Among other things." Sakuya agreed. "Magic seems to have lead to some skewing of technological progress in Halkegenia, so there are many opportunities for us to introduce technological solutions to supplement the local magecraft. This will serve as a source of income for us and also help to strengthen Tristain's position with . . . well . . . with the war."

Hyuuga listened as Sakuya laid out what her job and responsibilities would be. Basically, they wanted to create a research 'think tank' to explore the uses of Earth based science and technology in Halkegenia and develop products for widespread dissemination.

They would do so by any number of methods. Original design work, designs developed from descriptions and drawings found in the Arrun Library, and reverse engineering of any more earth artifacts that were discovered. Hyuuga doubted that there was much useful in the Huey for the time being, the certainly couldn't replicate it, but it could still serve as an invaluable showpiece and technological demonstration.

This would also entail researching applications of Fae and Halkegenian magic within the new paradigm. Well, no surprise that Hegent was involved. The Leprechaun mage had always been a little touched in the head, and maybe becoming a Faerie had finally caused her to lose her last grip handle on reality.

"I just have one question." Hyuuga said. "Why me?"

Sakuya smiled wanly. "When I put out a request for names, yours was the first to show up, and its no surprise why." The Sylph Lords green eyes looked into her own. "You know that when we made the rounds requesting that people report any useful real life skill, you're one of the few that sent back a full resume."

Hyuuga rolled her eyes. It had been meant as a joke. A really bad joke that she'd taken entirely too far.

"Lots of people vouched that you possess superb organization talents and are quite driven when the occasion takes you. And your experience seems relevant. You've lead large groups of researchers and engineers before." Sakuya finished. "Unless it was just a lie."

Hyuuga spluttered, temper rising. "Do you think I'd just lie like that?! I'm an engineer, and a damn good one!" She growled. Admittedly she'd been a project manager and thus out of the loop for a bit longer than she would have liked.

Sakuya simply smiled. "That's wonderful to hear, Hyuuga-sensei. So then, do you want the job?"

Did she want the job? The question echoed in Hyuuga's mind. 'Do I want the job?'

It was ridiculous, really. She wanted to laugh at the pointlessness. She thought. Halkegenia was primitive, impossibly primitive. There were any number of simple advancements that could be introduced. In fact the limiting factors were likelier to be social than technical.

But the most potent advancements were still out of reach. The Halkegenian's hadn't even achieved reliable standardization yet, much less precision machining. They'd need Lathes and mills, drills and presses . . .

Hyuuga's eyes suddenly widened. Lathes and mills . . . Lathes were one of the starting stages for Von Neumann machines, in fact, they were one of the simplest machines to be mechanically complete. In other words, a lathe could be used to fabricate all of the essential parts of another lathe, among other things.

Once they had lathes and standardized measuring devices, they would only be limited by the available designs and time. But they already knew lots of designs thanks to the Arrun library and their own engineers.

The Leprechaun's mind began to turn over furiously. Lathes, first driven by horses, then waterwheels and finally steam.

Steam engines going from primitive pistons to multistage systems, in line steam engines, and one day . . . turbines!

Turbines driving electrical generators for power. Power for electric lights, electric circuits, and of course motors. Electrical motors to drive compressors and run refrigerators, electrolysis plants, and arc furnaces! A tiny part of her brain, her implanted skills, nagged at her that if they could heat metal in bulk like that, then the mass production of Dark Amalgam alloy would become possible. She ignored it, there was no time for that right now.

There was an industrial revolution to start. And it would be glorious!

Building the tools to build the tools, each step letting them reach further, faster, and with more certainty. They . . . they could do this! How had she not seen it before? She could have seen it but why not?

Because . . . Because she didn't want to see it, because it implied that they were stuck. But if she thought like that, then she'd never get home. But in the meantime, the hell if she wouldn't try!

"Miss Hyuuga?" Sakuya asked again. "Miss Hyuuga, are you alright?"

The Leprechaun woman shook her head, snapping out of her introspection. "What? Oh yes! I mean . . . Yes, I would gladly accept this opportunity!"

Sakuya's smiled became suddenly more relaxed and genuine. "We're very grateful then. However, this won't be an easy task. You'll have to start immediately."

"I already started yesterday!" Hyuuga declared as she hopped down from the Huey, mind racing.

They would need to gather up any machinists they could find among the Fae. Otherwise, blacksmiths would have to do, Faerie and Human. They would need engineers, researchers, chemists, or at least people who could fill in for all of them. And of course, they would need someplace to work. A barn wasn't exactly conducive to what they'd need to do.

"We'll send you a list of volunteers as soon as it's compiled." Sakuya added. "That should help you to select your staff."

"A co-administrators will have to be found and assigned by Tristain as well." Cardinal Mazarin said. "This is to be a joint venture."

"Yes, of course." Sakuya answered. "In the meantime, there is something else we'd like you to look at." Sakuya sounded somehow reluctant as she beckoned Hyuuga further into the warehouse where several more shape were hidden beneath tarps.

With a flick of his wand, Captain Lydel levitated the tarps aside to reveal a trio of dark, long barreled shapes. Cannons.

"These were captured at the battle of York and were almost instrumental in destroying Tristain's air fleet." The Mage Captain explained with a small shudder. "From what the gunners have told us, they can reliably reach out to half again the maximum effective range of our own cannons. This translates to a large engagement range that further favors Albion and its larger warships."

Hyuuga examined the cannons. She didn't know much about artillery, or guns in general, but these looked pretty primitive. Simple, muzzle loading cannons. Stick in gunpowder, stick in a cannon ball, then simply fire by igniting the powder charge. No breach mechanism, no rifling, not even any proper sights or a mechanism to precisely adjust aim. But they were the cutting edge here in Halk, and as long as their enemies had this advantage, Tristain wouldn't be safe.

"If we are to compete, we must obtain new model cannons of our own." La Ramee sighed. "Unfortunately, none of the gunnery officers we captured seems to know anything about their manufacture." The Admiral looked for all the world to be at his wits end. "From the sound of it, these cannons fire farther by using a larger powder charge. The longer barrel helps to utilize the full extent of the gunpowder's energy. But our Earth Mages can't fathom how it was put together so as not to burst under the stress without using extensive wards. The cannons aren't heavily warded, in fact, they only have the normal preservation charms that would be applied to any military equipment. We were hoping that your Faeries could decipher the riddle and help us to replicate them . . . Miss Hyuuga?"

The Admiral trailed off as the Leprechaun started first to chuckle and then to cackle. "Replicate? Oh Admiral . . ." Hyuuga wiped a tear from her eye, reaching into her pocket to retrieve her appraisers monocle and slipping it over her right eye. "We're going to make so many improvements!"

* * *

"Are you sure about this?" Wales asked as he faced Henrietta. "I wouldn't want you to get hurt."

The Princess' only answer was to laugh warmly. "Me get hurt? What about you?!"

The two Royals stood in the middle of the ballroom of the Royal Palace, it was mid morning, and at Hernrietta's request the room had been cleared and the doors overlooking the gardens opened to allow in a pleasant breeze.

Wales snorted. "I'm hardly that fragile. Besides, it's high time I get some exercise."

"Oh?" Henrietta said as she poked him tenderly in the chest, receiving a very un stalwart wince as she hit home against the still tender skin. "That's not what Doctor Panam says. In fact, he says you shouldn't even be out of bed yet!"

"Bah!" Wales waved a hand. "Panam is simply protecting himself. It wouldn't do for a Prince to die on his watch."

Suddenly, the humor left Henrietta at that moment, her poking turning to gentle probing. She leaned forward to rest her head against Wales' shoulder, soft brown hair brushing his cheek. He could feel her leaning against him. Small, warm, he almost didn't believe his senses.

"You almost died." Henrietta whispered. "You almost died . . . I was going to lose you without ever . . ." The familiar aching of his slowly healing chest was suddenly joined by a damp heat.

He closed his eyes, breathing in Henrietta's scent and counting his blessings. If not for that fateful meeting with Asuna and the others, he would in all likeliness have died without ever experiencing this again, and it terrified him. What had he almost done?

Caramella had been half right. He'd never wanted to die, but he had hoped that he would be killed, that someone else would make the choice of life and death for him. And he had come close, so close! His breathing quickened as he squeezed Henrietta gently with what strength he could muster.

Though he knew better. At that moment, Wales wondered if there wasn't some truth to the Faeries being the Children of Medb. He certainly felt like this was a dream.

And sadly, as he held Henrietta close, he almost wished it was. A dream lacked consequence, it was fantasy unbound, the hearts purest desires fulfilled without care for what that would mean. But life could never be treated as a dream. There was always consequence, regret, guilt. He still was not convinced that he was not a burden to Henrietta. His troubles and the troubles of his lost Kingdom should not have to weigh on her shoulders.

That was why he would do whatever he could to ease her burden and to see her smile.

"Hush now Henrietta." He pushed her away. "I've no intention of dying for a good long while. Now, dry your eyes. I thought you wanted me to teach you. And you can hardly learn while fighting tears."

Wiping at her eyes, Henrietta's smile returned slowly. She nodded. "I'm sorry for that. It was a selfish of me."

"Not at all." Wales assured, lacing his fingers with Henrietta's own and lifting the back of her hand to his lips.

They looked at one another, the realization finally sinking in that it was real, that they were together even though by all reason they should not be. Looking into each others eyes, the fear fell away, the guilt fell away, until at last they were back at that lake side where they had promised themselves to one another, an oath that neither had ever broken.

"Wales . . ." Leaning closer, closer . . .

"Oh! I'm so glad you two haven't started yet!"

Wales and Henrietta both spun about, eyes wide as the last attendee arrived.

Emily's arms were piled high with books and ledgers that she had borrowed from the Library of the Royal Family. The Landless Countess had been kept busy by both the Crown of Tristain and the forming Government in Exile.

The Count of Windsor had seen the tides of the War turning very early, and while remaining loyal to the house of Tudor, had taken steps to secure his family's future after Albion's inevitable fall.

Those preparations had fallen short of saving his wife and eldest daughters who had been caught in Londinium during the fall of the Capital. Events had simply progressed too quickly from there, fighting losing battle after losing battle until his final defeat.

But his efforts had not been in vain. While bereft of the lands that should have been hers by right. Emily had found herself the inheritor of extensive business holdings. Joint business ventures with distant relatives in Tristain and Gallia, ownership of six cargo vessels running the profitable Gallia-Romalia route, as well as partial ownership of several business ventures in Germania.

The near extinction of her family meant that Emily had found herself fighting to acquire what was hers from unscrupulous nobles seeking to take advantage of her situation, but to everyone's surprise, perhaps even her own, she was proving more than up to the task.

Where had the mousy girl who hid behind her Romance novels gone? Wales wondered. Oh, she was still there, still slightly shy, still a little oblivious. But that Emily was now joined by a diligent young Noblewoman who showed every sign of being a valuable ally in the times ahead.

"Ah? Did something happen?" Emily asked as she looked between Wales and Henrietta.

"Oh, nothing much important." Henrietta smiled, cheeks flushing slightly pink.

Emily looked over to Wales curiously. "Just as she said, nothing that can't be finished later." The Prince agreed, perhaps too quickly.

"Well, that's a relief. I was worried you'd start without me." Emily set her books down on a nearby table and began straightening out her own attire.

It seemed that his cousins were kindred spirits in their peculiarities. Which explained so very much about why they got on so well, and really everything about this mornings activities.

Certainly, it was a strange diversion for a pair of girls of any rank in society, more a pass time for the martial nobility. In fact, when Henrietta had proposed the idea, her guards had been mortified that their Princess would ever think to do such a thing. But at her insistence, they had relented, she was after all soon to be their Queen, and after carefully ensuring that measures were taken to see to her safety, she had been allowed to proceed.

Wales himself had thought it quite absurd, no doubt the result of her spending time with Lady Sakuya and hearing of Lady Asuna and Dame Caramella. Though, he was a healthy enough young man to admit there was something appealing about Henrietta's physique garbed in form fitting protective gear.

"Now then, Henrietta, are you ready?" Wales asked once more as he balanced a training foil in his hand.

It wasn't really a proper sword, though balanced as one, there was no blade, only a felt tip that had been covered in red dye to mark a successful strike.

Henrietta replied with a smile as she put on her protective mesh helmet and with surprising grace for a novice, took a ready stance. "Yes, quite ready." She said cheerfully. "Please go easy on me, Prince Wales."

"In my condition, I think you'll be a perfectly suitable warm up, Princess." Wales teased. "En Guard!"


	73. Epilogue Pt 3

Halkegenia Online - Epilogue Part 3

"Like this Mama?" Yui asked as she showed Asuna her handiwork, a half dozen green onions neatly sliced width wise into hundred of little pieces, starting from the white bulbs and then continuing on up to the greens.

Asuna smiled and nodded. "Un, just like that Yui-chan."

She had been worried at first letting Yui use the knife. But after Yui's heartfelt promise to be careful, and thorough instruction, Asuna had relented. Now, she stood back watching as Yui leaned over the piece of paper containing Asuna's handwritten recipe.

"Next we put the green onions in, and start on the lemon sauce, right?"

"That's right." Asuna agreed. "That way we'll be done with the sauce by the time the soup and rabbit are ready."

Asuna had missed this. Cooking, real cooking, had been one of her hobbies even before her imprisonment within SAO. Leveling her cooking skill had become her refuge in the death game, something that didn't involve the endless fighting to reach the one hundredth floor and freedom. Now it had become something even more, part of her healing process.

Of course, in SAO, it had always been a little unsatisfying. For one thing, full dive games simplified the experience far too much for her tastes. Cooking became less of a hobby and more of a mini game where the main challenge was in devising ways to trick the taste engine into providing new and unique flavors from a finite list of ingredients.

Here, the problem was almost the reverse, without modern appliances, cooking had become a much more labor intensive process. Thankfully, ALO had equipped houses with indoor running water, so the kitchen sink and drain worked correctly. But the stove and oven were of a wood burning type that required tending, and labor saving disposable cooking supplies like metal foil simply didn't exist.

Thankfully, she had a few extra pairs of hands to help out.

"Asuna-chan, is this alright?" The question came from the Sylph girl standing opposite her at the kitchen counter, holding a small bowl and a wooden spoon.

She'd been a little nervous to meet Suguha when Kirito had first introduced them. After all, Suguha was Kirito's blood relative and someone who was very important to him, especially now that she was the only blood family he had in this world. Asuna had worried about making a good first impression.

Strangely, Suguha had seemed the same way, greeting Asuna shyly before retreating to observe from a distance. Asuna hadn't know what to make of it at first. But despite her initial skittishness, Sugu had been nothing but helpful since they had met, watching after Yui, helping Asuna to get settled in Arrun. Maybe she just needed time.

Taking a small spoon, Asuna ladled the contents to her lips and sampled it thoughtfully. "Hmm, it needs a little more of the pepper. Half a teaspoon should be right."

"Right." Suguha said. "Uhm . . . Where did the pepper get to?"

"I put it back in the spice rack." Yui answered helpfully.

"I'll get it." Asuna said, squeezing past Suguha to get to the cupboard.

She paused at the window for a moment, glancing out into the Garden where Kirito and Klein were seated on the patio overlooking the garden, each sipping from a glass of barley tea. Both Kirito and Klein had taken the brunt of the treacherous Viscount's electrical attack and had only recently completed their recovery.

Arriving in Arrun after their brief stay in the Capital of Tristania, Asuna and Kirito had found themselves with their next challenge, albeit one that was a good deal less stressful than the one they had narrowly survived. Searching for a more permanent place to settle down than the cramped inn room that Kirito, Yui, and Sugha had shared.

It had turned out that the problem had already been solved for them. Arrun was easily able to accommodate twenty thousand people at any one time and to allow most of these people to own some sort of residence within the city limits. Thus, Arrun contained thousands of apartments and townhouses, hundreds of separate homes, and dozens of Guild Halls and mansions.

Even with the migration of former players from the smaller towns and villages to Arrun, there were still a large number of homes that were abandoned or vacant, and in the interest of public welfare, the Arrun City Planning Commission had taken to maintaining a list of available residence. The only requirements to move in were to register their names to the house number and agree to the building's upkeep.

Asuna, Kirito, and Yui had spent their first day in Arrun traveling the city and looking over the available homes. Of course, the most desirable homes had long since been snatched up, leaving mostly apartments and smaller houses on the outskirts.

Or at least, that was how it had seemed until a Sylph named Novair, one of Lady Sakuya's staff, had found them during the second day of their house hunt and handed over a small card with a handwritten house number that corresponded to a medium sized townhouse located just off of Arrun's main street.

At some point in her busy schedule, Lady Sakuya had learned about their predicament and called in a few favors.

After looking the house over thoroughly, Kirito and Asuna had decided to graciously accept. It wasn't their old cabin on Aincrad's 22nd floor, but it did have a private garden, pleasant surroundings, and a cozy interior design that left Asuna well at ease after her long ordeal. Kirito thought it would be the perfect place for them, and Asuna had to agree.

Returning to the present, Asuna remembered the pepper she had bought from one of the local Halkegenian merchants who had set up shop near the city gates. Now that some of the Faeries were beginning to collect incomes from various sources of employment, a small but growing market for imported goods was developing, and some of the more industrious Tristanian merchants were all too happy to meet that demand.

"Here." She handed the jar to Suguha before going to check on the oven. It wouldn't be much longer now, she thought. Turning back to her adopted daughter, "Oh, Yui-chan that's too much!"

Despite the inexperience of her assistants, at last, lunch was ready and the boys were called in. Kirito sitting down at the dining room table with a look of open anticipation while Klein was nearly salivating.

Of course, it wouldn't be complete without proper presentation. "Ahem." Asuna coughed softly. "May I present . . ." Lifting the top off the pot with a puff of steam. " . . . Today's lunch!"

The expression on Kirito's face and Yui's look of delight were worth the extra effort she thought as she and Suguha served everyone. Roasted rabbit covered in a lemon sauce and served with soup and a light salad. It had seemed like the perfect meal for the warm spring weather.

Taking her own seat opposite Kirito and beside Yui and Suguha, Asuna smiled as thanks was given for the meal and they began to eat. Yui's eyes widened as she took her first bight and then another in quick succession.

"Do you like it?" Asuna asked, waiting with bated breath.

"It's yummy!" Yui nodded.

"A lot better than all that spicy stuff your Pappa like to eat, huh?" Asuna teased, smiling in amusement at the way Kirito grouched.

Yui tilted her head. "Mama's spicy food is good too." She said diplomatically.

"Well, your Mama is a really good cook no matter what world she's in." Kirito observed warmly.

Processing this comment, Yui suddenly raised her hand. "I helped too!"

"Then I'm sure Yui will be as good a cook as Asuna some day." Klein complimented. "Seriously, Asuna-chan, how did you manage to do this? It's almost as good as some of the stuff you made back in Aincrad."

"Almost?" Asuna asked dangerously, holding an imperious expression while Klein spluttered.

Though he was right. There were, after all, limitations to what she could recreate here. Many ingredients were missing or impractical for her to make from the ground up, and a steady heat was hard to come by. Maybe with fire magic? She thought. She'd have to talk to Klein about it later, or maybe a proper fire mage like that girl in his squad.

"I just mean that . . . well . . . You've only had a week to figure it all out." Klein tried to explain. "And haven't you had to work from the ground up all over again?"

Asuna held her stare for a moment longer, just long enough for Klein to start to fear that he wouldn't be invited back before smiling. "Actually, it has been a little tricky. You're right that I've only had a week, but it seems that a lot of Aincrad ingredients were reused in ALO and even Halkegenia has some spices and herbs that I'm familiar with. So really, I didn't have to start from scratch this time."

"Well, however you do it, it's amazing." Kirito decided. If the nearly spotless state of his plate at the end of the meal was any indication, he hadn't been exaggerating.

After lunch, Kirito volunteered to clean the dishes while Klein begged other responsibilities. He had to get ready for tonight's special event and then he had night watch after that.

With nothing else to do until evening, Asuna had taken the light throw blanket from the sofa and gone out onto the patio to read, sitting in the shade offered by the awning. She'd been joined a few minutes later by an expectant Yui who waited for her approval before crawling up in the rocking chair beside her and snuggling close.

It wasn't long before the warm body at Asuna's side fell still, and when next she looked up from her book, she found Yui, eyes closed, with a blissful smile on her sleeping face. Setting her book down, Asuna carefully wrapped the blanket closer around the sleeping girl and kissed her forehead. If there was anything in this world that Asuna was grateful for, it was the opportunity it had given for her to meet Yui in the flesh. And it seemed that the former AI, now a very real young girl, thought the same way.

Listening to the birds and the rustling of the leaves, Asuna closed her eyes, weariness overtaking her. Even after a week's rest, she found herself tiring early, and sleeping late. At times she'd found herself waking from nightmares, feeling like she was still trapped in Sugou's cage, recalling the sensation of warm blood seeping down over her hands, or the indistinct shouts and flickering lights of the Skiesedge ambush.

Yui, drawing on her own expertise, had coaxed Asuna into talking about these things, not just with Kirito, Yui said it was important not to rely on him alone, but with Klein and Lisbeth as well. Klein and Liz could understand a little of what had happened and their acknowledgment and acceptance meant a lot.

Thanks to all of them, she was able to face the bad memories and slowly accept that they had happened, that they were over, that she had survived, and that good things were happening now.

So many good . . . _wonderful_ things. She thought as she held onto Yui. She didn't even realize that she'd fallen asleep again until a hand gently shook her shoulder.

"Mmm?" Blinking the sleep from her eyes, Asuna realized that the sky had gone from blue to pale violet and that the warmth from earlier in the day had been replaced by a pleasant coolness.

"Is it time?" Asuna asked.

Kirito nodded. "Un. I'll wake Yui while you go get ready, okay?"

"Thanks." She whispered, taking Kirito's hand to rise and slipping back inside quickly.

Goodness, she must have slept full five or six hours! But, there hadn't been any bad dreams this time. That was right. Everything was going to be okay.

They'd chosen this house in part because of its size. Homes like this would have been owned by small guilds, so there were multiple bedrooms. Asuna and Kirito shared the largest room on the third floor, overlooking the main street on two sides.

There hadn't really been any time to do much decorating just yet, but the house had come equipped with basic furniture, including a dresser that Asuna and Kirito used to store their meager wardrobes.

Some of the Faeries now starting their own small businesses had taken advantage of their aptitude with the less frequently leveled skills. The craftsmen setting up shop every morning in the square had been joined in the past weeks by tailors and seamstresses providing both ALfheim styled garb as well as more traditional or casual clothing. Such was the case with Asuna's own white blouse, loose knit sweater, and knee length skirt.

Straightening out her clothes in the mirror and grabbing a pair of socks she hurried downstairs to find Yui, still sleepy, being helped into her coat by Suguha who was likewise dressed in a white jacket, light green dress, and khaki shorts.

Kirito was the last to arrive, putting out the ore lamps in the living room, he paused as he received stares from Asuna, Suguha, and Yui.

"What? I-Is something wrong?"

"Onii-chan, you're really going to wear that?" Suguha asked, looking over her brothers dark pants and button up shirt.

Kirito frowned. "What's wrong with it, you said I had to wear something that wasn't black, this is dark blue."

"I'm pretty sure that's black." Asuna said.

"It's black." Suguha agreed.

Squinting hard, Yui shook her head. "It's 151B54." Asuna and Suguha turned and stared in confusion. "It's not black." Yui elaborated. "It just looks that way because of the light."

"See." Kirito said. "Not black."

Suguha and Asuna exchanged glances. "You know, you shouldn't be so proud of winning on a technicality Onii-chan."

"Next time we're looking for clothes, I'm going with you." Asuna decided.

"What?" Kirito looked a little offended. "I just think black is an easy color is all."

"Exactly." Asuna said as she slipped out the door and onto the slowly lighting streets of Arrun.

* * *

On a narrow side street in Arrun's central district, nestled between a pair of defunct, formerly NPC run shops, there existed a small, recently opened hole in the wall establishment marked by a hand painted sign describing a pair of playing dice.

The Proprietors, a Gnome couple recently arrived from Tau Tona, had former experience as entrepreneurs and small business owners back in Japan, and had cleverly timed their grand opening to coincide with the first trickles of income that were beginning to flow into Arrun as business dealings were finalized with the local Nobility and contracts were payed out by the Crown and Faerie Lords.

The growing number of Faeries with coin in their purses had found themselves confronted by something that they had not seen on the streets of Arrun in over a month. A cafe, a real restaurant, and it was serving food and drink a good couple of cuts above what was being rationed at the inns and barracks.

The Dicey Cafe had become an almost immediate success among the Fae, particularly the former and current members of the mob patrols and the victorious volunteers of Operation Dunkirk who had come to adopt the Cafe as their new watering hole.

This was in part due to the excellent food and drink, the product of an Imp employee who had been hired on after demonstrating his exceptionally high cooking skill and the Proprietor's excellent negotiating skills, as well as a number of Secret Recipes that had begun to crop up on the menu, carrying with them the nostalgic flavors of home.

It had thus been a great shock and disappointment for most of the instant regulars when they discovered that the Cafe would be reserved on the evening of the next Day of Void for a long awaited reunion between the Proprietor and some old friends . . .

"Wait, are we late?" Kirito asked as he stepped over the threshold and into the warm, wooden interior of the Cafe. Reminiscent of one part bar and one part bistro.

The small dining area was already half filled with their friends and acquaintances as Kirito held the door for Asuna, Suguha, and Yui.

Liz grinned as she looked up from her decorating. "Nah, you're right on time. We wanted to get set up before you got here, so we told you to come later."

"Is that so," Kirito said as he looked around the room. Silica and Pina were already seated at the nearest table, the blue feathered dragon wrapped greedily around a bowl of peanuts while Silica sipped at her own ice tea. The Cait Syth girl brightened up immediately, rising from her chair to greet them.

"Kirito-kun!" Silica greeted with a smile and then turned to Asuna. "And Asuna-san. I'm so happy to finally meet you in person."

Silica's job as a courier for important dispatches and parcels had really taken off after the adventure she had shared with Suguha and Yui in Northern Tristain, and she'd had hardly any time off since as she crisscrossed the country delivering dispatches and retrieving written reports.

The same was also true of many of tonight's guests, who were being kept busy either by the Faerie Lords or their own self found occupations. Just finding time for everyone to meet up had been tough enough.

"And I'm happy to meet you too. Silica-chan." Asuna smiled back. "Kirito-kun has told me lots about you and Pina. I'm grateful that you helped out." Asuna allowed herself to be lead back to a table by Silica and Liz, Yui trailing close behind.

Kirito meanwhile sidled up to the bar, taking a seat beside Argo who for once had chosen to forego her hood and even appeared to have properly combed her hair into some semblance of order rather than the golden brown mop that it usually resembled.

"How's it going, Kii-bou?" The Rat that had become a Cat asked as she stroked the head of her Nav Pixie partner. The tiny girl had seated herself atop the bar and was in the midst of nibbling away at a nut and slice of apple.

"I feel like I've aged twenty years over the last month." Kirito answered tiredly, looking over his shoulder to where Asuna was laughing softly about something Liz had just said. "And I'm the happiest guy in the world."

Argo chuckled. "So, Kii-bou and Aa-chan are back together. Congratulations."

"Thanks." Kirito said. and then added slyly. "That almost sounded genuine."

"Tis the truth sa!" She protested with another chuckle before leaning in cautiously. "Really, I'm glad for you and Aa-chan. You two deserve to be happy, especially with what's happening."

Kirito nodded, before raising a hand. "Barkeep, whiskey on the rocks." Kirito said half seriously, accepting a dark, ice filled glass. Taking his first sip, he blinked. "Wait as second, is this . . . Oolong tea? Hey, Agil, where did you get this?" He was almost certain that this wasn't one of ALfheim's food stuffs.

"You like it?" The burly Gnome behind the bar counter asked. "It's something I picked up from a trade Caravan. Apparently it comes from someplace beyond the Rub'al Khali desert. I guess maybe this world's version of China is out there somewhere. Who knows, maybe there's even an little island Kingdom where we can get our hands some soybeans."

"Don't joke about that." Kirito grumbled as he took another sip of the surprisingly nostalgic tea. He didn't want to get his hopes up in case Asuna couldn't repeat her miracle from Aincrad with the ingredients available in Halkegenia. "By the way, congratulations on your grand opening. I hear business has been doing good."

Agil gave a wide smile that could have made little children cry. "Funny, it seems I have good luck with business in any world except the one I was born in."

"And how does your wife feel about that?" Kirito asked.

"She feels like her husband should have spent a little bit less time playing full dive games and devoted some of that enthusiasm to real life." The reply came not from Agil, but another Gnome, a woman with warm, earthen skin and long black hair who had just appeared from the kitchen area. "You must be Kirito-kun." She bowed slightly.

"Ah, Kathy-san, or is it Eda-san?" Kirito bowed his head in her direction. "Yes, Agil's told me plenty about you."

"Whichever you like." The attractive Gnome woman tilted her head, smiling mischievously. "And I hope I don't have to set the record straight."

"He said that you were his beautiful and virtuous wife and that it's only thanks to you that he had a business to return to in the real world." Kirito said with complete sincerity before eyeing Agle with a silent stare that he hoped said this was his apology for denying him a taste of Asuna's Ragout Rabbit Stew all of those months ago.

"Well, well." The Gnome woman eyed her husband. "That sounds about right. Though," she sighed, "I'm afraid it was a wasted effort now. Though I suppose it's not all bad, flying is an amazing experience, and now I don't have stand on my tiptoes to kiss my husband." She demonstrated by giving Agil a small peck on the cheek.

Kirito's own smile widened as Argo snickered beside him. It seemed Kathy really was exactly the sort of faithful wife Agil had described. Agil was lucky to have her, and she was lucky to have him.

"Oy, Barkeep, give me a you know what!" A familiar, brash voice came from his back as Klein, dressed in full gear, took a seat at the bar, followed by two more of the former members of Furinkanzen and Schmidt, formerly of the Divine Dragon Alliance.

"It it really okay for you to be drinking if you have to go back on patrol?" Kirito asked.

"Eh? You can't pull double shifts without a drink." Klein defended, knocking back a round with a small cough. "Besides, it burns off pretty fast. Unless I really hit the heavy stuff, I won't even get buzzed." A hand fell heavily on Kirito's back. "And thanks again for lunch today. Man you must have used up all of your Luck Stat getting Asuna."

"Some days it feels that way." Kirito agreed. By now, more people were trickling in. Yolko and Caynz, two of the former members of the Aincrad Guild Golden Apple and then a rather happy looking Old Man, the fisherman Nishida setting down his tackle box by the door and taking the last available seat at the bar.

"Hey, it looks like the heroes are all here!" Caramella said as she came through the door, followed by her ever present partner, Kino. "Hey, Asuna, thanks for the invite!" The former army player found a spot to stand beside the bar while Kino took Argo's seat when she slipped away to join the rest of the girls.

"If it isn't Caramel." Klein said as he took another sip of his drink.

"Bite me you redheaded ronin wannabe." Caramella replied cheerfully. "If I known you were in this world I might have just stayed in Albion."

The banter between the two went on, leaving Kirito quite at a loss. He guessed they must have known each other from SAO, which made sense. Klein had probably interacted with a lot more people as a guild leader than Kirito ever had as a solo player.

"Um, excuse me." A small voice at Kirito's elbow drew his attention." Kino glanced about anxiously and then leaned closer. "That girl with the ears . . . "

Kirito glanced over his shoulder. Currently, Asuna and others were doting on Yui, his adopted daughter beaming with delight at all of the attention.

"Which one?" Kirito asked.

"Th-the one with the dragon." Kino mumbled face turning faintly red. "T-that's wouldn't be any chance be . . . be Dragon Tamer Silica . . . would it?"

It suddenly clicked, Kirito grinning as he leaned in conspiratorially. "Why? Are you one of her fans?"

Kino swallowed and nodded slowly. "Everyone in the middle levels thought that only the clearers could rise really fast in level and that nobody else could ever catch up, but then she started leveling up really fast, almost as fast as the clearers. A lot of her fans couldn't keep up with her and had to give up following her around once she got up to the fifty fifth floor."

Kirito listened carefully as Kino continued to gush. It wasn't the usual fan boy stuff either. He didn't seem to care at all about Pina's status as a mascot. Instead he did nothing but recite how she'd started leveling up and going on out of her way to train her dagger skills.

Well, it didn't sound like he was a bad kid. And Asuna trusted him. "You know." Kirito said casually. "You could always go over and talk to her."

"W-what?!" Kino looked about in terror. "Who said anything about that? I . . ."

Kirito's smile widened. "Come on, he who dare's wins, right?" He nudged Kino gently on the shoulder and for a second he was worried that he'd broken him.

The Faerie boy had frozen up completely, barely even breathing. Then, in one quick motion, he snatched up his glass of tea and downed the contents in one gulp. Yanking off his hat, he tried to comb his straw colored hair back with mixed success and then, taking a breath, hopped down from the seat began to make his way towards Silica who was busily showing Yui how to hold out her arm so that Pina would know that she could land.

"Heh, poor little guy looks like he's going to faint." Caramella said as she stole the seat and watched with an amused look. "Hey, Klein, looks like you could learn a few things from Kino!"

Well, he'd managed to get Silica to notice him. Kirito wished him luck as Agil suddenly drew his attention and began to discuss a joint venture he was looking for a competent swordsman to help him with. A little bit of low risk mob culling in support of the Cait Syth domestication efforts. The pay was supposed to be good, and if they managed to retrieve the eggs without damage, the omelettes promised to be fantastic.

Kirito was so absorbed in the conversation that he barely noticed the way that Suguha had quietly taken a step back, observing, but not participating in the festivities around her.

* * *

'I'm happy for them.' Suguha thought as she sat atop her bed, legs pulled up to her chin. 'I really am happy for them. Then why does it hurt so much?'

It was just past midnight. The reunion party had long since ended, people saying their goodbyes before setting out onto the orelit streets. At some point during the party, Yui had fallen asleep in Asuna's arms. Kirito had carried her home rather than waking her.

Suguha looked out her bedroom window, watching the moons hanging low in the sky. When Kirito and Asuna had accepted residence in this house, she and Yui had been given free reign to pick their own rooms. Suguha had found that she rather like the bedroom on the second floor which overlooked the garden, while Yui had quickly snapped up the remaining third story bedroom to stay close to her 'Mama' and 'Papa.'

Suguha smiled to herself. The more she watched them together, the more they seemed like a real family. They _were_ a real family in every way that mattered. And that was what made it so painful. Yui and Asuna shared a bond with her brother that she lacked. And without that link, how could she ever stay at his side?

'What am I doing here?'

She'd thought that she could help, but her brother had people he relied on far more than her, Asuna and Klein, Silica and Lizbeth. Tonight at the party, it had been driven home once again. What connection did she share with him now?

They were siblings, above all else they had been raised as brother and sister. That should have counted for a lot, but Suguha didn't want that to be all. She didn't want to be a burden to him. She wanted . . . she wanted to be there for him, to be relied upon and trusted. More than anything, she didn't want to feel like they were strangers anymore.

She'd tried to do that. She'd tried hard, and she still felt like she'd failed.

After Asuna and Kirito had returned, Suguha had told them about the events in Tarbes and what had nearly happened to Yui. Klein had been right, her brother hadn't been angry at all. Instead, he and Asuna had listened and grown worried, not just for Yui, but for her as well. Somehow, that only made it worse, like they didn't expect her to be able to take care of herself.

A soft knock at the door startled Suguha from her thoughts. "Yes?"

The door creaked open, revealing a head of chestnut hair peaking in from the hallway.

"Oh, Asuna-san!" Suguha took a breath and tried to compose herself. What hope did she have if she couldn't even do this much?

"Can't sleep?" Asuna asked as she slipped into the room, dressed in a nightshirt and shorts, her permanently extended wings glowing softly in the reflected moonlight, giving the other girl an ethereal quality as she stepped out of the shadows.

"Un, just thinking." Suguha said, offering her a place at the edge of the bed. "A lot's happened."

She watched Asuna as she carefully took a seat. Her brother was lucky. After a week spent living with her, Suguha was sure that Asuna was everything her brother claimed she was. Kind, and warm, and gentle, and so very much stronger than her. She'd taken a liking to the older girl almost as soon as they had met.

Suguha wasn't jealous, she'd accepted her feelings for her brother, even if they were painful at first. No, Suguha had been thankful that Kazuto had found someone that could mean so much to him and who felt the same way back. So long as her brother had Asuna at his side, he could handle anything.

But at the same time, seeing them together just reminded her of how far apart she and her brother really were. Even now, Kirito lived in a different world from her, not because he couldn't come back, but because she couldn't keep up.

"Sugu." Asuna placed a hand on her shoulder. "Sugu, are you alright?"

"Ah!" She felt the heat around her eyes but thankfully was able to hold back the tears. "I . . . I'm sorry it's nothing . . ." She tried to say, tried to lie.

Asuna didn't believe her, but that was okay, she was kind enough not to push for an answer. "Sugu, I've been meaning to talk to you." She said, leaning back, she stretched her arms and wings across the bed.

Suguha listened curiously. What was this about? Well, she had some things to say as well. "Un, it's the same for me."

Asuna nodded. "I want to thank you again for all of your help. I'm glad that Kirito-kun had such a reliable person with him this whole time. And I'm especially glad that person was someone he cares deeply for. And I'm also glad for getting to meet you, Suguha."

Asuna's smile softened. "From what Kirito had told me about you, you're exactly the sort of person I imagined. I'm grateful."

Suguha was left speechless, she shook her head, it was just a polite compliment. "It wasn't anything special. Actually, Onii-chan helped me much more than I helped him."

That was right, without him, she'd probably still be curled up alone in an inn room somewhere in Arrun, crying her eyes out.

Asuna shook her head insistently. "That's not true at all Suguha-chan. You were there for him when all of this started. Even before that, back in that other world. You helped Kirito-kun . . . Kazuto-kun a lot, right?"

She felt embarrassed, she really hadn't done anything special. "I didn't do anything really . . . I . . ." Suguha took a breath, the sooner she said it, the sooner it would be over."Asuna-san, please continue to protect Onii-chan."

"Sugu?" Asuna breathed.

"It's just that. I feel like I can't really do anything for him." Her voice quavered, she swallowed, feeling a lump growing in her throat. "And, it hurts, because I'm not strong enough. But you are. So please stay at Onii-chan's side."

Suguha fell silent and waited for the reply. It was a long time in coming, but when it did, she hadn't expected the soft note of amusement in Asuna's voice.

"Is that what this is all about?" Asuna asked. "You know, Suguha-chan, you're much stronger than you think."

Suguha wanted to believe it, she wanted to believe it so badly, but she didn't, she couldn't, and she didn't even try to hide it.

"You know." Asuna continued. "Lots of different people are strong in lots of different ways. Klein, and Liz, and Agil all have different ways of being strong. And nobody is strong all of the time."

"But you and Onii-chan are always strong when it matters . . ."

"No." Asuna breathed softly. "No, we're not. There are lots of times when we've both been very weak, that's why it's so important to protect each other. And that's why if I'm going to keep your Brother safe, I'm going to need as much help as I can get."

Suguha frowned, not really comprehending what Asuna was saying. "Asuna-san?"

"You think I'm a strong person?" Asuna asked thoughtfully. "I'm really not. In Aincrad, I spent my first week doing nothing but crying, and when I finally stopped, I nearly killed myself by fighting recklessly."

Asuna looked into the distance, into her own past. "I was really very foolish, and very weak, I didn't even have the strength to live on. I probably would have died without ever getting past the first floor if someone hadn't helped me." Her voice warmed as she continued to recal. "He was a little awkward, and a little . . . no, very suspicious," she giggled, "But he went out of his way to help without expecting anything in return, and most of all, he chose to continue living even in that world."

"Onii-chan?" Suguha asked.

"Un." Asuna agreed. "Kirito-kun is strong in lots of ways, but he's weak in lots of ways too. That's why we both have to help him as much as we can. He relies on you much more than you think."

Was that true? Suguha wondered. It couldn't be, could it?

"Suguha-chan." Asuna squeezed her hand. "You are Kirito-kun's precious little sister, and now that you finally have him back, I would never want to take him away from you. That's why, I want to ask for your blessing."

"M-my blessing?" Suguha was left confused.

"Un." Asuna nodded he head. "Suguha-chan, I want your blessing to become part of your family."

Suguha felt the burning around her eyes again, this time, she couldn't stop the tears as she met Asuna's gaze.

"You mean . . ."

"Mmm hmm." Asuna smiled as she stood and extended her hand in the light of the blue moon. "Oh please say you will."

"I . . . my family . . ." Wiping angrily at her eyes, she took Asuna's offered hand. "Of course!"

* * *

In the predawn light, on a hill top not far from the outskirts of Arrun, two Faeries had set down short of the summit, making it to the top just as the sun crested the horizon. Both were casually dressed with only a knife and sword to protect themselves. Thanks to the mob patrols, this area was relatively devoid of dangerous creatures and anything they couldn't fight, they could easily run away from using their wings.

The feeling of relative safety was kind of strange and not entirely welcome after their weeks of sneaking, running, and fighting for their lives across the isle of Albion. But they were getting use to it, slowly.

"Hurry up, Caramella." Kino called as he reached the top of the hill and carefully lowered the canvas wrapped pack that he'd been carrying.

Further down the hill, his partner trudged, eyes bleary. Dawn was too damn early to be awake. The combination of constantly traveling at night, and then spending several days awake and wired to fight, had completely wrecked her internal clock. That was why she'd spent the last week sleeping in until noon or Kino kicked her our of bed, whichever came first.

"I'll get there when I get there!" Caramella shouted back. It wasn't like she'd fallen that far behind. Besides, the guys they were here for wouldn't mind waiting a few more minutes.

Reaching the top, Caramella found that Kino had already gotten to work opening his pack and carefully setting the stone into place on the spot they had leveled the day before.

There had been an official announcement a few days ago that a sort of memorial was in planning to pay respects to those who had died or fallen since their arrival in Tristain, but it hadn't seemed right to wait. That was why, after getting permission, she and the others had settled on this.

Kino finished setting the stone marker in place before stepping back to let Caramella lay out the flowers and incense. Once she was finished, she too took a step back and bowed her head.

As the sun continued to rise, the engravings in the stone surface began to stand out. Small, carefully engraved rows of names. Twenty lines comprising the players handle, their real name if it was known, their occupation, and their guild status.

"Hey everyone. Aki-chan, Guile-kun." Caramella said softly. "I hope this is okay."

Asuna had officially disbanded the Knights of Blood in a small ceremony at the beginning of the week, but it had only really been symbolic. People couldn't go through what they had been through and then just walk away.

Caramella still saw Baku and Nishida everyday, and she still gave Ivan a hard time, although not as much as she'd used to, he'd taken Shio's death pretty hard . . .

The point was, that they still helped each other, and they still felt connected to one another. They might not call Asuna their leader anymore, but that was just semantics. Most importantly, they didn't forget their friends.

She took a breath, looking up into the sky. The Spherical crest of the World Tree filled half of her view, even this far from the trunk. "It's kind of funny you know. We're only a couple of kilometers from where we started from." She shook her head. "Hell of a detour wasn't it? I mean if I'd known, I would have just bought the damn map and . . ." She began to babble.

Kino put a hand on her shoulder. There was more than a little guilt. It had all come down to luck in the end. Who was where and when. Who was alive and who wasn't.

"I'm sorry you guys didn't make it." Caramella whispered. "I'm sorry we couldn't all go home. But I promise we're going to try to keep everyone else safe. We . . . we won't . . . won't let anyone else die without a fight. And I promise we won't forget you."

That was right, their deaths weren't meaningless as long as they gave Caramella and the others the resolve to keep fighting. A lot of the former players that had made up the KoB defense squads in Albion had already volunteered for mob patrol duty or even to serve in the Faerie volunteers forwarded to the Royal Army. The sacrifices had lit something in them that must hadn't even known they had.

Caramella had intended to jump on the opportunity to join the Army volunteers, but before she'd had the chance, something else had reared its head. The Faerie Lords, fancy name for the Players who'd ended up in charge, were head hunting to fill out some new group of fighters, and she and Kino's names had come up.

She hadn't been interested at first, that was, until she'd seen who the Undine Representative was. Caramella didn't believe in fate, or have a whole lot of faith in divine intervention, but when the Universe was shouting that loudly in her face, she figured it was probably a good idea to listen.

She owed Thinker a lot, not the least of which was an apology for being a huge ass right up to until Kibao had shown just how much a prick he could really be. She couldn't think of any better way to show her sincerity.

The only thing causing her to hesitate was, well, Kino. Her partner stood with his own head bowed solemnly, paying his respects. Cap off, eyes closed, he really looked like a kid. How old was he really? He looked twelve or thirteen, so really, he was probably fourteen or fifteen.

She didn't know when it had really happened, but at some point they'd started to lean on one another, and now they didn't know how to stop. So she knew without a doubt, that if she accepted the offer, Kino would be right behind her.

Arguile's words from all those weeks ago rang in her head. Adults couldn't just let kids fight for them. But she didn't know if she could stop him. Did they even have that luxury?

The Faerie Lords were putting a lot of effort into trying to screen out the youngest players, but there were only sixty thousand Fae, they needed every person who was able and willing to fight. And Kino had a knack for fighting IRL that bellied his skills from SAO. He was good, really good, scary good.

"Aki-chan. I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I didn't protect you, and I'm so sorry we didn't get to know each other better." Caramella said. "And I know you were only joking, but you were right . . . I did think that . . ."

"And Guile-kun . . . don't worry, I'm going to keep a good eye on Asuna. She has plenty of reliable people watching her now, so you can rest easy."

Kino nodded in agreement. "Thank you, for everything Arguile-san. You and Asuna gave me a chance, I just wish I could have done more."

"You will, Kino." Caramella said softly.

Both fell silent for a time, alone with their thoughts and prayers. There was nothing more to say except what they and the dead already knew. At last, the distant bells began to ring in Arrun tower, signaling the beginning of the day.

"We're going to head out now." Caramella said. "But don't worry, everyone else is going to come pay their respects later." A more formal meeting had already been arranged for everyone to say their farewells, but Caramella had wanted to be the first.

Turning slowly to leave, Caramella took in her surroundings and paused. Golden light shown off the pale bulk of the World Tree's trunk, and spilled down across the the roof tops and streets of Arrun.

The root created hills surrounding the World Tree gave way wide open fields spreading out in every direction, alternating with thick patches of forest that stretched towards mountains so far off that it made Aincrad's ten kilometer wide floors seem cramped in comparison.

The grass and trees rustled softly in the morning breeze, and for the first time, Caramella felt, really felt, that they were free. She blinked away the tears as something inside of her began to move once more, something that had been frozen still for a very long time.

"This is a good place." Kino said. "I think Guile-san would have like it here."

She nodded. "I think you're right."

"Come on let's get going, Caramella." Kino said. "You said you wanted to try the fried eggs at that new place by the gates."

"Naomi."

Kino stopped and looked back. "Did you say something?"

Caramella smiled as she reached out to mess her partners hair. "I said, you can call me Naomi."

The young knife users eyes went wide before smiling back. "Un. Then you can call my Hayato, if you want."

And then, Caramella did something she hadn't done intentionally in almost two years. She giggled. "I think I'll stick to Kino in public, Hayato sounds a little dorky to me."

"Hey!" Kino said indignantly. "Well then, maybe I'll just have to call you Caramel-chan from now on!"

"Ah." She smiled. "It's Ca-ra-mel-la!"

They were still bickering as they extended their pale white wings, Kino taking off a little more shakily than his partner, and head back towards Arrun.

The hilltop fell silent, the gentle breeze plucking loose a few flower petals and playing them across the smooth surface of the stone marker and the names engraved there, etched in stone and guarded by a spell of permanence.

**Aki- Ozu Akari - Swordswoman of Aincrad - Guild Leader of the Violet Hearts.**

**Mizuki - Sanaya Hoshino - Ninja of Aincrad - Guild Member of the Hundred Shinobi Alliance. **

**Arguile - Hiraga Saito - Knight of Aincrad - Guild Member Knights of Blood**


End file.
